Wow! eBook
Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop
Author(s): Michael P. Jeffries (Author)
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press
- Publication Date: January 30, 2011
- Language: English
- Print length: 273 pages
- ISBN-10: 0226395855
- ISBN-13: 9780226395852
Book Description
These questions have dogged hip-hop for decades, but unlike most pundits, Michael P. Jeffries finds answers by interviewing everyday people. Instead of turning to performers or media critics,
Thug Life focuses on the music’s fans–young men, both black and white–and the resulting account avoids romanticism, offering an unbiased examination of how hip-hop works in people’s daily lives. As Jeffries weaves the fans’ voices together with his own sophisticated analysis, hip-hop is revealed as a tool listeners use to make sense of the world, as well as a rich, self-contained culture containing politics, pleasure, virtue, and vice.Editorial Reviews
Review
“This is a finely developed and sophisticated analysis of the complex terrain of hip-hop. Rather than celebrate its obvious achievements or denigrate its equally evident blemishes, Jeffries chooses instead to probe the vibrant world that hip-hop continues to create with honesty and integrity. His discussion of masculinity in hip-hop is subtle and smart as he moves adroitly across the everyday fields in which expressions of black manhood matter most as well as the commercialized spaces that are integrally involved in the production and performance of black male identities.”–S. Craig Watkins, University of Texas at Austin
“Jeffries’ contributions in
Thug Life are multiple; he adds depth to our understanding of how hip-hop is understood and valued among its racially diverse audiences, and he provides a truly inspired analysis of masculinity and thug identities by embracing the too often ignored components of compassion, vulnerability, and love. This is a necessary and important intervention in hip-hop studies.”–Murray Forman, Northeastern University“An insightful and important contribution that fills a space that was greatly in need of the voices of young black men on the issues surrounding race, gender, and hip-hop.”–Rana Emerson, American Journal of Sociology
