Austin McCoy

Jan 9, 2025 | publicbooks.org | Austin McCoy |Charlotte Rosen

For a weekend in May, rap artists Drake and Kendrick Lamar ignited a fierce battle that engulfed popular culture. Lamar struck first. On Future and Metro Boomin’s “Like That,” Lamar set the stage for a relentless exchange of songs and disses between Drake, Kendrick Lamar, J-Cole, and Rick Ross. Drake responded with “Push Ups” and the controversial “Taylor Made Freestyle,” where the rapper utilized verses from AI renditions of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg.

Jan 8, 2024 | thebaffler.com | Austin McCoy |Esmat Elhalaby

I was eleven years old when I saw the video footage of four Los Angeles police officers kicking and pummeling Rodney King. It was March of 1991. In my parents’ living room in our home in Mansfield, Ohio, I watched as television news seemed to have the violent video on endless loop. When the officers were acquitted in April of the following year, I remember my parents expressing outrage at the verdict. I watched news coverage of the uprising that followed, transfixed.

Aug 25, 2023 | aaihs.org | Austin McCoy

This post is part of our forum on “Hip Hop at 50.”This syllabus provides resources to understanding Hip-Hop Culture’s past and present. While it would be impossible to include everything published on Hip-Hop Culture, this syllabus features an array of sources including listings to archives, anthologies, autobiographies, biographies, podcasts, documentaries, films, and primary and secondary sources. It also offers links to Spotify playlists devoted to documenting hip-hop history.

Jul 26, 2023 | truthout.org | Amy Goodman |Sharon Zhang |Austin McCoy |Emily Drabinski

Image Credit: Sonyi LopezThis week, a witness to the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 revealed for the first time that he overheard a New York police officer asking if Malcolm’s assassin was “with us.” The eyewitness, Mustafa Hassan, spoke Tuesday alongside Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz and civil rights attorney Ben Crump at a press conference at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. Democracy Now! spoke to Hassan at the press conference.

Jul 5, 2023 | truthout.org | Bill Berkowitz |George Yancy |Austin McCoy |David Renton

The shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, a young man of Algerian descent, during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb, has been characterized as a cold-blooded, point-blank execution and has catalyzed massive street demonstrations in cities across the country. Merzouk is the most recent victim of a 2017 law that loosened restrictions on the use of firearms by police in cases where a driver refuses to stop at an officer’s order.