There was a time, not so long ago, when blacks were nowhere to be found on American TV and movie screens, unless they were playing one-dimensional criminals. These days, blacks, as represented by the now-ubiquitous hip-hop culture, are everywhere in the mass media. But the incessant stereotyping is no less pernicious: “For all its universal cultural influence, hip-hop evokes the most negative representations of its creators – images of gun-toting drug dealers, the apathetic baby daddies, the irresponsible down-low brothers.”