An incredibly fascinating and increasingly relevant course, “Race, Rap, and Power” explored the relationship between the political power of hip hop as a movement and the corporatization of rap as a genre. It also examined how this relationship has reshaped (and to an extent, informed) racial politics in America in the past few decades. Professor Gorman utilized a wide variety of sources in this course, such as lyrics, films, op-eds, music videos, and media stories, to relate rap and hip hop as both an aesthetic movement and a genre. This further allowed us to identify the ways the commodification of rap/hip hop as proven both empowering and marginalizing, specifically in terms of black identity, within American society. I would heavily emulate this in my thesis in how I related and engaged with black culture as the object of Negrophilia.

Each unit in the course was comprised of various texts, both conventional (excerpts from scholarly books, journal articles, etc.) and non-conventional (songs, podcasts, episodes from television shows, celebrity interviews, artwork, etc.). We were required to interpret each of these sources and articulate them in writing. Professor Gorman asked us, however, to express our views more casually (in first-person) rather than formally, which surprisingly made it easier to engage critically with the texts as well as further my confidence in my own voice and opinions. I would assume a similar approach in drafting my thesis. We also participated in collaborative discussions and class debates that made me more cognizant to alternate views and stances, particularly on racial politics, which I tried to account for in my research as well.

As rap is one of the most consumed areas of black culture, this course was perhaps the most valuable out of the six in terms of its relevance to my research topic. This allowed me to draw from a number of sources and scholars featured in the course. Cornel West’s Race Matters and M.K. Asante’s It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop, for example, helped me conceptualize the relationship between racial politics and popular culture in my thesis. Articles like “Black Empires, White Desires” and “An Exploration of Spectacular Consumption: Gangsta Rap as Cultural Commodity” allowed me to discern mainstream consumption of black culture as a marker of racial progress versus that of marginalization.

The assignments in the course also allowed me to refine my argumentative writing. Our first major assignment was an artist critique, which asked me to examine the role race plays in an artist’s work, persona, and media portrayal. I chose Cardi B and how her “ghetto” persona is largely indicative of systemic racism in America, especially in terms of black womanhood. Our second major assignment was an annotated playlist, which asked us to create a playlist of five hip hop/rap songs that I believe are significant in defining how race and power work in American culture. This was perhaps my favorite assignment throughout all my CMAP courses.