Table Of ContentSt. James Encyclopedia of
Hip Hop Culture
St. James Encyclopedia of
Hip Hop Culture
Thomas Riggs
EDITOR
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Identifiers:LCCN2017049826|ISBN9781410380814(hardcover)|
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 22 21 20 19 18
A d v i s o r y B o a r d
CHAIRPERSON
Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar
Professor of History and Founder,
Center for the Study of Popular Music
University of Connecticut (Mansfield, CT)
Author of Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of
Rap (University Press of Kansas, 2007) and Black Power: Radical
Politics and African American Identity (Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2004); editor of The Civil Rights Movement: Problems in
American Civilization (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).
Travis L. Gosa
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
EditorofTheHipHop&ObamaReader(withErikNielson;Oxford
University Press, 2015); School of Hard Knocks: Hip Hop and the
FightforEqualEducation(UniversityofIllinoisPress,forthcoming).
Anthony Kwame Harrison
Associate Professor of Sociology
Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA)
Author of Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of
Racial Identification (Temple University Press, 2009).
Erik Nielson
Associate Professor, Liberal Arts
University of Richmond (Richmond, VA)
Editor of The Hip Hop & Obama Reader (with Travis L. Gosa;
Oxford University Press, 2015); Under Surveillance: Policing the
Resistance in Hip Hop (in progress).
V
C o n t e n t s
Editor's Note IX
Introduction XI
List of Entries XVII
Thematic Outline XXI
A......................................................................................1
B....................................................................................23
C....................................................................................59
D.................................................................................109
E..................................................................................137
F..................................................................................157
G..................................................................................187
H.................................................................................201
I...................................................................................219
J...................................................................................227
K..................................................................................233
L..................................................................................245
M.................................................................................267
N.................................................................................303
O.................................................................................343
P..................................................................................349
Q.................................................................................377
R..................................................................................383
S .................................................................................413
T..................................................................................451
U..................................................................................467
V..................................................................................477
WXYZ.........................................................................485
Reading List 503
Notes on Advisers and Contributors 507
Index 515
VII
E d i t o r ’ s N o t e
Hip hop, beginning in the streets of New York City in the 1970s, has evolved into one of
theworld’smostinfluentialcultural movements.Assuch,ithas alsobecome thesubject of
studyinschoolsanduniversities.TheSt.JamesEncyclopediaofHipHopCultureisintended
tohelpstudentsstudyinghiphop,professorsandteachersdesigningsyllabi,andthegeneral
public seeking more information about the movement.
The book contains 210 entries on a wide range of topics, including music, visual arts,
dance,fashion,language,business,andhistory.Oneentry,“NineElementsofHipHop,”is
the title of a song by artist KRS-One (Lawrence Kris Parker, 1965–), who describes the
manywaysthathiphopismorethanjustrapmusic.Thenineelementsarehiphopdance
(breakdancing), MCing (rapping), graffiti art, DJing, beatboxing, street fashion, street
language, street knowledge, and street entrepreneurialism. Another entry is “African Hip
Hop,” which provides a historical survey of hip hop across the African continent. This
entry, along with others, such as “European Hip Hop” and “Middle Eastern Hip Hop,”
reflects the global reach of the hip hop movement. The book also has entries on specific
issues within hip hop culture, such as “Authenticity,” “Drugs and Hip Hop,” “Misogyny
in Rap,” and “Rap as Marketing, Advertising, and Branding.”
ThecontentoftheSt.JamesEncyclopediaofHipHopCulturewasplannedwiththehelp
of the project’s advisory board, chaired by Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, professor of history and
founding director, Center for the Study of Popular Music, University of Connecticut. Dr.
Ogbar is also author of Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (2007). His
introduction to the encyclopedia provides a brief overview of the hip hop movement.
ORGANIZATION
The book’s 210 entries are arranged alphabetically. Interspersed throughout the text are
blind entries, or cross-references, which help readers looking for a topic under another
name. For example, the blind entry “Rapping” directs the reader to the entry “MCing.”
Eachentrybeginswithaparagraphthatdefinesthetopicandexplainsitsimportanceto
hiphopculture.Someentriesareveryshort,servingasglossarydefinitionsforkeytermsor
phrases that are used in other, longer entries. Long entries include subheads to help guide
readers through the text. At the end of each entry is a bibliography of books, articles, and
websites, as well as cross-references to related entries. Throughout the text potentially
IX
’
EDITORS NOTE
offensivelanguagehasbeenedited(byreplacingoneletterwithanasterisk),notasacritique
of such words but out of sensitivity to some of the intended users of the encyclopedia.
Other elements in the book include a thematic outline of entries, a reading list, and a
subject index. The book is illustrated with 183 photos.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many peoplecontributed timeandeffort totheSt. James Encyclopedia ofHip HopCulture.
AtGale,ChristineSlovey,acquisitionseditor,developedtheoriginalplanforthebook,and
Carol Schwartz, senior editor, served as the in-house manager for the project. Their ideas
andinvolvementwereessentialinproducingtheSt.JamesEncyclopediaofHipHopCulture.
Wewouldliketoexpressourappreciationtotheadvisers,who,inadditiontoplanning
the content of the St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture, identified other scholars to
work on the project and answered our many questions. We would also like to thank the
writers, many of whom are scholars focusing on hip hop culture.
I am grateful to Greta Gard, senior project editor, for her general oversight of the
project; Theodore McDermott, project editor, who managed the writers; and Mary Beth
Curran, senior editor, who oversaw the editing process. Other important assistance came
from Mariko Fujinaka, managing editor. The line editors were Holli Fort, David Hayes,
Kerri Kennedy, Stephanie Kroll, Janet Moredock, Jill Oldham, Donna Polydoros, Nicole
Roche, and Natalie Ruppert.
Thomas Riggs
Editor
X
ST. JAMES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HIP HOP CULTURE
I n t r o d u c t i o n
Culture may be succinctly defined as “all learned behavior.” Given that it is learned, it is
also quite dynamic, always evolving into something new. In all ways cultural expression
owesitsexistencetowhatcamebeforeit.Thisisespeciallytrueforhiphopculture,which,
unlikesomegenresofmusic,offersarichtapestryofconnectedculturalmarkersinspeech,
dance, music, visual art, and dress.
Hip hop grows from its four principal elements: DJing, MCing, B-boying/B-girling,
and graffiti art. MCing, or rapping, is the most popular element, but it is only one part of
the culture. And while hip hop is a variant of African American culture, it is not
interchangeablewithit.MostAfricanAmericansovertheageoffifty,forexample,maynot
listen to, or even be familiar with, hip hop and its cultural contours.
African American culture (of which hip hop may be understood as a music-oriented
subculture) is, like all cultures, a consequence of a long, intimate exchange with other
cultures.Nocultureisessentiallypure.AsImaniPerryinProphetsoftheHood(2004)notes,
“Hip-hopisblack American music”(10).However, thegenre isinfluenced by“numerous
nonblack American influences in the music” (11). Purity is not a standard for cultural
phenomena.ItalianfoodisnolessItalianbecauseanessentialingredientinItalianfood,the
tomato, is not indigenous to Italy.
Hip hop culture, while evolving from the streets of New York City, is the child of a
diverse cultural legacy that stretches to the American South, the Caribbean, and Africa,
while initially employing a language that is European. But the flow of those cultural forces
all converged in a specific time and place that forged a cultural phenomenon with a global
imprint the world had yet to witness.
Interestingly, in an alternate universe where the United States was not burdened by
institutionalized forms of racial oppression, hip hop may never have come into existence.
After World War II the United States experienced an unprecedented economic expansion
thatliftedmostwhiteAmericansintothemiddleclassforthefirsttimeinhistory.Through
the G.I. Bill and other federal policies, whites were given guaranteed home loans, with as
little as no money down, in suburbs across the country. The stipulation required that the
loans not “disrupt the racial integrity” of the community in which they were given. Black
familiesweredeniedtheseloansiftheyattemptedtomoveintothese sameneighborhoods.
Theresult wasa massive exodus ofmillionsofwhitesfrom cities into brand-new, all-white
suburbs across the country. Some home developers, including one of the largest, Levitt &
XI
INTRODUCTION
Sons, openly endorsed white-only policies, fighting in court to ban people of color from
buying homes—even if they were affluent enough to purchase without a loan.
Simultaneously, millions of African Americans were migrating from the South,
wheretheywerelivingunderabrutalsystemthatdeniedthemaccesstovotingorserving
onjuries.Theywereformallybarredfromlawenforcementandmanyotherpositions,as
well as state flagship universities and virtually all private colleges and universities in the
South. During the Great Migration migrants poured into cities across the country, with
more black people moving to New York City than any other area. The demographics of
New York City changed significantly between 1960 and 1975, as more than 500,000
whites moved out of the city and over 500,000 African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and
other Caribbean groups migrated into the city. There they found widespread housing
and employment discrimination but still better conditions than in many parts of the
South or Caribbean.
By the early 1970s, New York City, like many cities across the United States, had
witnessed a significant decline in its tax base as white flight transformed the city. As Jeff
Chang details in his history of hip hop formation, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop (2005), city
serviceswerecut,firestationswereclosed,andindustrialjobswerelost.TheBronxemerged
as New York City’s poorest borough, and the South Bronx was its poorest section. Gangs
such as the Black Spades, Savage Skulls, Savage Nomads, and Ghetto Brothers vied for
control of drug trades, turf, and reputation.
At the same time, the Black Power movement was reaching its height of influence,
affecting fashion, politics, activism, speech, and the arts. From literature to music, the
influence of the movement was ubiquitous in black communities, as Reiland Rabaka
documentsinHipHop’sInheritance(2011).Insports,noathletewasaslovedorasreviledas
heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay, 1942–2016), who
produced a unique style of braggadocio, humor, rhyming wit, and charisma—all balanced
withapoliticalsteadfastness thatwassimultaneously disruptive totheimagesofblack men
in the public imagination.
In music during this period, James Brown (1933–2006), the Godfather of Soul, sang
“SayItLoud—I’mBlackandI’mProud”(1968)anddancedlikenooneelseonSoulTrain
(1971–2006) and other television programs. Jazz singer Nina Simone (1933–2003), with
natural hair, passionately performed “Mississippi Goddamn” (1964) to mixed audiences
who did not expect to hear “protest” songs at her concerts. And, despite the protests from
his label, Motown,Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) released thepoliticizedalbum What’sGoing
Onin1971.TheLPwonawardsandcriticalacclaimandwentplatinum.Onasmalleryet
still influential front, the New York City–based group the Last Poets delivered rhythmic
politicized poetry over an aural mélange of jazz horns, Congo drums, and a range of
instrumentation.Meanwhile,poet/singerGilScott-Heron(1949–2011)toldtheworldthat
the “Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (1971).
The Black Power movement also produced organizations such as the Black Panther
Party, the Congress of Afrikan People, Us Organization, and the Revolutionary Action
Movement that attempted to end gang violence and politically organize young people.
Similarly, the Young Lords Party, a Puerto Rican nationalist organization from Chicago,
workedtopoliticallyorganizethePuertoRicancommunity.In1968itopenedachapterin
New York City.
Inthisculturalandpoliticalwhirlwind,youngpeopleintheSouthBronxsoughtrespite
from the exigencies of poverty, crime, and social and political marginalization through the
pleasures ofmusic. In 1973 Morris Heights(a Bronx neighborhood) residentDJKoolHerc
(Clive Campbell, 1955–) began hosting parties at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the high-rise
apartment’s recreation room with two turntables and massive sound systems. Across town
another Bronx DJ, Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler, 1958–), influenced by Herc’s
parties, created an innovative DJing technique known as backspinning (or quick-mix
theory).Heplayedtwocopiesoftheidenticalsongandextendedtheinstrumentalsbyusing
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ST. JAMES ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HIP HOP CULTURE
