Rap, Race and the (Re)Production of Boundaries

Abstract

This study contributes to the literature on symbolic boundaries through an analysis of print media discourses that framed the meanings of rap as it entered the musical mainstream. The authors find that three discursive themes appeared with the greatest frequency: violence and crime, artistic merit, and crossover appeal. Underlying each of these themes was a racialized “metaframe” that constructed rap as “black” music. In this light, the meanings assigned to rap dramatized broader efforts to produce and reproduce the cultural and social boundaries that mark inclusion in and exclusion from the territory of legitimate practices and identities.