The disturbing profane : hip hop, blackness, and the sacred /
"In The Disturbing Profane, Joseph R. Winters argues that hip hop's religiosity is found in qualities associated with the dark sacred. Winters brings the tools of religious studies, Black studies, Black feminist thought, and critical theory to bear on contemporary hip hop music to trouble...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Durham :
Duke University Press,
2025.
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| Summary: | "In The Disturbing Profane, Joseph R. Winters argues that hip hop's religiosity is found in qualities associated with the dark sacred. Winters brings the tools of religious studies, Black studies, Black feminist thought, and critical theory to bear on contemporary hip hop music to trouble distinctions between the sacred and the profane. He challenges the idea of a stable sacred, highlighting the sacred's power to trespass and destabilize white masculine hegemony. In undermining stable meanings, hip hop artists often celebrate being agents of violence and power, but this project examines moments when fantasies of being omnipotent betray loss and vulnerability. The Disturbing Profane shows how hip hop's ethical moment lies in its ability to interrupt striving for purity, revealing our investments in unpleasant realities and conditions. Winters argues that hip hop's disorder opens its audience onto a volatile notion of the sacred, inseparable from the unruly qualities of Blackness. Winters engages with an array of rap artists, songs, and videos, putting authors such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Saidiya Hartman, Hortense Spillers, Imani Perry, Frank Wilderson, Walter Benjamin, and Georges Bataille in a constellation with figures like Notorious BIG, Lauryn Hill, Kendrick Lamar, Lupe Fiasco, and Nicki Manaj"-- Provided by publisher. |
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| Physical Description: | xi, 194 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781478031857 1478031859 9781478028604 1478028602 |