The publication of this anthology was unprecedented, and highlights the evolving and continuous influence of "one of the most creative and contested elements of global popular culture since its advent in the late 1970s.
[1] Hip hop has, and continues to produce a remarkable array of thinkers who embody complex ideological makeups exemplified through their performances as writers, artists, poets, and scholars.
[3] Watkins writes: "The growing array of hip-hop intellectuals is a spectacular indication of the movement's multifaceted demeanor and ceaseless energy...What has emerged is a body of thinkers who articulate a wide range of ideas that, in their unique way, map out the contradictory currents, ideas, and worldview that percolate throughout the phenomenal world of hip hop.
"[7] In hip hop studies, this "world" encompasses the complexities of political, social, and economic exploitation of marginalized peoples, and hip hop practitioners' resultant forms of resistant expression,[8] thus the frames of analysis used by scholars are equally complex and consider factors such as race, class, gender, gender identity, sexuality, location, and performance and performativity.
[7] The use of ethnography is popular and preferred in hip hop studies because it is a mode of inquiry that enables a scholar to include a multiplicity of voices, and showcases the experiential knowledges of hip hop doers and consumers; ideally this method highlights the dual authority of practitioners' and academics' knowledges.
By the millennium and in the early 2000s, scholars such as Tricia Rose, Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West, Anthony B. Pinn, Jeff Chang, Nelson George, Bakari Kitwana, Mark Anthony Neal, and Murray Forman, began to engage Hip Hop's history, messages of resistance, social cognizance, personal awareness, political activism, pleasure and power, and community engagement in scholarly works that gave Hip Hop academic legitimacy.
[8] Rose's groundbreaking work continues to be referenced as a foundational text by contemporary scholars because its detailed documentation of hip hop culture's revolution employs ethnography, cultural theory, urban history and historiography, as well as black feminist thought; culminating in an extensive bibliography.
[17] In 2013 Tiffin University in Ohio began offering a music performance degree for students with primary focus in emceeing and beatmaking.
[20] Apart from classes and degree programs, development in the field has also been marked by the proliferation of conferences (domestically and internationally), symposiums, the development of readers and anthological texts, the establishment of the Hip Hop Archive and Research Institute at Harvard—each characteristic of a growing interest in and engagement with Hip Hop culture in academic discourse.
[15] In an article published by the San Francisco Globe in March 2007, Davey D. is quoted as saying: "You have an interesting phenomenon, where the 'hip-hop experts,' with university appointments attached to their name, have no credibility whatsoever in hip-hop circles.
[11] Despite these critiques, not all critics of Hip Hop studies are trying to point out the perceived flaws as ways to invalidate its place in academia.