Kalen Coleman: US Diplomatic Export of Hip-Hop

For episode 9 we have Kalen Coleman, a student at the William H. Bowen School of Law, Kalen recently wrote one of the most interesting articles on hip-hop I’ve read in quite some time. The paper, called Wake Up Or Get Woke: The Paradox of American Diplomatic Export of Hip-Hop looks at how through jazz tours in the mid 20th century, and state-sanctioned hip-hop tours in recent decades, the United States has historically used black culture as a way of communicating a version of America that it wishes to represent, despite a lack of domestic effort to help these same groups they use. As I said, I found this article fascinating and I think the conversation will be insightful for anyone interested in the subject.