Descriptions of the urban contemporary format remain strongly grounded on the assumption that it is based on musical styles associated with African Americans, such as R&B, soul, hip hop, rap, and reggae. Even for the most progressive educators, to speak of urban music is to refer to a narrow set of musical genres associated with the umbrella term "hip hop". In this article, the author briefly highlights the powerful role that the media has had in manipulating the symbolic content of the term "urban music" for profit. He suggests that music educators--particularly those working in "urban" classrooms and committed to social justice--need to work both with and against the prevailing narrow conception of the "urban" that shapes the way one thinks about both urban music and urban education. Drawing on insights from contemporary cultural and critical race theory, the author proposes an expanded definition of the urban as cultural practice, and points to the possibilities that such a framework might offer for a reconceptualization of urban music education. In order to do this, he moves deliberately between two different ways of framing urban music education, one that privileges "urban music" and another that privileges "urban education." Here, the author aims to juxtapose these two ways of theorizing urban music education as a way to rehearse a different performance of the urban in urban music education. (Contains 19 notes.)