This dissertation explores hip-hop as a moral philosophy in action; a set of aesthetic and ethical values that manifest in young people’s perspective about the good life. Hip-hop is an arts movement of rap, movement, and style originating among Black and Latinx youth in the South Bronx during the late 1970s. In contemporary times hip-hop exists in a collection of scenes and activities, in hoods across the globe, where many young people participate as fans, artists, producers, interpreters, critics and consumers, because it resonates with their subjective tastes and their social identities. It is the most consumed genre in the American popular music industry; a multi-billion dollar industry including fashion and technology, and a consistent generator of new lingo, styles and memes. All of these material manifestations of hip-hop (rap verses, music videos, and linguistic forms) also have ideational manifestations in the thoughts, attitudes, and values of the people that inhabit hip-hop scenes. This dissertation is an empirical study of how those values (especially the values of authenticity, fairness, and loyalty) manifest in millennial hip-hop heads. The study assesses the impact of hip-hop on young people’s moral lives; which values they prioritize as sacred, the types of moral questions/critiques they pose, their approach to moral dilemmas, how they relate to various members of their social worlds and maintain obligations to them. Hip-hop, like many artforms (including surrealism and anime) has a certain ethos or philosophy that accompanies it. In places where there is a hip-hop scene there are also individuals compelling others to keep it real, stay woke, and stay down along with a host of other moral imperatives. This dissertation is an inquiry into the features of that philosophy and how it manifests in the values and behaviors of the young people that appropriate it. To explore hip-hop philosophy in action I use a variety of mixed methods (validated psychological assessments, discourse analysis, ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews).

Creator

• Nzinga, Kalonji

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-vvfw-x054

Subject

• Education

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_633203
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14488

Keyword

• moral pluralism
• hip-hop culture
• cultural psychology
• value socialization
• morality

Date created

• 2018-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright