'The legal issues raised by this book are crucial for law students to understand. From police racism to mass incarceration to gender norms to the Black Lives Matter movement, these are topics lawyers need to understand. The fact that the analyses emerge from popular hip-hop songs makes them all the more enjoyable to read.' Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Dean, Boston University School of Law
Introduction; Part I. Policing: 1. From 'Fuck tha Police' to defund the police: a polemic, with elements of pragmatism and accommodation, hopefully not fatal, as black people hope about encounters with the police Paul Butler; 2. Hip hop and traffic stops Henry L. Chambers, Jr.; 3. 'Black Cop': it's a blue thing (or is it?) Kami Chavis; 4. 'Illegal Search': race, personhood, and policing Roger A. Fairfax, Jr.; 5. 'Cops Shot the Kid': police brutality, mass incarceration, and the reasonableness doctrine in criminal law Kristin Henning; Part II. Imprisonment: 6. Trauma andré douglas pond cummings; 7. Black steel in the hour of chaos Gregory S. Parks; Part III. Genders: 8. Roxanne Shanté's 'Independent Woman': making space for women in hip hop Lolita Buckner Innis; 9. From the 1930s to the 2020s: what ice cube's song 'Endangered Species' meant for four generations of black males Robert Pervine, Kevin Brown, Charles Westerhaus, and Kynton Grays; 10. The master's tools will not dismantle the master's house: hip hop, young M.A., and gender norms Zoe Smith-Holladay and Catherine Smith; Part IV. Protests: 11. 'Black Rage' and the architecture of racial oppression Deborah Archer; 12. Abolition as reparations: 'This is America' and the anatomy of a modern protest anthem Brie McLemore and Margaret Eby; 13. The message: resisting cultures of poverty in urban America Etienne C. Toussaint; 14. 'Just To Get By': poverty, racism, and smoking through the lens of Talib Kweli and Nina Simone's music Ruqaiijah Yearby.