Critical Review - Tricia Rose

In "A Style Nobody Can Deal With", Tricia Rose describes hip hop as being an "Afro-diasporic cultural form which attempts to negotiate the experiences of marginalization, brutally truncated opportunity and oppression" (71). Rose also notes that hip hop is not entirely resistive, for there are many instances in which hip hop is complicit to the dominant hegemonic white-led society that is partially responsible for the unequal financial and societal circumstances many African-Americans find themselves in. Rose goes on to detail the various historical events that precipitated hip hop in New York City, including the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which displaced thousands of working class African-American families, and the looting that follow the blackout of 1977. During its early years, hip hop consisted of four distinct practices: graffiti, break dancing, DJing, and rapping. According to Rose, each of these practices operated via the concepts of flow, layering, and rupture, concepts which are analagous to the manner in which African-Americans must operate in America on a day to day basis: African Americans create "sustaining narratives" (flow) and "accumulate them" (layering) as an affirmational practice, but are constantly on the look out for ruptures in the fabric of their culture (racism, poverty, etc.) that they must combat in order to survive (82). In many ways, hip hop revolves around competition, around gaining status and being celebrated for one's skills, ultimately around "having a style nobody can deal with". In her concluding statement, Rose articulates that in providing a forum for "counterdominant narratives", hip hop is the real "urban renewal" that is so needed in communities where there appears to be little hope for improving the quality of life (85).

Question: if we are going to call African-Americans a diaspora group, how must we define the term "diaspora" to incorporate a group whose members may feel alienated from "dominant" society but don't necessarily feel an allegience to a homeland outside of their own community?