inspirations from Trinidad, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, African American sex satirists, comedians, civil rights-fuelled funk musicians, spoken word luminaries, and dub and Nuyorican poetry. Author Higgins examines hip hop's racial, multicultural, and multilingual listening audiences, the development of global rap slanguage and its influence on standard English lexicons, and hip hop herstory and cultural taboos around sexuality. He highlights the burgeoning Aboriginal hip hop scenes in Canada and Australia, and movements in colleges across North America and Europe that use hip hop lyrics and artistry to help engage students in learning. Critical of hip hopsters' use of language, the cult of bling, violence, and money, this book takes readers beyond a superficial look and delves into all the issues surrounding this form. Higgins taps into his own powers of pop culture prognostication to predict the future of the genre and the youth culture that spawned it, as this irresistible musical and cultural form spreads literally to the furthest reaches of humanity.

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