Hip Hop Studies and Activism Beats Not Beatings

This research examines the relationship between queer justice and hip-hop through a content analysis of videos. It situates queer justice within hip-hop and a call for hip-hop to interrogate the role artists play in condoning violence against LGBTQ+ people. Beats Not Beatings: The Rise of Hip Hop Criminology is a powerful, radical, intersectional scholarly-activist collection of liberation-based articles by "Mic" Crenshaw, Chandra Ward, Maurece Graham, Daniel White Hodge, Anthony J. Nocella II, Antonio Quintana, Andrea N. Hunt, Tammy D. Rhodes, Kenneth Culton, andre douglas pond cummings, Victor Mendoza, Adam de Paor-Evans, Lenard G. Gomes, Elloit Cardozo, and Tasha Iglesias that center marginalized and oppressed stories and experiences. This book emerged out of the Black Lives Matter and prison abolition movements. This collection challenges state violence as well as racist and classist laws such as the school-to-prison pipeline, redlining, three strikes, mandatory minimums, truancy, felons cannot vote, check the box, and curfew. This thoughtprovoking, insightful text demands that those affected by the criminal justice system should be leading the conversation on how it is broken, managed, and needs to be transformed. Critical theorist and Hip Hop activist, Anthony J. Nocella II, an innovative, intersectional public intellectual, pushes educators and society to make connections and think outside the box on how Hip Hop has always had the answers on how to dismantle racism and classism in the U.S. criminal justice system. This book explains how Hip Hop has always had the answer to ending violence and crime in society. It is time to listen; get in where you fi t in, or get out of the way. "A brilliant and compelling book that highlights the empowering and revolutionary nature of Hip Hop, a powerful medium that also highlights the corrupt and malicious criminal justice systems that serve the interests of the powerful. These essays make a profound contribution to the growing grass-roots movement calling for an inclusive, egalitarian, and sustainable future for everyone on the planet." —Dr. David Nibert, Professor of Sociology, Wittenberg University "It is refreshing, exciting and affirming to know that a collection of people have made the conscious decision to document hip-hop’s resistance to the carceral state. A definite must-read for those interested in the relationship between carcerality and self-determination." —Dr. David Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago