Kickin' Some Knowledge: Rap and the Construction of Identity in the African-American Ghetto

Abstract

Rap music and videos provide a potentially powerful lens through which to view inner-city neighborhoods and their residents. Rap also provides ghetto residents with a potentially powerful means with which to write their histories and forge their own identities. The dominant discourse on African Americans relegates them to the margins of historical action. Rap is explored as a kind of alternative public sphere, one in which blacks are reflecting on and challenging that discourse. This paper challenges the wholesale categorization of certain populations or groups as "other," and reaffirms the power of individuals and collectivities to make their own histories.