Popular Culture Review
50
implies an alternative information sphere contesting the gigantic institution of the
information superhighway.
University at Shonan Fujisawa, Japan
Keiko Nitta
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
For a chronological background o f the development o f hip-hop, see Perkins 1-45.
For instance. Bob Dole, in defining his position in public policy for the 1996 presidential
campaign, criticized violence exclusively in Oliver Stone’s films and rap music.
This interpretation also appears in John Fiske: “[T]he rappers explain that they are
giving information about Black experience and warnings about Black anger. Violence
is incited not by rap, but by white ignoranee o f Black social conditions..." (186).
Similarly, Ice Cube once explained that “[w]e call ourselves underground street
reporters. We just tell it how we see it, nothing more, nothing less" (“Gangsta Rapper"
39). See also Fernando.
For the etymology o f the term “hip hop", see Costello and Wallace: “Hip-hop’s an
older synonym, coined by rap pioneer Kool Here [DJ] to describe the heavily danceable
Jamaican scatting. .."(21).
Regarding the legal issues arising from the process o f rap’s development from a street
culture to a national music genre, see Perkins 7-9.
Whereas Baker sees both STV and HEAL as “profitable" attempts dealing with problems
neglected by “white law," Rose interprets the existence o f such groups as a black
community’s self-discipline that fits “comfortably into the soeial pathology discourse
that explained rap-related violence in the first place" (139-140).
On the other hand, in reviewing Rose’s Black Noise, Baker suggests his disagreement
with the authenticity/commercialism dichotomy, when he asks, in passing, “does ‘double
platinum’ signify ‘inauthenticity'?" (“Reviews" 672).
Works Cited
Aristotle. The Rhetoric and the Poetics o f Aristotle. Trans. Ingram Bywater. New York: The
Modem Library, 1984.
Baker, Houston A, Jr. Black Studies, Rap and the Academy. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1991.
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman. New
York: Semiotext, 1983.
Costello, Mark, and David Foster Wallace. Signifying Rappers: Rap and Race in the Urban
Present. New York: The Ecco Press, 1990.
Davis, Mike. City o f Quartz. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.
Dyson, Michael Eric. Between God and Gangsta Rap. New York: Oxford UP, 1996.
Fab 5 Freddy. “An Interview with Fab 5 Freddy o f ‘Yo! MTV Raps.’" Nelson and Gonzales