The Organic Globalizer

The Organic Globalizer is a collection of critical essays which takes the position that hip-hop holds political significance through an understanding of its ability to at once raise cultural awareness, expand civil society's focus on social and economic justice through institution building, and engage in political activism and participation. Collectively, the essays assert hip hop's importance as an "organic globalizer:" no matter its pervasiveness or reach around the world, hip-hop ultimately remains a grassroots phenomenon that is born of the community from which it permeates. Hip hop, then, holds promise through three separate but related avenues: (1) through cultural awareness and identification/recognition of voices of marginalized communities through music and art; (2) through social creation and the institutionalization of independent alternative institutions and non-profit organizations in civil society geared toward social and economic justice; and (3) through political activism and participation in which demands are articulated and made on the state.
With editorial bridges between chapters and an emphasis on interdisciplinary and diverse perspectives, The Organic Globalizer is the natural scholarly evolution in the conversation about hip-hop and politics.

Christopher Malone is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Pace University, USA. He is the author of Between Freedom and Bondage (2007) and co-editor of Occupying Political Science (2013). George Martinez Jr. is Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Pace University, USA, and is founder/CEO of the Global Block Foundation. He serves as Cultural Envoy and Hip-Hop Ambassador for the U.S. Department of State.

About the Cover Art Contributors 1. The organic globalizer Christopher Malone; George Martinez, Jr. 2. No church in the wild: Politics, morality, and hip hop in the political science classroom Craig Douglas Albert 3. (Re)building the cypher: Fulfilling the promise of hip hop for liberation Paul Kuttner; Mariama White-Hammond 4. Men or monsters? The applied uses of the commercial rap artist Joy Boggs 5. Copyright outlaws and hip hop moguls: Intellectual property law and the development of hip hop music Richard Schur 6. Whirl Trade: The peculiar image of hip hop in the global economies Fahamu Pecou 7. Liberation hip hop: Palestinian hip hop and peaceful resistance Denise DeGarmo; E. Duff Wrobbel 8. Asserting identity through music: Indigenous hip hop and self-empowerment Anne Flaherty 9. Hip hop and the dialects of political awareness: Between branding banality and authenticity in Central European rap Barbara Franz 10. Representations of Chinese-ness in Afro-Cuban hip hop during post-Soviet era Cuba Angela Ju 11. The politics of violence, hustling, and contempt in the Oakland, CA rap music scene H. Lavar Pope 12. The belly of the beast Keesha M. Middlemass 13. All day, all week, occupy all streets! Race, class, and hip hop in the occupy movement Christopher Malone; George Martinez, Jr.; Davina Anderson Index