Course Description

Popular music is omnipresent. We've all bought it, listened to it, danced to it, developed fashions and identities through it. Now we are going to study it. This course concentrates on primarily reggae, dancehall, hip-hop and dance music (house to UK underground garage). These genres provide the sonic prism through which to examine: the societal conditions in which music emerges; authenticity and appropriation (how popular music thrives on borrowing customizing and reinterpreting other people's cultural property); the representation/production and consumption of music (i.e. the media and music industry), and the political and social implications of popular music (gender, race, globalization).