Initial Reflection (R1)

I have a really strong passion for hip-hop music as well as trying to understand stereotypes of different ethnic groups. As a result, I decided to do a World Studies EE with my research question being: “How has hip-hop evolved in alignment with African-American culture in the United States? After reviewing this question, my supervisor and I discussed how, exploring African-American culture in the United States would be so broad, that I would have too much to write about. We also spoke about how it might be hard for me to “align” the evolution of hip-hop music with African-American culture as one is so broad, and one is relatively short. We came to the conclusion that I should explore how hip-hop music has reflected African-American culture, perhaps in the last 20 years or so. After this, we also discussed the idea of belonging to a community, and whether the hip-hop community is truly inclusive of everyone.