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Rapper, writer, pop-cultural player: Ice-T and the politics of black cultural production

Metcalf, Josephine; Turner, Will

Authors

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Dr Jo Metcalf J.Metcalf@hull.ac.uk
Senior Lecturer in American Studies & Criminology

Will Turner



Abstract

This collection of essays critically engages with factors relating to black urban life and cultural representation in the post-civil rights era, using Ice-T and his myriad roles as musician, actor, writer, celebrity, and industrialist as a vehicle through which to interpret and understand the African American experience. Over the past three decades, African Americans have faced a number of new challenges brought about by changes in the political, economic and social structure of America. Furthermore, this vastly changed social landscape has produced a number of resonant pop-cultural trends that have proved to be both innovative and admired on the one hand, and contentious and divisive on the other. Ice-T's iconic and multifarious career maps these shifts. This is the first book that, taken as a whole, looks at a black cultural icon's manipulation of (or manipulation by?) so many different forms simultaneously. The result is a fascinating series of tensions arising from Ice-T's ability to inhabit conflicting pop-cultural roles including: 'hardcore' gangsta rapper and dedicated philanthropist; author of controversial song Cop Killer and network television cop; self-proclaimed 'pimp' and reality television house husband. As the essays in this collection detail, Ice-T's chameleonic public image consistently tests the accepted parameters of black cultural production, and in doing so illuminates the contradictions of a society erroneously dubbed 'post-racial'. © Josephine Metcalf and Will turner and the contributors 2014. All rights reserved.

Citation

Metcalf, J., & Turner, W. (2014). Rapper, writer, pop-cultural player: Ice-T and the politics of black cultural production. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315603612

Book Type Book
Online Publication Date Apr 8, 2016
Publication Date Jun 6, 2014
Deposit Date Apr 12, 2022
Publisher Routledge
Book Title Rapper, Writer, Pop-Cultural Player: Ice-T and the Politics of Black Cultural Production
ISBN 9781472418357 ; 9781472434319
DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315603612
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/3900192