“Naming Evil in the World: Hip-Hop’s Blues Footprints”

From the Blues and the Spirit symposium, Mark Anthony Neal discusses the secular and sacred aspects of hip-hop and Black music in general. He speaks about their visionary and prophetic tradition, their practice of naming evil in the world, the subtlety of the musical forms, the musical technology used, and concepts of escape, freedom, fugitivity, exile and criminality within the music. Neal examines these with musical examples like Lil Wayne and Pharoahe Monch.