Politics and Social Justice

This newly expanded and revised second edition of That's the Joint! brings together the most important and up-to-date hip-hop scholarship in one comprehensive volume.

This newly expanded and revised second edition of That's the Joint! brings together the most important and up-to-date hip-hop scholarship in one comprehensive volume.

How did the Depression-era folk-song collector Alan Lomax end up with a songwriting credit on Jay-Z’s song “Takeover”? Why doesn’t Clyde Stubblefield, the primary drummer on James Brown recordings from the late 1960s such as “Funky Drummer” and “Cold Sweat,” get paid for other musicians’ frequent use of the beats he performed on those songs?

In Buena Vista in the Club, Geoffrey Baker traces the trajectory of the Havana hip hop scene from the late 1980s to the present and analyzes its partial eclipse by reggaetón.

Rap music has always been under surveillance, and the purpose of this article is to explore the most significant ways that the genre has been influenced by it. It begins with an overview of some of the ways in which surveillance has played a crucial role in the emergence of hip hop in general and rap in particular.

The No Child Left Behind Act was created to boost academic levels of American students by setting standardized goals across the nation - and holding states, districts and schools accountable for performance. For urban schools in high-poverty areas, reaching these goals is a daunting task, and many now face the possibility of being taken over by the state - even being shut down.

Tracklist:

H20 Gate Blues
We Beg Your Pardon
The New Deal
Jose Campos Torres
The Ghetto Code (Dot Dot Dit Dot Dit Dot Dot Dash)
Bicentennial Blues

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana and Mississippi. The storm devastated the region and its citizens. But its devastation did not reach across racial and class lines equally.

While Barack Obama's victory led many to believe that America's racial divide had significantly narrowed, they lived experience by many black youth belie this. Young black Americans today continue to be plagued by low levels of employment, high levels of incarceration, and a profound lack of trust in the government and broader political community.