The Africana Studies' Minor in "Hip-Hop Cultures" provides students with a solid introduction and broad understanding of the origins and developing forms of expression that make up hip-hop cultures throughout the world: hip-hop dance, rap music, grafitti/tagging, fashion, business, and film. The Minor introduces students to the main themes represented in hip-hop cultures: appropriation and defense of spaces, mixing of different cultures, migrations, multilingualism, race, class, gender, religions, sexuality, nationality, politics and the economy, and the search for identity.
Given the challenges of negotiating cultural differences in an increasingly complex and interconnected world this minor affords students the opportunity to investigate hip-hop's pervasive, transformative, and exciting cultural force which has profoundly impacted many elements of mainstream American culture to the extent that corporations have embraced hip-hop music and artists as a means of marketing goods to everyone.
Today, hip-hop culture is a billion dollar industry that generates exceptionally large revenues and jobs worldwide (Charnas 2010). There are dancers who open dance schools in their communities, marketing and textiles experts who sell and promote products to a hip-hop clientele, journalists who report on hip-hop, computer engineers who build samplers, lawyers who defend and negotiate contracts for artists, social workers and educators who mentor youth groups, to only name a few of the professions connected to hip-hop. Consequently, there is no doubt that university students combining a major in Dance, Education, Business, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Chemistry, Journalism, Physiology, Sociology, etc., with the UA's minor in Africana Studies with concentration in hip-hop culture will be extremely knowledgeable and marketable in these specific industries.
Dan Charnas, The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop (New American Library, 2010).
Julie Watson, "Rapper's Delight: A Billion Dollar Industry." Forbes Magazine 18 Feb. 2004. http://www.forbes.com/2004/02/18/cx_jw_0218hiphop.html.
Degree Requirements
For information on the required courses, please refer to the Degree Requirements page.
Media
If you are doing a story on hip-hop and/or on our hip-hop program and would like more information, please contact Dr. Alain-Philippe Durand* at adurand@arizona.edu
To declare a minor in Africana Studies with an emphasis in hip-hop cultures, please email your student ID# to Dr. Praise Zenenga at zen08@arizona.edu or use the form below.