The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop

Asserting that hip hop culture has become another locus of postmodernity, Osumare explores the intricacies of this phenomenon from the beginning of the Twenty-First century, tracing the aesthetic and socio-political path of the currency of hip hop across the globe.

"Now in the time where corporations have extracted the economic DNA of American hip-hop to fuel their bottom line with the lowest common denominator, Halifu Osumare's reach into the global importance of the genre is a much needed cultural reclamation. With the power of rap music as a new world language, hip-hop's style and substance is an explosive supplement to the new millennium that is currently lacking knowledge on world cultural and social history, as well as geography. The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop gives us a way to plough through these new global dynamics." - Chuck D, Public Enemy

"It may seem as though hip-hop has suddenly gone global, but Halifu Osumare s The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop is a timely and important reminder that hip-hop has always lived in a world larger than the boundaries we impose upon it." - Mark Anthony Neal, Associate Professor of Black Popular Culture, and co-editor, That s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader

"Halifu Osumare's work - a power move in and of itself - compels us to acknowledge the power of technology and capitalism to co-opt and transform a culture-specific phenomenon into a global assault - for better or worse. It is required reading for those of us interested in the social, political, and cultural shifts that shake and quake our worlds. Highly recommended." - Brenda Dixon Gottschild, author of The Black Dancing Body, Waltzing in the Dark, and Digging The Africanist Presence in American Culture"Osumare provides compelling evidence of a global diaspora of hip-hop. Layered yet conversational text assumes more than passing familiarity with cultural theorists whom Osumare discusses alongside rap artists... Highly recommended." - CHOICE"[A] reminder that the global is at the heart of hip-hop culture, which from the start has borrowed, appropriated, and sampled from cultures around the world." - Sujatha Fernandes, Queens College, City University of New York

HALIFU OSUMARE is Assistant Professor, African America and African Studies Program, University of California, Davis, USA.