Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics

Description

Rap's critique of police brutality in the 1980s. The Hip Hop Political Convention. The rise (and fall) of Kwame Kilpatrick, the "hip-hop mayor" of Detroit. Barack Obama echoing the body language of Jay-Z on the campaign trail. By considering the possibilities inherent in the most prolific and prominent activities of hip-hop politics, Stare in the Darkness reveals, in a clear and practical manner, the political consequences of rap culture for black publics.

Lester K. Spence is assistant professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University.

"In Stare in the Darkness, Lester K. Spence brings an essential degree of clarity and precision to our understandings of popular culture and political expression. This book is engaging and nuanced, and it will enrich in an original fashion our understanding of hip-hop as well as black politics." -Richard Iton, author of In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era "Stare in the Darkness offers brilliant insight into the political realities of contemporary black life. More importantly though, Stare in the Darkness is remixed, chopped and screwed in ways that hip-hop heads will certainly love and more than a few social scientists will find great value in." -Mark Anthony Neal, coeditor of That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader