Call for Contributors: I am seeking contributors for Represent Where
I'm 
From: The Greenwood Guide to American Regional Hip Hop, a
two-volume 
reference set under contract with Greenwood Press. This
collection will 
consist of 10,000-word essays on the most important
regional hip hop 
scenes in the US. I have signed several contributors
for the project, but the following regions are still available:

1. Bronx
2. Brooklyn
3. Manhattan
4. New Jersey (Newark, Trenton, Camden, etc)
5. Los Angeles
6. Compton
7. San Francisco
8. Miami
9. Houston
10. Atlanta
11. Memphis
12. Ohio: Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland
13. St Louis 
14. Southern Appalachia (Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina)

In hip hop, where an artist comes from means everything. From Brooklyn

to Memphis, hip hop artists devote song lyrics to their cities,
neighborhoods, area codes, and street corners. Musically, regions
often carry distinctive styles of production that become known as
Houston's Screwed and Chopped sound or the Miami Bass Sound. Hip hop
artists represent where they're from in the way they talk in regional
accents and dialects, the way they dress, and the setting of the
stories 
they tell in their lyrics. This collection will profile
regional hip hop 
scenes in the US to show how regional slang, sounds,
and styles are 
developed, and how artists use those sounds and styles
to represent their 
hometowns.

Represent Where I'm From traces hip hop's development from 1970s block

parties in the South Bronx to a worldwide phenomenon with unique
musical 
styles throughout several regions in the United States. The
collection 
will address the importance of region to hip hop identity,
from the early 
rap battles between Queens' Juice Crew and the Bronx's
Boogie Down 
Productions, to the well-publicized East Coast vs. West
Coast beefs 
between Bad Boy Records and Death Row Records. This
collection will 
showcase the hip hop artists who create styles all
their own by developing 
slang, fashion style, and musical and lyrical
structures meant to 
represent the place they call home.

About the Editor: Dr. Mickey Hess is Assistant Professor of English at

Rider University, the editor of Greenwood Press' Icons of Hip hop,
and the 
author of Is Hip Hop Dead? The Past, Present, and Future of
America's Most Wanted Music (forthcoming from Praeger). His
scholarship on hip hop music has been published in Critical Studies in
Media Communication, Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study
of Literature, and Popular Music and Society.

Submitting a Proposal: Each author will agree to write a 10,000-word
essay on one region, plus 5 "Landmarks," which are 300-500 word
sidebars that highlight 
geographical landmarks mentioned in lyrics,
as well as slang terms, fashion items, 
production styles, area codes,
street corners, restaurants, interstate 
roads, local radio stations,
etc, that are important to the region's 
music.

Please submit an outline of your proposed essay, a CV, and a 
writing
sample as Microsoft Word Documents to Mickey Hess at
regionalhiphop_at_gmail.com. Your outline should include the hip hop
artists 
and regional features you plan to cover, as well as a list of
the 5 
landmarks that will serve as sidebars for your essay.

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Received on Sun Apr 22 2007 - 15:35:59 EDT