Starting With Style

One fundamental breakthrough in the field of hip-hop education in recent years is the shift from understanding hip-hop solely as content to understanding hip-hop also as aesthetic form. In this article, I chart the roots of this shift across disciplines and focus on what it might mean for the future of hip-hop education, pedagogy, and research in context with urban education. I outline how this thread might become the sine qua non of an emerging second wave of hip-hop education research and practice derived primarily from aesthetic forms rather than an amalgamation of culturally relevant and critical approaches.