Customer Reviews

Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip Hop Culture

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In a deceptively slender book, Roc the Mic addresses weighty and rarely-discussed linguistic aspects of hip hop culture. I've marked up countless pages as I read through the book, bookmarking pages here and there for future reference. It's a superb resource, particularly for those who want to understand and closely examine the language of the most vibrant cultural phenomenon of our current times. Using meticulous linguistic analyses, interviews with artists, case study, and more...Alim uses every strategy at his disposal to define, explain, and even debate thick socio-political, pedagogical, and identity dynamics framed by hip hop language. While some readers might find some views and explications verging on the controversial, in the end, Roc the Mic establishes itself as a foundational volume for serious hip hop linguistic scholarship. If that weren't enough, it also provides room for inquiry questions to develop, thus paving the way for future research. Real talk!