Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Synopsis: Hip-hop has come a long way from its origins in the Bronx in the 1970s, when rapping and DJing were just part of a lively, decidedly local scene that also venerated b-boying and graffiti. Now hip-hop is a global phenomenon and, in the United States, a massively successful corporate enterprise predominantly controlled and consumed by whites while the most prominent performers are black. How does this shift in racial dynamics affect our understanding of contemporary hip-hop, especially when the music perpetuates stereotypes of black men? Do black listeners interpret hip-hop differently from white fans? These questions have dogged hip-hop for decades, but unlike most pundits, Michael P. Jeffries finds answers by interviewing everyday people. Instead of turning to performers or media critics, " Thug Life" focuses on the musicOCOs fansOCoyoung men, both black and whiteOCoand the resulting account avoids romanticism, offering an unbiased examination of how hip-hop works in peopleOCOs daily lives. As Jeffries weaves the fansOCO voices together with his own sophisticated analysis, we are able to understand hip-hop as a tool listeners use to make sense of themselves and society as well as a rich, self-contained world containing politics and pleasure, virtue and vice. "