On the topic of understanding and appreciating rap
music within academic circles, a significant void
between rhyme and reason exists because more
attention is given to gratuitous violence than is
given to ways in which members of these under-
privileged communities respond to and utilize
violence. As this is the case, an over-emphasis on
violence and an under-emphasis on the ways in which
the oppressed populations operate within these
violent subcultures create a lacuna of knowledge
involving communication and culture. This study
fills a gap in communication and culture by
advancing a thesis that oppressed populations find
collective agency through the use of violent
rhetoric. Rap music, being the product of the
African rhetorical resistance tradition, is
inherently devoted to the task of confronting
hegemony. Because rap music is originally derived
from society s most oppressed populations, and as a
result, linked to the violent street code (Kubrin,
2005), a rhetoric of violence allows for the
unification of rappers and audience based on a
common violent ethos and a common goal of resistance
and liberation (Fanon, 1963).
music within academic circles, a significant void
between rhyme and reason exists because more
attention is given to gratuitous violence than is
given to ways in which members of these under-
privileged communities respond to and utilize
violence. As this is the case, an over-emphasis on
violence and an under-emphasis on the ways in which
the oppressed populations operate within these
violent subcultures create a lacuna of knowledge
involving communication and culture. This study
fills a gap in communication and culture by
advancing a thesis that oppressed populations find
collective agency through the use of violent
rhetoric. Rap music, being the product of the
African rhetorical resistance tradition, is
inherently devoted to the task of confronting
hegemony. Because rap music is originally derived
from society s most oppressed populations, and as a
result, linked to the violent street code (Kubrin,
2005), a rhetoric of violence allows for the
unification of rappers and audience based on a
common violent ethos and a common goal of resistance
and liberation (Fanon, 1963).