From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap and the Performance of Masculinity

摘要

Black contributions to the development of American popular music have been of crucial importance. Even when African-American forms of music have not been part of the mainstream, they have had a symbolic presence of enormous significance, and when they have exerted a more direct influence, they have usually reshaped the identity of American music. In this book, Miles White ranges from minstrelsy to hip-hop in exploring the importance not only of black cultural expression, but also representations of black masculinity and perceptions of black male subjectivity in the American racial imagination. Both minstrelsy and hip-hop have privileged the performance of masculinity and male identity.