Adam Bradley: The power and poetry of hip-hop
Works In Progress
English - November 10, 2021 23:00 - 39 minutes - 27.1 MBVisual Arts Arts Performing Arts art architecture design film theater dance performance visual arts ucla los angeles Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Rap and hip-hop are the most popular musical genres in the United States. At the end of 2017, Nielsen Music, which tracks music listenership, noted that the combined genre of R&B and hip-hop had surpassed rock to become the most-consumed style of music in the country.
Hip-hop continues to grow and evolve, and Adam Bradley has been tracking its changes. He teaches English at UCLA and founded the Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture, known as RAP Lab.
In his books, which include “Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop” and “The Anthology of Rap,” he makes the case for rap’s literary merit.
On Monday, Nov. 15, he’ll take part in the UCLA Arts public discussion series "10 Questions" to consider the prompt, “How do we build?”
On this episode of "Works In Progress," Bradley talks about hip-hop's cultural significance, the value of working in collectives, and the need to make failure more acceptable.