{"product_id":"9780226395869","title":"Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop","description":"\u003cp\u003eHip-hop has come a long way from its origins in the Bronx in the 1970s, when rapping and DJing were just part of a lively, decidedly local scene that also venerated b-boying and graffiti. Now hip-hop is a global phenomenon and, in the United States, a massively successful corporate enterprise predominantly controlled and consumed by whites while the most prominent performers are black. How does this shift in racial dynamics affect our understanding of contemporary hip-hop, especially when the music perpetuates stereotypes of black men? Do black listeners interpret hip-hop differently from white fans?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e These questions have dogged hip-hop for decades, but unlike most pundits, Michael P. Jeffries finds answers by interviewing everyday people. Instead of turning to performers or media critics, \u003ci\u003eThug Life\u003c\/i\u003e focuses on the music’s fans—young men, both black and white—and the resulting account avoids romanticism, offering an unbiased examination of how hip-hop works in people’s daily lives. As Jeffries weaves the fans’ voices together with his own sophisticated analysis, we are able to understand hip-hop as a tool listeners use to make sense of themselves and society as well as a rich, self-contained world containing politics and pleasure, virtue and vice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47120204005616,"sku":"9780226395869","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780226395869_p0.jpg?v=1763674971","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780226395869","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}