This article analyzes gangsta rap discourse through the lens of rhetorical studies to reveal central features of its Christian religious ethos. The religious rhetorical output of many gangsta rappers, both textual and visual, reveals a religious ethos containing a form of religious phronesis (practical wisdom). This ethos has three central telling characteristics: solidarity with Jesus formed through the common theme of suffering; a mistrust of organized religion; and the presence of a psycho-social battle between good and evil, analyzed here through the examples of DMX and Mase.

Discourse is part of the network of knowledge and power.

-Foucault

My words are like a dagger / with a jagged edge.

-Eminem

Prezi presentation focusing on the study of Latinx Hip Hop and what it can teach us about cultural and linguistic diversity.

Professor Tinajero gave a lecture on the subject as part of the UNT Dallas speaker series. In the presentation, he challenged the archaic views that modern academia has on traditional rhetoric. ...

I propose that Latino/a Americans and African Americans—highlighted here through the lens of Hip Hop—are in a constant state of tension and solidarity. Here I offer a new term which I feel may capture best this relationship—tenuous-solidarity. The two groups interact in a physical, linguistic, and rhetorical borderland (Anzaldua) and co-exist in what LuMing Mao might refer to as a state of “together-in-difference” (434). They “meet, clash, and grapple with each other” (Pratt qtd. in Mao 434) in a brutally beautiful manner that is indicative of many racially (or otherwise) divided people throughout the world.

An analysis of how Hip Hop rhetoric shifts and relandscapes traditional approaches to the study of rhetoric.

A look at ways that Latin@ Hip Hop reveals the borderland and its ability to serve as a counter-hegemonic force.

An ongoing project that looks through race relations between Blacks and Latinos through the lens of Hip Hop.