Offers an analysis of hip hop and politics in the Obama era and beyond, with new perspectives on hip hop's role in political mobilization, grassroots organizing, campaign branding, and voter turnout

Featuring a foreword by Tricia Rose and an Afterword by Cathy J. Cohen Barack Obama flipped the script on more than three decades of conventional wisdom when he openly embraced hip hop--often regarded as politically radioactive--in his presidential campaigns. Just as important was the extent to which hip hop artists and activists embraced him in return. This new relationship fundamentally altered the dynamics between popular culture, race, youth, and national politics. But what does this relationship look like now, and what will it look like in the decades to come? The Hip Hop & Obama Reader attempts to answer these questions by offering the first systematic analysis of hip hop and politics in the Obama era and beyond. Over the course of 14 chapters, leading scholars and activists offer new perspectives on hip hop's role in political mobilization, grassroots organizing, campaign branding, and voter turnout, as well as the ever-changing linguistic, cultural, racial, and gendered dimensions of hip hop in the U.S. and abroad. Inviting readers to reassess how Obama's presidency continues to be shaped by the voice of hip hop and, conversely, how hip hop music and politics have been shaped by Obama, The Hip Hop & Obama Reader critically examines hip hop's potential to effect social change in the 21st century. This volume is essential reading for scholars and fans of hip hop, as well as those interested in the shifting relationship between democracy and popular culture.

A concise biography with candid photos revealing the story behind the history-making American president. Get an inside look at the remarkable forty-fourth president of the United States. The first African American U.S. president and the first politician to apply twenty-first-century technology to an election and the presidency, he brought change to a nation during his eight years in office—and also changed history. From local community reformer to commander-in-chief, Barack Obama has lived the American dream. This is his story in pictures and in words.

This is the first book to focus on the significance of religion during President Obama's years in the White House. Addressing issues ranging from identity politics, immigration, income inequality, Islamophobia and international affairs, Religion in the Age of Obama explores the religious and moral underpinnings of the Obama presidency and subsequent debates regarding his tenure in the White House. It provides an analysis of Obama's beliefs and their relationship to his vision of public life, as well as the way in which the general ethos of religion and non-religion has shifted over the past decade in the United States under his presidency. Topics include how Obama has employed religious rhetoric in response to both international and domestic events, his attempt to inhabit a kind of Blackness that comforts and reassures rather than challenges White America, the limits of Christian hospitality within U.S. immigration policy and the racialization of Islam in the U.S. national imagination. Religion in the Age of Obama shows that the years of the Obama presidency served as a watershed moment of significant reorganization of the role of religion in national public life. It is a timely contribution to debates on religion, race and public life in the United States.

"What does it mean to be Black in the Obama era? In [this book], young African American scholars and researchers and experienced community activists demonstrate how to encourage dialogue across curricula, disciplines, and communitites with emphases on education, new media, and popular culture"--From publisher description.

Kitwana, author of the best-selling The Hip-Hop Generation, sits down with leadership of the five major national hip-hop organizations, a larger part of the force that is driving the innovative marriage between hip-hop and civic engagement--The League of Young Voters, The Hip-Hop Congress, The National Hip-Hop Political Convention, The Hip-Hop Caucus and The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network. Hip Hop Activism in the Obama Era is a collection of interviews with activists and political organizers at the forefront of increasing youth involvement in electoral politics.

A pioneering expert in the study of hip-hop explains why the music matters--and why the battles surrounding it are so very fierce.