Hip hop anyone?

So, it is hard to explain to some, but I'm a hip hop scholar (or at least I aspire to be). I wrote a paper on 50 Cent last year, and even my closest friends pause and say, "um, why?" The reason isn't that I love gangsta rap or think Fiddy (as my wife insists I refer to him) is some kind of musical genius. Rather, his life story and rise to stardom are not only hard to believe, but they also say something about the culture we live in. 50 Cent exemplifies cultural relevancy, and it is better to try to understand his rise as a phenomenon unto itself rather than simply trying to censor or ignore him. (If anyone's interested in the topic, I can post my paper later.)

All of this to segue into my current hip hop research project: Chicago hip hop. Since I moved to Chicago in August, I've been thinking about how I need to understand this area and its hip hop history. So I'm now researching another topic in hip hop studies. One place I've found good information is in Jeff Chang's History of the Hip Hop Generation. I'm still plowing through this one, but it documents the rise of hip hop in New York. I'm trying to document the rise of hip hop in Chicago...which came a bit later. Perhaps you've heard of Common, Twista, Rhymefest, or Kanye, but you may not have heard of other artists like Juice, Crucial Conflict, Lupe Fiasco, Verbal Kent, Ric Jilla, or the Grind Family. And this is just the tip of the hip hop iceberg in Chicagoland. I'm hoping to show that the flavor of hip hop in Chicago is a bit more about social consciousness than gangsterism. We'll see.