Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World

· Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Michael Butler Murray
Audiobook
6 hr 25 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

Since 2001, the US Department of State has been sending hip hop artists abroad to perform and teach as goodwill ambassadors. There are good reasons for this: hip hop is known and loved across the globe, acknowledged and appreciated as a product of American culture. Hip hop has from its beginning been a means of creating community through artistic collaboration, fostering what hip hop artists call building.



A timely study of US diplomacy, Build: The Power of Hip Hop Diplomacy in a Divided World reveals the power of art to bridge cultural divides, facilitate understanding, and express and heal trauma. Yet power is never single-edged, and the story of hip hop diplomacy is deeply fraught. Drawing from nearly 150 interviews with hip hop artists, diplomats, and others in more than thirty countries, Build explores the inescapable tensions and ambiguities in the relationship between art and the state, revealing the ethical complexities that lurk behind what might seem mere goodwill tours. Author Mark Katz makes the case that hip hop, at its best, can promote positive, productive international relations between people and nations. A US-born art form that has become a voice of struggle and celebration worldwide, hip hop has the power to build global community when it is so desperately needed.

About the author

Mark Katz is professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music and Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip-Hop DJ. He is coeditor of Music, Sound, and Technology in America: A Documentary History. Michael Butler Murray is a professional actor, narrator, and musician who has voiced over fifty-five audiobooks. His recorded titles run the spectrum from dramatic to comedic fiction and nonfiction titles varying in topics from the Middle East to understanding your dog's olfactory senses.

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