The DJ Is Precedent (Hip Hop, Technical Communication, and Community)

The DJ Is Precedent argues that hip-hop culture can bring more people to the expanding field of technical communication as it charts a path following its social justice turn.

Through an archival study, Victor J. Del Hierro traces the social constructs of 1990s Houston hip-hip culture in local communities through the development of “screwed and chopped" hip hop as it became a new and distinct style. Then, the book theorizes the hip-hop DJ as a model for the technical communicator. Grounded in call-and-response, the hip-hop DJ teaches us to reorient our communication to focus on audience connection and to value community-based audience participation in communicative spaces.

As more people make the connection between social justice and technical communication, hip-hop culture can be a point of access into the field. Del Hierro makes the case that bringing hip hop and technical communication together is an opportunity to create more effective communication practices in the fields of writing, rhetoric, and technical and professional communication.

CCCC Studies in Writing & Rhetoric