Age and Aging in Hip-Hop

Murray Forman, Associate Professor, Media and Screen

Studies, Northeastern University, USA

Old in the Game: Age and Aging in Hip-Hop

While hip-hop is commonly associated in many mainstream contexts with

youth practices and tastes, it has been a long time indeed since it could easily

be defined as a facet of youth culture; generational turbulence abounds within

contemporary hip-hop. Professor Forman critically examines the ways in

which the past (as lore, tradition, and legacy) is constructed and understood

in contemporary hip-hop and illuminates the manner in which individuals

of different ages interact with one another according to multiple factors

relating to experience and familiarity, rules, laws, and wider cultural norms

as well as established hip-hop conventions. By focusing on an alternative

cartography of age and aging he offers new perspectives on the character

and representation of hip-hop elderscapes.