During the period spanning from 1980-2008 images of black men in popular culture shifted dramatically in concert with the political, social, and economic experience of black people in the U.S. As rap music came of age in that period, its artists reflect the cultural milieu out of which they came. Situated at the juncture of Black Studies, Cultural Geography, Music, and Literature Studies, this dissertation analyzes the representation and reality of black masculinity, using hip hop megastar Lil Wayne as a case study. I investigate the ways that black masculinity is performed in dialogue with the black community, the city of New Orleans, the U.S. South, and the nation. Lil Wayne's music is a briar patch of entangled ironies. His work demonstrates both the persistence of black rhetorical practices and the presence of mainstream pop music formulas. His conception of gender operates within a framework that both disrupts and replicates black gangster stereotypes. Although his shape-shifting masculinity over time reflects a widening of possibilities for black masculinity, I argue that traditional black rhetorical practices persist in hip hop and that race still marks rhetorical and image-making strategies in popular culture. Also, even as the rhetoric of race is increasingly discoursed in terms of its decreasing significance in popular culture, racialized identities must negotiate the new mainstream expectations of race and gender to remain commercially viable.
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