Megan Thee Stallion is revolutionizing the representation of Black women in Hip-Hop by occupying polarizing positions in Hip-Hop culture. Megan represents the multiplicity of the Black girl/women's identities by navigating the confines of ratchet respectability, sexuality, and education. Her movements #HotGirlSummer and #HotNerdFall demonstrate…

The purpose of this study was to explore how Hip Hop informed the construction of gendered racial and sexual identities among Black women at predominately white institutions (PWIs). Ten Black women undergraduates at a PWI in the midwestern region of the US engaged in individual and focus group interviews, which included participating in an…

The theories of international relations (IR) are often difficult topics for students to understand: What are these and how are they useful? This is especially true among students who have likely never taken a political science class, are not political science majors, and are attending a rural regional university with limited exposure to the world.…

Digital public discourse spaces like Twitter and blogs like The Crunk Feminist Collective allow for Black voices not only to be inserted in the mainstream media, but to transform those media to focus on their needs from their perspective. These digital counterdiscourses challenge the traditional boundaries between the academy and the community,…

This article seeks to introduce and situate a seldom-explored subject: the role and contribution of women hip-hop deejays in the testosterone-filled genre called hip-hop. Grounding the analysis in the interviews of six women deejays--Spinderella, Kuttin Kandi, Pam the Funkstress, Reborn, Shorty Wop and Natasha Diggs--"Sista Girl Rock"…

This article explores the utilization of the theory of a Black ratchet imagination as a methodological perspective to examine the multiple intersections of Black and queer identity constructions within the space of hip hop. In particular, I argue for the need of a methodological lens that recognizes, appreciates, and struggles with the fluidity,…

This essay brings together key theoretical interventions in hip-hop feminism to explore the continued, but undervalued, significance of hip-hop feminism in urban education. More specifically, the essay challenges narrow conceptualizations of the "hip hop subject" as Black and male by using hip-hop feminist theory to incorporate the lived…

The present article explores discourses surrounding the bodies of Black women and girls as they engage the meanings of Black womanhood in (American) society in an afterschool setting. Drawing on Black and hip hop feminisms, African American literacies, and critical discourse perspectives, the author analyzes two young girls' narratives, which…

Using a feminist lens and a constructivist approach as the theoretical framework, we used rap lyrics and videos to help college students explore mass media's representation of the "independent" Black woman and the concept of "independence" in general. Students must be able to formulate their own concept of independence to…

This article explores unique issues regarding the effects of hip-hop culture on the identity development of young Black female college students. Through the lenses of womanist and Black feminist perspectives, the intersecting impact of race and gender are reviewed within the context of the competing influences of hip-hop on Black female identity.…

During the late twentieth century, Kanaka Maoli have struggled to push back against these representations, offering a rewriting of Hawaiian history, quite literally. Infused by Hawaiian nationalism and a growing library of works that investigate the naturalization of American colonialism in Hawai'i, innovative Kanaka Maoli representations in the…

"Wish To Live: The Hip-hop Feminism Pedagogy Reader" moves beyond the traditional understanding of the four elements of hip-hop culture--rapping, breakdancing, graffiti art, and deejaying--to articulate how hip-hop feminist scholarship can inform educational practices and spark, transform, encourage, and sustain local and global youth…

Examines the terms used to describe the process of subcultural change (adaptation, appropriation, commodization, cooptation, and incorporation), demonstrating their limits. Introduces a more exact term, "persistence," and recommends its use and the elimination of other terms. Uses one subcultural organization, Redwood Records (a women's…

This paper identifies and examines a textual practice of female address in music video, and considers its appeal among a social audience of female adolescents. Textual strategies that inflect, appropriate, or bypass the prevailing male adolescence discourse on the American music video channel, MTV, are presented from the standpoint of their…

Examines views expressed in "Godey's Lady's Book," a U.S. nineteenth-century women's magazine, about the role of music and music instruction. Ideologies, biases, and controversies were expressed in the magazine. Comments that music instruction and decisions about who should receive musical training was highly controversial. Identifies…