This course will explore one enduring question: Why and how has hip-hop become equally a tool for revolution and capitalist expansion across the world? As hip-hop has attained the interest of corporate America, it has gone from being vilified by many in the mainstream to a source of expansion for American ideals. As hip-hop began to emerge in other countries, it also began to develop its own country-specific narrative. Across the globe, the effects of hip-hop can be felt from politics and education to pop culture and religion from the Arab Spring to the whitewashing of history books in Japan. This course explores how hip-hop has become a source of revolution and capitalist expansion for some of the world’s most marginalized (and not-so-marginalized) populations.