Hiphop’s long history of exposing police brutality
From Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to Kendrick Lamar, long before cellphone video and social media demanded Americans witness police killings and the mundanity of racism on streets, in stores and parks, hiphop turned a bright light on all of it, and more. Marcyliena Morgan is the Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, a professor in the Department of African and African American Studies, and the founding executive director of the Hiphop Archive and Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. She spoke with the Gazette about hiphop culture’s history of exploring the systemic tangle of American racism, violence against Black people, and social, economic, and political inequality. Q&A Marcyliena Morgan GAZETTE: When you think about issues of injustice and police brutality, with racism at its core, how do you think about it in terms of hiphop? MORGAN: We can start with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious...