50 Years of Hip Hop

Author: Johnson, Courtney; Reddy-Best, Kelly L.; Sanders, Eulanda A.
Clothing and textiles research journal, 2022, Vol.40 (4), p.255-270
In New York City in the late 1970s, the Black community created hip-hop, a significant cultural phenomenon, which has since spread around the world. Our research is centered on the revolutionary hip-hop fashion movement in Black history as it relates to Black millennials’ experiences of fashioning their bodies. We examine the perception of Black millennials who are attending or have attended historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) and their knowledge and perceptions of prominent Black-owned, urban fashion brands that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s.

Author: Waugh, Michael.
Popular music, 2020, Vol.39 (2), p.208-232
Hip-hop studies have historically centred on issues of the ‘street’ or virtuosic lyricism and flow, foregrounded as evidence of the ‘seriousness’ of the genre. While these have undoubtedly been valuable theoretical approaches, the prominence of social networking in the 2010s (with its vast implications for communication and identity politics) has sculpted a generation of rappers whose vocal style and self-representation disintegrate prior assumptions about hip-hop identity.

Author: Lezama, Nigel.
Fashion studies, 2019, Vol.1 (2), p.1-23
Rap and luxury fashion form hip hop’s most unshakable couple. However, female rappers appear to have a more difficult time acquiring and manipulating luxury fashion. When the female rapper demands expensive clothing from her sex partners, is she complicit in her reification as a sexually alienated subject or is she highlighting the value of black women’s labour? In fact, if we look closely at the nexus of luxury fashion, sexuality, and female rappers, there occurs an important transformation of the luxury sign.