The book opens with an overview of the tensions that increasingly define hip-hop’s role in contemporary culture, namely the way that the music continually shifts between complicity and critique in its assessment of capitalism and racialized inequality. This ambivalence is related back to the currents of pleasure and pain that run through the work of such rappers as Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion, and to the usage of hip-hop in a recent film soundtrack. After briefly discussing the editor’s own position in relation to the culture, the introduction moves on to an overview of the collection’s general aims. These include the attempt to reflect both the diverse styles and regions of contemporary hip-hop, and the political commitments of the contributors. A short discussion of editorial conventions follows, as well as an account of the book’s approach to hate speech. The section ends with a brief overview of each of the nineteen chapters.

This chapter listens closely to songs released by Saweetie (‘My Type’ and ‘Tap In’), Latto (‘Muwop’), Erica Banks (‘Buss It’), and Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion (‘W.A.P.’) in 2019 and 2020. Each of these tracks employs sonic elements of trap music while sampling classic hip-hop and club anthems. Beyond just flipping samples, these rappers flip hip-hop sexuality itself on its head, transforming cuts that position Black women as objects into songs that center Black women’s desire and agency. We listen to these tracks not only in relation to one another (and to the sources of their samples) but also in the context of Sylvia Wynter’s influential analysis of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Riffing on Katherine McKittrick’s engagement with Wynter, we theorize the work of these rappers as “demonic sound,” as they make themselves present in music that had previously absented them.