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Where my girls at? : the interpellation of women in gangsta hip-hop

Document: English. Online
Author(s)
Craft, Chanel R.
Title
Where my girls at? : the interpellation of women in gangsta hip-hop / by Chanel R. Craft under the Direction of Amira Jarmakani
Publication
2010
Subjects
Freestyle Rap
Content
Testu osoa
Other authors
Georgia State University ; Jarmakani, Amira
Physical description
75 or.
Type of material
Document
Notes
Georgia Estatuko Unibertsitateko gradu amaierako lana
Azalean: A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Master of Arts in the College of Arts and Sciences
Georgia State University 2010
This thesis interrogates gangsta hip-hop for the unique attention it plays to the drug trade. I read theories of hypervisibility/invisibility and Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation alongside hip-hop feminist theory to examine the Black female criminal subjectivity that operates within hip-hop. Using methods of discourse analysis, I question the constructions of gangster femininity in rap lyrics as well as the absences of girlhood on Season 4 of HBO’s television drama The Wire. In doing so, I argue that the discursive construction of Black female subjectivity within gangsta hip-hop provides a hypervisibility that portrays Black women as violent while simultaneously erasing the broader social processes that impact the lives of Black women and girls. Hip-hop feminism allows the cultural formations of hip-hop to be read against the politics that structure the lives of women of color in order to provide a lens for analyzing how their criminality is constructed through media.