-        What is the role of language?

-        How might hip hop be seen as a product of American history and/or society at the time?

-        How has hip hop developed?

-        Does hip hop fit the subculture criteria from Wikipedia?:

-       often negative relations to work (as 'idle', 'parasitic', at play or at leisure, etc.);

-       negative or ambivalent relation to class (since subcultures are not 'class-conscious' and don't conform to traditional class definitions);

-       association with territory (the 'street', the 'hood', the club, etc.), rather than property;

-       movement out of the home and into non-domestic forms of belonging (i.e. social groups other than the family);

-       stylistic ties to excess and exaggeration (with some exceptions);

-       refusal of the banalities of ordinary life and massification