Citation

Petchauer E. J. Black Stud. 2011; 42(5): 768-790.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0021934710376164

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This qualitative portraiture study explores the different ways that college students deeply involved in hip-hop at two universities (i.e., hip-hop collegians) made their personal experiences in hip-hop relevant to their educational pursuits. The results of this study illustrate how students applied their experiences with the critical discourses of hip-hop music and the questioning discourse of hip-hop more generally to their perspectives of university education and their specific academic pursuits. This article also details the limits of these critical perspectives by illustrating how a subsample of hip-hop turntablists did not mobilize the critical and political perspectives that other participants embraced. Overall, this article focuses on the different ways that young adults from various ethnic backgrounds make a cultural artifact created primarily by Black communities relevant to their educational lives.