The relationship between authors and readers has been heavily studied in western literatures since the shift between the spoken-subject lost its privileged position to the written author. The struggle for who determines truth has formed a specific dialect that requires either the author or the reader to be silent. Since the acceptance of literary theories like the “death of the author” and “author-function,” we continue to map these concepts on to similar relationships and discourses. Hip-hop culture defies this dialect, instead, based around the concept of the cipher, hip-hop insists on a constant inclusive discourse. Based in African-American traditions of call-and-response, hip-hop is always looking for voices to speak to each other and push the conversation further. In my thesis, I open up an exploration of the role of an author in hip-hop. Paying specific attention to the rapper, I flesh out the ways western ideas of reading conflate and disrupt the structures of a cipher in hip-hop. Imposing an “author-function” on rappers, displaces the call-and-response relationship that hip-hop thrives on. While hip-hop becomes more prevalent in popular culture, rappers have to learn to navigate within and outside of the immediate hip-hop community. As a case study, I examine the career trajectory of Jay Z. Sean Carter employs the site of enunciation that Jay Z creates to transcend and transform his experiences into a platform for creative expressions as well as lucrative business ventures. Finally, this thesis serves as an initial inquiry into future research plans to explore rappers as nepantler@s and listeners as “digital griots.” Both of these designations represents important rhetorical spaces that allow hip-hop culture to continue to work within a cipher and promote inclusivity. These future plans build towards creating a possible model for more productive collaboration, education, and activism.

This dissertation considers the evolution of Rap music and Hip Hop culture from the perspective of two spatial modalities. It first introduces theoretical concepts of geographic scale and the inscription of socio-spatial values in order to examine Rap and Hip Hop's geo-cultural expansions from their primary enclaves of urban black America. The dynamics between race, social space, and youth are assessed both individually and in tandem as crucial elements in the expression and practices of Hip Hop. The dissertation challenges and extends research in the prevailing Rap "canon" by analysing the processes and structuring logics through which Rap has been integrated into the commercial system of localized music scenes and transnational music and media industries. It identifies the myriad forces that have either facilitated or constrained Rap's expansion at various moments in its history. The dissertation also focuses on the emergence of a pronounced spatial discourse in Rap music and Hip Hop. It isolates the articulation of spatial issues and an increasingly urgent emphasis on sites of significance and the homeplace of "the 'hood" as a significant but characteristic element of the genre. The ancillary Hip Hop media, including radio, music videos, Rap press, and the cinematic "'Hood" genre, are examined as important factors in the reproduction of spatial sensibilities in Hip Hop culture.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Edmund T. Gordon. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Ann K. Mullis, Florida State University, College of Human Sciences, Dept. of Family and Child Sciences. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 06, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 307-325).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 290-295).

Thesis (M.A.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2006. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Michael Beehler. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-124).

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / O presente trabalho busca, numa forma bastante pessoal de pesquisa participativa, fazer a genealogia do hip-hop no Rio de Janeiro, priorizando o elemento rap. Procura mostrar o impacto das novas tecnologias de comunicação e informação entre os que vivenciam o hip-hop, seja produzindo, baixando músicas, participando das redes temáticas, etc... Como as novas tecnologias fazem parte da história e da vida do hip-hop, aliadas ao trabalho cooperativo e colaborativo dos produtores dessa arte, é algo pensado com base nas teorias do trabalho imaterial / This work intends - in a very personal way of participative research to design a genealogy of hip hop in Rio de Janeiro, emphasizing the approach of rap music. It tries to show the impact of the new technologies of information and communication over those who produce, consume and live on the hip hop nets. The presence of NICs as well as the cooperative and collaborative ways of hip hop production are approached with the theoretical basis of immaterial work.

This thesis is focused on the poetics of the czech hip hop lyrics. Analyzed texts increasingly represent the mainstream hip hop as a musical style and capturing the period from the beginining of the nineties until almost the present day. It deals with the appereance and description of the recurring patterns, their changeability in time, or sometimes even this what these schemes beyond. It also deals with the description of the specific atributs typical for certain kind of authors. The thesis is based on hermeneutics and poetics or stylistics.