Hip-Hop vs. High Art: Notes on Race as Spectacle

Abstract

From politicians and television talking heads to cultural critics and exhibition curators, hip-hop is on everyone's lips these days. The music and the culture that it has sparked have gained a lasting foothold in the market economy, and hip-hop has achieved transnational acceptance. This newly acquired legitimacy has spawned an influx of serious, scholarly consideration. Cultural theorist Paul Gilroy's treatise Against Race criticizes hip-hop but more so those who uncritically embrace the art form as a rebel culture, even though hip-hop may not be ideologically indebted to rebellion.