How has hip-hop influenced our culture beyond the most obvious ways (music and fashion)? Examples of the substantial power of hip-hop culture include influence on consumer buying habits—for example, Dr. Dre’s Beats headphones; politics, seen in Barack Obama’s election as the first “hip-hop president” and increased black political participation; and social movements such as various stop-the-violence movements and mobilization against police brutality and racism.

In Communicating Hip-Hop: How Hip-Hop Culture Shapes Popular Culture, author Nick Sciullo considers hip-hop’s role in shaping a number of different aspects of modern culture ranging from law to communication and from business to English studies. Each chapter takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes tour of hip-hop’s importance in various areas of culture with references to leading literature and music. Intended for scholars and students of hip-hop, race, music, and communication as well as a general audience, this appealing, accessible book will enable readers to understand why hip-hop is so important and see why hip-hop has such far-reaching influence.

Features

• Considers hip-hop across aspects of culture, recognizing hip-hop's pervasive influence on not only clothing styles, music, and brand consumption but also social movements, political activity, legal thought, and artistry
• Presents evidence of how U.S. culture is strongly influenced by the main elements of hip-hop culture—emceeing, DJing, break dancing, and graffiti
• Argues that hip-hop should be recognized both as an object of study and approach to studying popular culture
• Supplies academically rigorous information and perspectives but is written for an educated general readership