2005
First Published
3.68
Average Rating
288
Number of Pages
Part of Series
Is there too much violence in hip-hop music? What’s the difference between Kimberly Jones and the artist Lil' Kim? Is hip-hop culture a "black" thing? Is it okay for N.W.A. to call themselves niggaz and for Dave Chappelle to call everybody bitches? These witty, provocative essays ponder these and other thorny questions, linking the searing cultural issues implicit—and often explicit—in hip-hop to the weighty matters examined by the great philosophers of the past. The book shows that rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast, and the Notorious B.I.G. can help uncover the meanings of love articulated in Plato's Symposium; that Rakim, 2Pac, and Nas can shed light on the conception of God's essence expressed in St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica; and explores the connection between Run-D.M.C., Snoop Dogg, and Hegel. Hip-Hop and Philosophy proves that rhyme and reason, far from being incompatible, can be mixed and mastered to contemplate life's most profound mysteries.
Avg Rating
3.68
Number of Ratings
63
5 STARS
22%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
33%
2 STARS
8%
1 STARS
2%
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Author
Derrick Darby
Author · 2 books
Derrick Darby is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the coauthor (with John L. Rury) of The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice (2018), author of Rights, Race, and Recognition (2009), and coeditor (with Tommie Shelby) of Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (2005).
