Hip-Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason

Popular Culture and Philosophy #16

by Derrick Darby, Tommie Shelby (Editor), Cornel West (Foreword)

Is there too much violence in hip-hop music? What’s the difference between Kimberly Jones and the artist Lil' Kim? Is hip-hop culture a "black" thing? Is it okay for N.W.A. to call themselves niggaz and for Dave Chappelle to call everybody bitches? These witty, provocative essays ponder these and other thorny questions, linking the searing cultural issues implicit — and often explicit — in hip-hop to the weighty matters examined by the great philosophers of the past. The book shows that rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast, and the Notorious B.I.G. can help uncover the meanings of love articulated in Plato's Symposium; that Rakim, 2Pac, and Nas can shed light on the conception of God's essence expressed in St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica; and explores the connection between Run-D.M.C., Snoop Dogg, and Hegel. Hip-Hop and Philosophy proves that rhyme and reason, far from being incompatible, can be mixed and mastered to contemplate life's most profound mysteries.

Genres: Philosophy, Music, Nonfiction, Hip Hop, Cultural Studies, African American, Pop Culture

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Derrick Darby is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the coauthor (with John L. Rury) of The Color of Mind: Why the Origins of the Achievement Gap Matter for Justice (2018), author of Rights, Race, and Recognition (2009), and coeditor (with Tommie Shelby) of Hip Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (2005).

Reviews

[Dona's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book on my Libby app when I searched for something similar! Check the app for your local library so you can get books for free!

I think this collection of essays, arranged and edited by Derrick Darby, is pretty good. It's part of a series of texts meant for intro level philosophy students. Each component in the series seeks to introduce philosophical concepts through the inspection of a quotidian subject: in this case, hip-hop.

The historical discussions, I found fascinating, in part because the book is out of date (2005) so much of the rap cited within is the rap I loved as a young consumer. I remember everyone these essayists call to the page, so their arguments hit me in a sweet spot.

For as good as these discussions are on topics like feminism and social justice, the writers made murky connections between the points of their individual essays, and the classic philosophy the book claimed to be central to its concept. I heard a few things referenced, like Hobbes's suggestion that life is "nasty, brutish, and short," but the ideas aren't really brought into the fold of the discussion.

However, where certain philosphers appear, like Cornel West, more is done with them. Perhaps because more can be done. One of the best quotes in the book, and which sums up the text's shortcomings, is from "After Word! The Philosophy of the Hip-hop Battle" by Marcyliena Morgan: [The] art [of hip-hop] is not outside of day-to-day experience. Consequently, the critic, scholar, and especially the academic philosopher are always under suspicion. p208

Rating: 🧠🧠🧠🧠 / 5 thinkers
Recommend? Yes
Finished: February 11 2023
Read this if you like:
📓 Academic nonfiction
🟰 Social justice
🎶 Hip-hop and rap
✳️ Intersectional feminism
👤 Philosophy

[Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read most of this; while I appreciate the aesthetics of the book in keeping with hip hop (e.g. sections are now "disks," chapters are "tracks"), some of this is not very academic or even sensical...trying to shove some of these essays into a book about philosophy led to some confusing segues within the essays, and the connections were at times tenuous at best. But, Paul Taylor's "Does Hip Hop Belong to Me?" is always a great essay to teach, because it does bring up so many philosophical arguments; students love to debate whether or not hip hop can "belong" to any one person or group, so it was worth reading for that essay alone. But there are many, many more credible, authoritative, and academic (if that's what you're looking for) books about hip hop available.

Note: this is edited by Derrick Darby and Tommie Shelby, with a foreword by Cornel West--they're great. I'm not knocking their credibility or reps. But there are many other voices who do better than this book.

[Belz · Rating 3 out of 5]

- interesting arguments brought up about the connections between hip hop and philosophy
- considers the connections between hip hop and feminism, drugs, crime, etc

other:
- each chapter labeled as a "track" is kind of unnecessary (but I understand where they are trying to go with that)

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

frickin' phenom. parallels between hip-hop culture and classic (white) philosophers shouldn't really work, but boy does it

[Turlough · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are times when this book works well. For example, it's just plain fun to use the infamous beef between Jay-Z and Nas to open up a discussion on dialectics and from there draw parallells between rappers looking for recognition in rap battles with Hegel's ideas of self-consciousness developing through a struggle for recognition. However too many of the essays feel like the authors were trying too hard to prove their credibility. Seriously, I don't need to see 'Word up!' at the end of every third paragraph.

[André · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Rap band: Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
This was a very good read.

[Adam James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love hip-hop.
Half of the authors featured in this collection do not love hip-hop.

Even if one were to accept the eye-rollingly frequent references to Lil' Kim as something that resembles relevant evidence of anything, the arguments made by many of these authors are clearly surface-level criticisms of hip-hop music/culture, akin to conservative and/or stereotypically white America's casual dismissal of hip-hop's artistic legitimacy.

Before truly delving deep into my feelings about this book (and I had/have ALL the feelings), here are my updates from the week I spent with Hip-Hop and Philosophy: Rhyme 2 Reason (I'm even going to overlook the cartoonishly condescending title chosen for this book...)

July 9, 2019 – page 31
13.3% "This collection of essays was published in 2005, and the boom of legitimate hip-hop journalism had yet to come. But good LORD are these authors trying too hard to sound "down" while shoe-horning adequate-at-best rap lyrics to support their claims.
Instead of deeply examining specific artists/songs/albums in order to find central philosophies, these jokers sound like Hip-Hop Harry trying to be "down" with the kidz."

July 10, 2019 – page 54
23.18% "Essay 4 offers a far more thought-provoking and necessary link between essential themes in hip-hop and philosophical concepts of self-recognition.

I wish Pittman would have taken Georg Hegel to task for his racist views of European dominance in history (a fact of which I wasn't aware until I read this essay), but Pittman's use of lyrics (especially "Liberation" by OutKast) link directly to his philosophical claims."

July 10, 2019 – page 65
27.9% ""Rap Aesthetics" is miles away from the previous cartoonish hip-hop narrators, but Shusterman's argument doesn't accomplish much (unless his goal is to establish that he's a massive KRS-One fan).
It's cowardly to purposely avoid the messier areas of violence in mainstream rap. There are a myriad of claims to be made about how violence in the music is necessary to its aesthetic, claims that Shusterman dances around."

July 18, 2019 – page 128
54.94% "This book would have been more effective if its editors would have found authors who actually, you know, *like* hip-hop.

The last handful of essays have been excuses to cherrypick out-of-context lyrics from specific artists (enough with Lil Kim) in order to wag a finger at "childish," "misogynistic," "vulgar" rappers. The Bill Cosbian Black conservative critique is cheap. And it disregards the plight of the artist."

July 19, 2019 – page 183
78.54% "Thank you, Bill E. Lawson, for being one of the few authors in this collection who seemingly enjoys hip-hop music and culture.

And thank you for giving me an incredibly intelligent, challenging, relevant text for my young students to question the concept of "the social contract" and its inclusion of Black Americans."

I *will* delve into this uneven, often offensive collection of essays. But it's late. I have a baby. And Nas just dropped The Lost Tapes 2, so I need to hear that sh*t. I wonder how many of this book's authors are equally excited about its release? Hmmmm....

[Michael Lortz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, Hip-Hop & Philosophy wasn't a bad read. It is not a bad book to keep between my philosophy classics and books on African-American culture such as Soul on Ice, Soledad Brother, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Would I read it again? Maybe not cover to cover, but I might reference it at some point when writing about modern social movements.

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