Derrick Darby & Tommie Shelby 
Hip-Hop and Philosophy 
Rhyme 2 Reason

Is there too much violence in hip-hop music? What’s the difference between Kimberly Jones and the artist Lil’ Kim? Is hip-hop culture a ‘black’ thing? Is it okay for N.W.A. to call themselves niggaz and for Dave Chappelle to call everybody bitches? These witty, provocative essays ponder these and other thorny questions, linking the searing cultural issues implicit and often explicit in hip-hop to the weighty matters examined by the great philosophers of the past. The book shows that rap classics by Lauryn Hill, Out Kast, and the Notorious B.I.G. can help uncover the meanings of love articulated in Plato’s Symposium; that Rakim, 2Pac, and Nas can shed light on the conception of God’s essence expressed in St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica; and explores the connection between Run-D.M.C., Snoop Dogg, and Hegel. Hip-Hop and Philosophy proves that rhyme and reason, far from being incompatible, can be mixed and mastered to contemplate life’s most profound mysteries.

About the author

Derrick Darby was raised in Queensbridge Housing Projects, home to some of hip-hop’s greatest talents including hip-hop DJ, Marley Marl, Pioneering rap MC, Nas, and the dynamic rap duo Mobb Deep, and Prodigy and Havoc. He is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Texas A&M University.Tommie Shelby is currently John L. Loed Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University.