Ice Cube: 1969-
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Rakim, Ice Cube Then Watch the Throne: Engaged Visibility through Identity Orchestration and the Language of Hip‐Hop Narratives by David Wall Rice This piece highlights how Ice Cube, Rakim, Jay-Z and Kanye describe being a black man and navigating Black America.
Biggie Smalls: 1972-1997 (Rap)
Lauryn Hill: 1975- (R'n'B)
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"The People Inside My Head, Too": Madness, Black Womanhood, and the Radical Performance of Lauryn Hill This essay explores how various publics and pundits impute madness to Lauryn Hill and--most centrally--how Hill herself produces, mobilizes, and brandishes madness for radical art-making and self-making. Toward these aims, I closely examine her 2002 Unplugged 2.0 live album, as well as other performances, interviews, and media accounts. Her voice tuned to a mad pitch, Hill speaks truth to power and issues a sound that sometimes booms, sometimes sputters. Ultimately, this meditation upon Hill's life and work yields rich insights on black womanhood, performance, protest, and madness in American popular culture and beyond.
Aaliyah: 1981-2001
N. W. A.: 1987-1991 (Rap)
NWA was a group created during the early 1990’s. The movie “Straight Outta Compton” explores how that group came to be, and how they essentially fell apart. This gets placed on the list because of not only their popularity, but their legacy. For example, their song “[redacted] Tha Police” is still being used during protests, and it stemmed from the heightened tensions between the police and public after over a situation that happened with the LAPD. (Link below describes the movie and analyzes the movie and the real events)
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"NWA" from The Anthology of Rap "NWA." In The Anthology of Rap, edited by BRADLEY ADAM and DUBOIS ANDREW, by Gates Henry Louis, D CHUCK, and Common, 232-47. Yale University Press, 2010