Hip Hop, Poetry & the Carceral State, created by the Documenting Prison Education and Arts Team, documents the influence of hip hop on many incarcerated writers’ work and sense of identity. The project discusses how hip hop functions as both a form of personal expression and a political statement for Black incarcerated writers, highlighting how hip hop music emerged out of a violent history of over policing communities of color. The research team closely analyzed poems dealing with the intersection of poetry and hip hop, using three analytic lenses (political and structural, social and cultural, and historical) to understand the relationship between hip hop, poetry, and the carceral state.
Read the full report here.
