Africana Popular Culture

This course surveys the historical evolution and cultural consequences of Africana popular culture. The antecedents of “Gangsta’ Rap,” “Hip Hop,” “Reggae-Rastas,” and contemporary modes of “attitude,” behavior, dress, speech, and public representation are part of a self-reinforcing African-Black New World dialectic. In this course, contemporary Black urban youth culture is analyzed as a set of aesthetic and socio-cultural vehicles for personal and public critique and transformation. Africa and its various diasporas have created a world-view that transcends global boundaries of class, culture, gender, race, and society. This culture, now universally recognized, has been marketed for global public consumption. This course explores this phenomenon.