Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Professor Deck
EWRT 1B:62z
11/28/2003
Bogdanov, Vladimir et al. All Music Guide to Hip-Hop: The Definitive Guide to Rap and
Hip-Hop (2003)
This book is pretty much self-explanatory. It contains information about every artist in
the hip-hop industry with information such as historical background, place of birth,
upcoming history (the one thing I am especially interested in) and their struggles to make
a name of themselves. The reason I decided to use this book is because it allows me to
look at the statistics of the upcoming artists. I pay close attention to birthplaces and
historical backgrounds and sure enough, every rapper is related in one way or another.
This will in return help me make a decision about the hip-hop artists and I will be able to
further compare them to Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance.
Diesman, Jill, <http://www.nku.edu/~diesmanj/harlem_intro.html>
Jill simplifies the Harlem Renaissance and helps me understand the key figures during
the Harlem Renaissance era which I will eventually use as a source in order to write my
draft. She mentions important figures such as W.E.B Dubois and Langston Hughes who
have had a very high influence in the expression field, such as getting the message across
using poetry, music, etc.
She mentions “More than a literary movement and more than a social revolt against
racism, the Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture”, this is what is going to be an
important factor when doing the research paper due to the fact that the Harlem
Renaissance and the hip-hop phenomenon have so much in common. They both have
restrictions thrown upon them to control and to disband any self-expression and
possessions, which eventually led to a “new” way of life and which finally gave the black
community credit for rap and/or hip-hop.
Fiero, K. Gloria. “Identity and liberation.” The Humanistic Tradition, Book 6 (2002):
95-111.
This chapter of the book “The Humanistic Tradition” deals primarily with the Harlem
Renaissance and the art that emerged from this particular era. We get important
information about the liberation movements and the quest for racial equality from this
particular chapter. This book will be very useful in general because it explains the history
of the Harlem Renaissance from a poetic, individualistic, musical point of view, similar to
the hip-hop phenomena which will come in quite useful because this book provides
evidence that I can use to back up my thesis which will deal with the similarities between
the Harlem Renaissance and the hip-hop phenomenon.
Kitwana, Bakari. “The New Black Youth Culture”, “Redefining Social Responsibility”
Hip-Hop Generation. (2002) 3-25, 145-151
This book was extremely helpful to me because it explained the whole hip-hop
phenomenon beginning with Jam Master Jay and the beginning of it all. The pages 3-25
deal with the upcoming of hip-hop and with the position that was secured in the heart of
the individuals throughout the world. The pages 145-151 start to explain hip-hop’s
responsibility and place in America while also focusing on the social responsibility that it
owes America. This book is an extremely good source to use because of its very well
written and distinct historical information.