Bringing back sweet (and not so sweet) memories: the cultural politics of memory, hip-hop, and generational identities

This article examines the salience of collective ‘memory’ and ‘remembering’ among a group of students in Hip-Hop Lit, a hip-hop centered English literature course that I co-taught at ‘Howard High School,’ an urban high school in the Northeastern United States. Specifically, this article examines the memory work that occurred within Hip-Hop Lit in response to the students’ interactions with one of the course texts, Things Done Changed by rapper Notorious B.I.G. From this and other classroom texts, students were able to construct, contest, and reinscribe memories about the past. Through these memories, students were able to reaffirm and challenge particular social identities that informed and reflected their lived experiences.