Digital Flows
Online Hip Hop Music and Culture
Published on 18. December 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-0-19-765639-6 (ISBN)
Description
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.
Some fifty years after its birth in the Bronx, hip hop has become one of the most influential cultural phenomena of the internet era. With the internet now enmeshed in our daily routines, hip hop thrives in the digital realm, constituting a third of all music streams. From Drake memes to viral TikTok dances and AI-generated rappers, hip hop is constantly created, shared, and discussed online. This shift challenges hip hop's conventional connections to place, authenticity, and community. Through this book, author Steven Gamble offers a fresh examination of hip hop's latest chapter, intricately interwoven with the interconnected cultural currents of the internet.
With an innovative method encompassing music and cultural analysis, ethnography, and web data analysis, Gamble provides a cutting-edge account of the intersections between hip hop and the internet, supported by the latest practices in digital humanities and data ethics. The book extensively draws on scholarship in hip hop studies, internet studies, popular music studies, media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, Black studies, intersectional feminism, and more. Gamble provides in-depth insights into hip hop in the internet age, new net-native genres like Soundcloud rap and YouTube lofi beats, communities on social media and streaming platforms, online hip hop feminism in rap music videos, cultural appropriation and callout/cancel culture, and hip hop concerts on video game platforms. For old school heads and extremely online memesters alike, for fans and creatives, for students as well as academics seeking to understand digital transformations of music, Digital Flows uncovers what happens when a cultural form born on the streets thrives on the transformative technologies of global reach.
Some fifty years after its birth in the Bronx, hip hop has become one of the most influential cultural phenomena of the internet era. With the internet now enmeshed in our daily routines, hip hop thrives in the digital realm, constituting a third of all music streams. From Drake memes to viral TikTok dances and AI-generated rappers, hip hop is constantly created, shared, and discussed online. This shift challenges hip hop's conventional connections to place, authenticity, and community. Through this book, author Steven Gamble offers a fresh examination of hip hop's latest chapter, intricately interwoven with the interconnected cultural currents of the internet.
With an innovative method encompassing music and cultural analysis, ethnography, and web data analysis, Gamble provides a cutting-edge account of the intersections between hip hop and the internet, supported by the latest practices in digital humanities and data ethics. The book extensively draws on scholarship in hip hop studies, internet studies, popular music studies, media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, Black studies, intersectional feminism, and more. Gamble provides in-depth insights into hip hop in the internet age, new net-native genres like Soundcloud rap and YouTube lofi beats, communities on social media and streaming platforms, online hip hop feminism in rap music videos, cultural appropriation and callout/cancel culture, and hip hop concerts on video game platforms. For old school heads and extremely online memesters alike, for fans and creatives, for students as well as academics seeking to understand digital transformations of music, Digital Flows uncovers what happens when a cultural form born on the streets thrives on the transformative technologies of global reach.
Reviews / Votes
Internet studies and creator studies are integral to the ways in which we look at contemporary media studies overall. However, there has yet to be a defining text that has highlighted how musicians are early adopters and first movers of both the web and social media platforms. Gamble's text tackles this task in a very refreshing way. His interdisciplinary ethics of care towards theorizing musicians as innovative creators makes this text very accessible and necessary. * Jabari "Naledge" Evans, University of South Carolina and Institute for Rebooting Social Media, Harvard University * Digital Flows places hip-hop at the very heart of the contemporary internet landscape. This wide-ranging and rigorously researched book provides a forward-looking cultural framework to help scholars untangle the deeply intertwined and ever-changing relationship between hip-hop and the internet. Deftly navigating various digital media platforms, Gamble brilliantly explores hip hop's new online frontiers, including memes, streams, virtual cyphers, and dance crazes. Digital Flows makes a timely and lively contribution to our understanding of music, media, and culture in the Internet age. Considering that hip-hop continues to shape and be shaped by the online landscape, this book will be critical to any scholar researching digital music-making and foundational to thinking about the potential futures of hip-hop and the internet. * Jasmine A. Henry, Assistant Professor of Music, University of Pennsylvania * More praise for the author"intuitive and accessible [...] Gamble's weaving together of how individual listeners, musical communities, and genre conventions interact with each other marks an interesting intervention into sticky debates over the relationship between popular music and social change. * Olivia Lucas, Louisiana State University, from a Popular Music review on How Music Empowers * Intuitive and accessible [...] Gamble's weaving together of how individual listeners, musical communities, and genre conventions interact with each other marks an interesting intervention into sticky debates over the relationship between popular music and social change. * Olivia Lucas, Popular Music * By combining extensive research with diverse case studies, Digital Flows provides scholars and researchers alike with a fresh look at hip hop music, media, and culture in the internet and digital media age. * Choice *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
24 figures, 6 tables
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
363 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-765639-6 (9780197656396)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
10/2024
Oxford University Press Inc
€106.47
Shipment within 15-20 days
E-Book
10/2024
OUP eBook
€24.99
Available for download
Person
Dr Steven Gambleis a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Bristol, specialising in the study of popular music, digital methods, and online music cultures. He is the author of How Music Empowers: Listening to Modern Rap and Metaland co-founder of the Music and Online Cultures Research Network (mocren.org).
Content
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
1 Introduction: Hip Hop and the Internet
2 How Hip Hop Became the Leading Genre in the Digital Streaming Era: Sharing Culture
3 Internet Rap and Generational Tensions in Hip Hop's Soundcloud Era: 'Famous on the Internet'
4 Lofi Hip Hop and Community in YouTube Comments During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Beats to Quarantine to
5 Online Hip Hop Feminism, Rap Music Videos, and Gender in YouTube Comments: Responses to Black Women Rappers
6 Hip Hop and Online Cultural Appropriation Discourse: Trap, Pop, and Race
7 Virtual Hip Hop Concerts in Video Games: One Fortnite only
8 Conclusion: It's Where You're @
Index
List of Figures
1 Introduction: Hip Hop and the Internet
2 How Hip Hop Became the Leading Genre in the Digital Streaming Era: Sharing Culture
3 Internet Rap and Generational Tensions in Hip Hop's Soundcloud Era: 'Famous on the Internet'
4 Lofi Hip Hop and Community in YouTube Comments During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Beats to Quarantine to
5 Online Hip Hop Feminism, Rap Music Videos, and Gender in YouTube Comments: Responses to Black Women Rappers
6 Hip Hop and Online Cultural Appropriation Discourse: Trap, Pop, and Race
7 Virtual Hip Hop Concerts in Video Games: One Fortnite only
8 Conclusion: It's Where You're @
Index