Tag: hip hop

“Chronicling Stankonia” by Regina Bradley: Now Available as an Audiobook

Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop South by Regina N. Bradley, a critically acclaimed bestselling UNC Press title, is now available as an audiobook read by Bradley via Libro.fm, Audible, and Kobo. Praise for Chronicling Stankonia: This treatise from leading Southern hip-hop scholar Regina N. Bradley is a revelatory collection of essays—part literary criticism, part sonic analysis, part personal… Continue Reading “Chronicling Stankonia” by Regina Bradley: Now Available as an Audiobook

Black History Month 2022 Reading List: Biographies

In celebration of Black History Month, we’ve chosen to publish a new reading list every week featuring only Black authors. The first reading list covered Black Resistance, the second covered the Black American experience and this week’s reading list centers biographies; telling the stories of a few vastly different lives lived under the Black identity umbrella. As mentioned in the… Continue Reading Black History Month 2022 Reading List: Biographies

Zandria F. Robinson: OutKast Reunion Tour: After Twenty Years, the South Still Got Something to Say

I grew up watching OutKast videos on the now-defunct Video Jukebox Network, affectionately known as “The Box.” Although OutKast received some play on MTV and BET in the early 1990s, it was on The Box, which featured a range of underground southern hip-hop artists, where I could be sure to see André “André 3000” Benjamin, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton, and other southern rappers in regular rotation. Although initially record labels largely ignored southern artists, through homegrown ingenuity, southern rappers soon emerged as a formidable force in the global music industry. By 2005, top spots on music charts were regularly held by southern hip-hop artists, southern R&B singers, or hits produced by southern artists. As Memphis rapper Project Pat noted in 2006: “Now y’all was thinkin’ Dirty South was like, ‘hee-haw, hee-haw’/Is you worth over a hundred mil? We are, we are.” Indeed, the South had something to say. Continue Reading Zandria F. Robinson: OutKast Reunion Tour: After Twenty Years, the South Still Got Something to Say

The Dirty South: Why It’s on MY Pop Culture Radar

My students, and probably some friends and relatives, would be surprised to learn that I am a fan of southern hip hop.  What, pray tell, would a 40-something white woman know and enjoy about music from the Dirty South?  Well, to answer that I’d have to go back to the days of my youth.  Way back. I’ve long been a… Continue Reading The Dirty South: Why It’s on MY Pop Culture Radar