Editorial Essay: The Hip Hop Wars

Can hip hop return to its roots?

In The Hip Hop Wars, Tricia Rose argues:

Hip Hop is in a terrible crisis. Although its overall fortunes have risen sharply, the most commercially promoted and financially successful hip hop—what has dominated mass-media outlets such as television, film, radio, and recording industries for a dozen years or so—has increasingly become a playground for caricatures of black gangstas, pimps, and hoes. Hyper-sexism has increased dramatically, and homophobia along with distorted, antisocial, self-destructive, and violent portraits of black masculinity have become rap's calling cards. Relying on an ever-narrowing range of images and themes, this commercial juggernaut has played a central role in the near-deception of what was once a vibrant, diverse, and complex popular genre, wringing it dry by pandering to America's racist and sexist lowest common denominator.

Is there any turning back for hip hop? Can a multi-million dollar industry abandon the motifs that made it popular and return to a simpler time? How does hip hop return to its roots? In a concise editorial, explain how you believe hip hop can be reclaimed. To support your thesis, cite evidence from The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop—and Why It Matters

Requirements:

• MLA Style, including parenthetical citation
• 3-page minimum
• Include a works cited page

The best papers:

• Have a title that articulates its point of view
• Stay within the parameters of the subject matter
• Have a concise thesis which clearly outlines a position
• Are written in a voice that is casual, yet informed
• Clearly support their thesis with solid evidence and a logical structure, citing from The Hip Hop Wars.
• Conclude with a summation of the argument
• Properly cite evidence using MLA's parenthetical citation method
• Are in compliance with MLA Style

Sample editorials from around the country:

• "Red Light for Texting Drivers" (Miami Herald )
• "Hate Groups Don a Hood of Respectability" (Tennessean )
• "Who's Still Undecided?" (Los Angeles Times )
• "Atheists Lobby for a Separation of God and Country" (Oregonian )

Due: Wednesday, Oct. 3rd (Draft 1; Bring 2 copies)