Rap as multiliteracy: Understanding hip hop literacies acrossspaces. Castillo, C. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 2021.
Rap as multiliteracy: Understanding hip hop literacies acrossspaces [link]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
This study updates our understanding of Hip Hop literacies as they operate outside of the academy in marginalized communities. Scholarship on Hip Hop Based Education has typically investigated Hip Hop within the classroom setting as a means to facilitate standard-based curriculum or forwarding the interest of schools. To this end, the research questions my study addresses are as follows: “How do rappers learn to rap?” and “What do such experiences reveal about the relationship between race and writing in our current moment of race conscious pedagogy?” To answer this question, the dissertation takes the experiences of Black young adult rappers attending the Midwestern recording studio Haven studios as its focus and uses interviews, participant observation, multimodal ethnographies, and pedagogical documentation, to trace how participants navigate the marginalization they experience inside and outside of school while forwarding their interests in Hip Hop literacies. I find that although their efforts are often impeded or threatened by social architecture that promotes social inequity, rappers learn to navigate these barriers by hybridizing, mixing, and otherwise changing their approaches to writing in particular environments or changing their environment to fit their desired mode of writing. After reviewing scholarship on race, literacy, and Hip Hop, I present three findings: Chapter Two: “Hip Hop Composition and Hybridity” argues that rappers hybridized their academic and Hip Hop practices across digital and physical spaces because of and despite the limitations they experience in those places. In Chapter Three: “Mixing Tracks: Notes toward the analysis and design of vocal manipulation in Hip Hop music” argues that rappers see vocal manipulation as essential rhetorical consideration of sound design when developing their music. In Chapter Four, I demonstrate how in the midst of a music industry that held hostage the literacy resources and support systems necessary to record raps, rappers develop “sharing economies” as a way to sustain their and their communities desired modes of literacy. I close by reviewing primary findings, describing limitations of the study, and explaining next steps for this project.
@phdthesis{castillo_rap_2021,
	address = {Madison, WI},
	title = {Rap as multiliteracy: {Understanding} hip hop literacies acrossspaces},
	shorttitle = {Rap as multiliteracy},
	url = {https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/rap-as-multiliteracy-understanding-hip-hop/docview/2597831503/se-2?accountid=14553},
	abstract = {This study updates our understanding of Hip Hop literacies as they operate outside of the academy in marginalized communities. Scholarship on Hip Hop Based Education has typically investigated Hip Hop within the classroom setting as a means to facilitate standard-based curriculum or forwarding the interest of schools. To this end, the research questions my study addresses are as follows: “How do rappers learn to rap?” and “What do such experiences reveal about the relationship between race and writing in our current moment of race conscious pedagogy?”

To answer this question, the dissertation takes the experiences of Black young adult rappers attending the Midwestern recording studio Haven studios as its focus and uses interviews, participant observation, multimodal ethnographies, and pedagogical documentation, to trace how participants navigate the marginalization they experience inside and outside of school while forwarding their interests in Hip Hop literacies.

I find that although their efforts are often impeded or threatened by social architecture that promotes social inequity, rappers learn to navigate these barriers by hybridizing, mixing, and otherwise changing their approaches to writing in particular environments or changing their environment to fit their desired mode of writing.

After reviewing scholarship on race, literacy, and Hip Hop, I present three findings: Chapter Two: “Hip Hop Composition and Hybridity” argues that rappers hybridized their academic and Hip Hop practices across digital and physical spaces because of and despite the limitations they experience in those places. In Chapter Three: “Mixing Tracks: Notes toward the analysis and design of vocal manipulation in Hip Hop music” argues that rappers see vocal manipulation as essential rhetorical consideration of sound design when developing their music.

In Chapter Four, I demonstrate how in the midst of a music industry that held hostage the literacy resources and support systems necessary to record raps, rappers develop “sharing economies” as a way to sustain their and their communities desired modes of literacy. I close by reviewing primary findings, describing limitations of the study, and explaining next steps for this project.},
	language = {English},
	school = {University of Wisconsin-Madison},
	author = {Castillo, Christopher},
	year = {2021},
}

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