There are only a few hip-hop studies academic journals. Two have just released issues in time for fall: The Journal of Hip Hop Studies and Global Hip Hop Studies Journal. Both issues are currently available for free download. We suggest getting on the sites and downloading the articles ASAP, and then take your time to read the works of some of the freshest scholarship in hip-hop studies.
While we still only have a few academic journals that focus on hip hop, those few journals are producing a wealth of scholarship, and documenting the culture.
Global Hip Hop Studies Journal
The first issue of this new journal, which focuses on hip hop around the world. The issue contains articles like:
- “Ciphers, ‘hoods and digital DIY studios in India: Negotiating aspirational individuality and hip hop collectivity” by Dattatreyan, Ethiraj Gabriel; Singh, Jaspal Naveel
- “City Girls, hot girls and the re-imagining of Black women in hip hop and digital spaces” by Jennings, Kyesha
- “Growing up in hip hop: The expression of self in hypermasculine cultures” by Hook, Dave
- “The impossibility of being Drake: Or, what it means to be a successful (Black) Canadian rapper” by Boutros, Alexandra
- “‘Wot do u call it? Doof doof’: Articulations of glocality in Australian grime music” by de Lacey, Alex
“… GHHS reaches out to hip hop heads, artists, activists and scholars both in and beyond the United States in order to embrace that fact that hip hop is a manifestly global and intercultural phenomenon that takes many creative and critical forms. Here – in print and online – you will see a mix of scholarly articles, reviews, dialogues, interviews, op eds and reflections by a posse of scholars, artists and activists (them heads from different locales). As we write in our mission statement, viewable online and in the front of the print edition of each issue: ‘GHHS is a peer-reviewed, rigorous and community-responsive academic journal that publishes research on contemporary as well as historical issues and debates surrounding hip hop music and culture around the world, twice annually’”
Adam Haupt and Griffith J. Rollefson, excerpt from the introduction
The Journal of Hip Hop Studies
The Journal of Hip-Hop Studies has released a special issue titled: Twenty-First Century B.I.T.C.H. Frameworks: Hip Hop Feminism Comes of Age. The issue has the following articles:
- “Letter to Jatavia Johnson and Caresha Brownlee (The City Girls)”
- “The Cardi B–Beyoncé Complex: Ratchet Respectability and Black Adolescent Girlhood”
- “Black Rural Feminist Trap: Stylized and Gendered Performativity in Trap Music”
- “It’s Complicated: Black Hip Hop Feminist Art Commentary on US Democracy”
- ““Yeah, I’m in My Bag, but I’m in His Too”: How Scamming Aesthetics Utilized by Black Women Rappers Undermine Existing Institutions of Gender”
- “Hip Hop Feminism Starter Kit”
“This special issue is dedicated to the bad bitches. The ratchet women. The classy women. The hood feminists. The “feminism isn’t for everybody” feminists. Those women, femmes, and girls who continuously (re)present and (re)construct Black girl/womanhood. The creatives, the innovators, the women that are “often imitated, but never duplicated.” This issue is dedicated to you and the ways in which you challenge us to (re)define what it means to be Black girls/women in this world and what it means to reclaim power over your own representation and images. This issue is for you, defined by you, and inspired by you.”
Aria S. Halliday and Ashley N. Payne, excerpt from the introduction