Jay-Z: Essays on Hip Hop's Philosopher King

Contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments      viii
• Foreword: On Jay-Z and Hip Hop Studies
• CORNEL WEST     
• Introduction: In Search of Meaning: Sign, Symbol, and Shawn
• JULIUS BAILEY     
• Part I: The Groundwork
• 1. Jigga Speaks: The Tradition of Black Oratorical Genius
• TONI BLACKMAN     
• 2. The Authentic Cultural Agent
• G. JAHWARA GIDDINGS     
• 3. The Meeting with a President and a “King”
• DAVEYD     
• 4. A Urban Singer of Tales: The Freestyle Remixing of an Afro-Homeric Oral Tradition
• NICOLE HODGES PERSLEY     
• 5. The Prodigal God and the Legacy of Socially Responsible Hip
• T. HASAN JOHNSON     
• Part II: The Challenges
• 6. Zen and the Art of Transcending the Status Quo: The Reach from the Hood to the Suburbs
• BAKARI KITWANA     
• 7. Black Marketing Whiteness: From Hustler to HNIC
• STEPHANY ROSE     
• 8. A Forty Million Slave’s Moment of Clarity
• DAYLAN DUFELMEIER     
• 9. Hip Hop’s Prospects for Womanist Masculinity
• MELINA ABDULLAH     
• Part III: The Classroom Freestyles
• 10. Complicating Shawn Carter: Race, the Code, and the Politics of School
• DAVID STOVALL     
• 11. Oedipus-Not-So-Complex: A Blueprint for Literary Education
• A.D. CARSON     
• 12. The Culture Industry: Mainstream Success and Black Cultural Representation
• GIL COOK     
• 13. The Self-Reliant Philosopher King: Shawn Carter Exonerated
• SHA’DAWN BATTLE     
• About the Contributors     
• Index