Homework & Research->Homework Help->Art & Music->Sample Research Topic
Question: Where can I find information on the impact (positive and negative) of Rap and Hip-Hop music?
The library owns a number of titles on Rap and Hip Hop music. On the catalog search the following subjects rap music, rap music—history and criticism, hip hop, and by group or artist names like P. Diddy, Tupac Shakur, and Mary J. Blige.
Some of the books we have in the collection include:
Rap
and Hip Hop: The Voice of a Generation
Rap
Music and Street Consciousness
American
Nightmare American Dream
Yes
Yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop's
First
Decade
The
Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture
The
New H.N.I.C. (Head Niggas in Charge): The Death of Civil Rights and the
Reign of Hip Hop
Black
Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America
These books are located at various libraries; you can have a title routed
to your neighborhood library using the onscreen yellow & green Request button
in title record:
For in-depth research on the music and musicians, the library has a number of materials like Popular Musicians, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Popular Musicians Since 1990, and Songwriters: A Biographical Dictionary With Discographies.
For most school research, you’re required to use several different types of sources and TCCL’s Research Tools section is an excellent place to begin!! From the main library page, www.tulsalibrary.org, click Research Tools and then Online Reference Sources.
In the databases listed below you’ll find full text articles from magazines, newspapers, and encyclopedias, interviews, television/radio scripts, and even video clips! Again subject searches like rap music and hip hop will produce significant background information. Remember to search under particular rap artists’ names as well – Tupac, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Kid Rock, Eminem, P.Diddy, and Jay Z.
First up is Electric Library which you can use both in & outside of the library. I found about 4,000 hits in a search of rap music. One feature of this database is that it offers a certain number of the total considered the best of the total hits – which means that rap music is the real focus of the article and not just a side note. You can also select and/or limit to different formats like magazines, books, newspapers, and audio/video. Many of the articles have great pictures and you can e-mail articles to yourself and to others.
Many musicians are considered poets and writers; an excellent resource for information on those artists who have achieved literary recognition as well as entertainment fame is included in some of the GaleNet databases. Searching the Gale Literary databases (Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism and Dictionary of Literary Biography) for lyricist/songwriter/artist Tupac gave me a biography from Contemporary Authors.
In Gale’s Biography Resource Center a search for DJ Jazzy Jeff produced a full text entry from Contemporary Black Biography, and a search for Jay Z has an entry from Contemporary Musicians – both entries feature nice color photographs of the artists. These Gale resources are also available both in & outside of the library.
Basic keyword searches in Master File Premier and Newspaper Source produce numerous articles on rap music. You can also search by specific publications like Vibe and Rolling Stone in MasterFile Premier. I searched Biggie Smalls and got articles from Time, Rolling Stone and Billboard. You can use these databases outside of the library and you can e-mail from them too!
The Hip-Hop Summit held in New York City in 2001 is the subject of a number of articles in MasterFile Premier. Below are a couple of good web sites on the Summit:
Hip-Hop
Summit Action Network
Freedom
Forum
The ever-popular site All Music Guide has options for selecting music styles, from classical to rap, to reggae and new age. After selecting a music style choose options for reading essays, lists of key artists, albums, new releases, biographical sketches of artists.
Another great music site is All Hip Hop – here you’ll find reviews, news, and editorials.
If TCCL doesn’t have books and other materials you need for your paper you can Interlibrary Loan them, which means we borrow them from another library system for you. If you choose to do this, request the materials as soon as possible because it sometimes takes several weeks for them to come in.
Once you have all materials for your paper, it’s time to start writing. If you need some help the library has many writing manuals; the Primary Source Page lists a few of them and there are several Writing pathfinders you might find useful as well.