Say Word!: Voices from Hip Hop Theater

The Hip Hop phenomenon now encompasses a global, multiethnic, grassroots youth culture committed to social justice and self-expression through performance. Hip Hop Theater emerged after the Hip Hop music craze, mixing spoken-word performance with music and dance and displaying the activism and resistance that typify Hip Hop culture.

>Say Word! Voices from Hip Hop Theater collects eight works by contemporary artists Abiola Abrams, Zakiyyah Alexander, Chadwick Boseman, Kristoffer Diaz, Rha Goddess, Antoy Grant, Joe Hernandez-Kolski, Rickerby Hinds, and Ben Snyder with commentary by theater director, scholar and activist Daniel Banks.

The plays deal with compelling issues of our times, including police profiling and brutality, women’s empowerment, the commercial exploitation of Hip Hop, and identity politics. An additional play available online, From Tel Aviv to Ramallah by Rachel Havrelock and Yuri Lane, a beatbox opus with stunning visuals, explores the role of Hip Hop in the lives and cultures of two young men from Israel and Palestine. The book also features a conversation among Hip Hop pioneers Eisa Davis, Danny Hoch, Sarah Jones, and Will Power with moderator Holly Bass that traces the roots of Hip Hop Theater and speculates about its future. The book’s lively plays, informative historical introduction as well as biographical and critical commentary will appeal to general readers as well as students and scholars.