Abstracthiphop is a sub-genre of hip hop that eschews many of the genre’s conventions. It combines elements of hip hop with experimental and avant-garde sounds and is characterized by its unconventional production techniques, abstract and often surrealistic lyrical content, and use of samples from a wide range of sources.

Abstract hip hop is a fusion of hip hop, jazz, funk, soul and electronic music. It is also influenced by spoken word and poetry. It can include a wide variety of genres, and it focuses on social issues.

The origins of abstract hip hop are rooted in the African-American experience of marginality and deprivation (Watkins 1999; Rose 1994). It is a culture born from the conditions of economic exploitation that existed in racialized communities in urban America during the era of slavery, and it continues to cultivate moral dispositions to challenge those inequities.

Hip hop is a culture that centers on four expressive practices: deejaying, break(danc)ing, graffiti writing, and emceeing. It is a genre that is often associated with blackness, but it has been adopted by affiliates of other racial backgrounds (Harrison 2009; Jeffries 2011).

Hip hop uses intertextually-positioned continuities and ruptures to generate sensation and spectacle. Through its generative practices of turning consumption into new modes of cultural production and meaning-making, hip hop spotlights individual and community self-worth.