Summary Of Jay-Z By Gi Gil Cook

Cook begins his contribution in this book by talking about the background of Jay-Z. He eventually gets to his main claim, that even though hip hop and black urban culture isn’t highly represented through mainstream media, Jay-Z is able to provide a media for his expression because of his developed fanbase. His presence within pop culture allows him to do this as well. Cook supports his main claim with a subclaim, that media typically doesn’t follow black celebrities around and have multiple news headlines about them when compared to white celebrities. He elaborates by saying black culture isn’t paid attention to unless they do something controversial, influential, or pivotal in a social movement. Jay-Z is only able to bring attention to the topics he’s passionate about because of his platform as an artist. He cannot rely on the media to represent these ideas because they won’t generate any media traffic. Cook rounds out his essay with his warrant, that Jay-Z understands the mechanism of black representation.
His research focuses on analysis of global black literatures, hip-hop culture, and critical race theory. Because Cook focuses his research on analysis on hip-hop culture, it validates his paper on Jay-Z and his connection with cultural representation. The publishing company, McFarland & Company, Inc., has a history of publishing sports literature, but they have also published multiple articles about black culture. These two details help make Gil Cook a credible source. The only limitation or concern that I have about his source is that he doesn’t have a specialized background in media studies. However, Cook gives very good insight when he mentions that black representation is scarce in media. It’s incredibly helpful because he also explains why in his