Hip Hop Jam

We seek engaging and accessibly written essays for a proposed edited collection of close analyses of hip hop music. Tentatively titled, The Hip Hop Jam: Messages and Music, this collection examines hip hop music from multiple micro-level, up-close perspectives. We seek to help the music and its messages come alive one song at a time.

Each submitted essay should focus on one song by any artist in any hip hop musical genre. We welcome submissions from scholars across disciplines that apply their tools of interpretation, their ways of reading and listening, to the analysis of one song each.

Each close reading should examine lyrical and/or musical form and content in detail as well as consider how history, gender, sexuality, race, class, political, geographical, religious, and/or economic issues inform the song. Essays should be free of esoteric discipline-specific argot. Aim for an undergraduate readership. The goal is to illuminate what can be made of the rich complexity of hip hop music if one stops and takes the time to listen and to analyze.

Authors should submit an abstract of 250 words and a CV by December 15, 2007. The abstract should contain the author’s name, contact information, and the working title of the proposed analysis. Proposed manuscripts should be original work not concurrently submitted elsewhere. Only electronic submissions will be accepted. Accepted authors will be notified by January 31, 2008. Ten to twelve page MLA formatted manuscripts will be due on May 31, 2008.

Abstracts and inquiries should be forwarded to the Hip Hop Jam Editorial Board: Ebony Utley, Jordan Smith, Christina Zanfagna, and Loren Kajikawa at hiphopjam08@gmail.com.
Email: hiphopjam08@gmail.com