Hip Hop Underground

The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification

Anthony Kwame Harrison

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781439900611, 9781439900604
• eBook ISBN: 9781439900628
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Hip Hop Underground is a vivid ethnography of the author's observations and experiences in the multiracial world of the San Francisco underground hip hop scene. While Anthony Kwame Harrison interviewed area hip hop artists for this entertaining and informative book, he also performed as the emcee "Mad Squirrel." His immersion in the subculture provides him with unique insights into this dynamic and racially diverse but close-knit community.

Hip Hop Underground examines the changing nature of race among young Americans, and examines the issues of ethnic and racial identification, interaction, and understanding. Critiquing the notion that the Bay Area underground music scene is genuinely "colorblind," Harrison focuses on the issue of race to show how various ethnic groups engage hip hop in remarkably divergent ways—as a means to both claim subcultural legitimacy and establish their racial authenticity.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction: A Walk in the Park
• 1. Race in America and Underground Hip Hop in the Bay
• 2. Experiencing the Bay
• 3. Claiming Hip Hop: Race and the Ethics of UndergroundHip Hop Participation
• 4. The Re-vision and Continued Salience of Race
• 5. (Re)Mixed Messages
• Notes
• References
• Index