Being Dope: Hip Hop and Theory through Mixtape Memoir

by A.D. Carson

Being Dope is a book that will challenge what you think you know about rap and rappers. It is not a typical memoir and is as much about genre as it is about anything history, hip hop scholarship, storytelling, and theorizing through rap. Each section features A.D. Carson's mixtap/e/ssay lyrics alongside poetry, reflective prose, and critical analysis that provide social, historical, academic, and personal context. Being Dope is about permission and sanctioning. As Carson demonstrates, dope is distinct from drugs like illegal is distinct from legal and illicit is distinct from licit. Being Dope is about the rapper as genre, a contested category of human relegated to subhuman status in the public imagination. The book is, therefore, a refusal of this the rapper being, on his own terms.

Dope is rooted in the experiences of Black people in the U.S., including histories of people treated as property, chattel, technology, and the "War on Drugs" - a war on people - its casualties and aftermaths. Dope is also a measure of quality, of cool. Being Dope is about the presence of pasts and futures - methods of intoxication - more than it is about the absence of humility. Being Dope is the beautiful, ugly, abundant, and otherwise art made from the ruins of war and the carnage it leaves.

532 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 17, 2024

About the author

A.D. CARSON was born in Decatur, Illinois. He received a B.A. in Education and Creative Writing from Millikin University and M.A. in English from the University of Illinois, Springfield. He is a high school educator whose only aspiration as a high school student was to become a professional rapper. After releasing two albums independently and living out his rap dreams he chose education as a professional career. He has never lost his Hip-Hop ties, however, using his unique career path and avocations to engage students and audiences of all ages and disciplines. He continues bridging the gap between the music and literature through teaching, performing and conducting workshops. An educator, author, and performance artist, he has written hundreds of unpublished poems, stories, songs, and other tangentially related pieces, some of which he shares on his website, AydeeTheGreat.com. His first album, Writer’s Block, was released in 2000, followed by Aristotle XIV in 2002, White T-Shirt [EP] in 2004, Cold World Mix Tape Volume 1 in 2010, Cold World Mix Tape Volume 2 and Cold in 2011. The recipient of the Grace Patton Conant Award for Literary Creation, A.D. Carson’s work has appeared in Collage and The Alchemist’s Review and Quiddity International Literary Journal and Public-Radio Program. He currently serves as Writer-In-Residence for Benedictine University at Springfield. Additionally, his essay, Oedipus-Not-So-Complex: A Blueprint for Literary Education, appears as a chapter in the critical reader, Jay-Z: Essays on Hip Hop’s Philosopher King (McFarland Press, 2011). His first novel, COLD, is available from Mayhaven Publishing, Inc. His newest collection, The City: [un]poems, thoughts, rhymes and miscellany, is forthcoming from Mayhaven Publishing, Inc. A.D. Carson's audio projects can be purchased at amazon.com or on iTunes.