Tricia Rose teaches Africana studies at Brown University. Her first book, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), revolutionized academic study of popular music. The essay reprinted here originally appeared as a chapter in Rose’s The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk about When We Talk about Hip Hop — and Why It Matters (2008), a book that examines both sides of ten controversial issues surrounding hip-hop music and culture.

Reading the Genre

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