Posthuman Rap

Description

Posthuman Rap listens for the ways contemporary rap maps an existence outside the traditional boundaries of what it means to be human. Contemporary humanity is shaped in neoliberal terms, where being human means being viable in a capitalist marketplace that favors whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, and fixed gender identities. But musicians from Nicki Minaj to Future to Rae Sremmurd deploy queerness and sonic blackness as they imagine different ways of being human. Building on the work of Sylvia Wynter, Alexander Weheliye, Lester Spence, LH Stallings, and a broad swath of queer and critical race theory, Posthuman Rap turns an ear especially toward hip hop that is often read as apolitical in order to hear its posthuman possibilities, its construction of a humanity that is blacker, queerer, more feminine than the norm. Cover Posthuman Rap Copyright Dedication Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Pre-Echo—Monsters in the Mix 1. Posthuman: “Completely Outside Our Present Conception of What It Is to Be Human” 2. “Cheap and Easy Radicalism”: The Legible Politics of Kendrick Lamar 3. Sonic Blackness and the Illegibility of Trap Irony 4. Party Politics: Rae Sremmurd’s Club as Posthuman Vestibule Epilogue: Posthuman Sub-​Bass Notes Bibliography Index