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o cool and funky urban hedonism. Rap thus points to the diversity of the African-American community and is itself a musical genre that makes its audiences vividly aware of the differences between various social groups in U.S. society and the oppression of the underclass. Although there were rap artists in the 1970s, it was in the 1980s that rap became massively popular, coming of age during the Reagan-Bush era. As a result of conservative attacks, the 1980s was a period of immense hardship for blacks as the Reagan right shifted wealth from the poor to the rich, cut back on welfare programs, and neglected the concerns of black s and the poor. [4] During this period, the standard of living and job possibilities for African-Americans declined and living conditions in the inner-city ghettos deteriorated with growing crime, drug use, crack cocaine, teen pregnancies, AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, gangs, and urban violence. Stylistically, rap music arguably stands between the modern and the postmodern, deploying postmodern techniques of sampling, quotation and collage of various sounds for modern purposes of self-expression and articulating social critique and rebellion. [5] Rap has a close relation with musical technologies and can be seen as a form of technoculture, for while it depends heavily on the voice and diction for its effects, its production involves highly skilled use of new musical technologies. While early hip-hop music mocked the technical sophistication of disco through the medium of a technically versatile DJ's manipulation of turntables, and while some early rap was technically primitive, later rap evolved into a highly complex tapestry of sound, using sampling, multi-track overlay, computers, and a variety of sophisticated mixing techniques. There is, in fact, often not much "real" or "original" music, but simply basic drum beats and guitar riffs, overlaid with recorded sounds. Starting around 1987-88, Public Enemy and other rap groups began experimenting with multilayered sound collage, appropriating sounds from contemporary media culture, everyday life, and the archive of the voices of black radicalism. Thus, the DJ or mixer, such as Public Enemy's Terminator X, plays an important part in the production of the sound of rap and is often respected accordingly. At this moment, rap articulated with a postmodern aesthetic of sampling, quotation, and appropriation, thus becoming part of the postmodern turn in culture (on postmodern aesthetics, see Best and Kellner 1997, Chapter 3). In particular, rap groups "sample" previous music (also known as "sonic shop-lifting"), sometimes respectfully in the manner of quotation, sometimes ironically in the mode of juxtaposition, and sometimes satirically or critically by counterpoising a romantic love song with misogynous lyrics or violent street sounds. Rap groups regularly sample black classics like James Brown, but also engage in crossover poaching with DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince ironically sampling the "I Dream of Jeannie" theme for their rap "Girls Ain't Nuttin' But Trouble." The group De La Soul created something of a scandal by sampling an Aerosmith song in the early 1990s, but by now this is accepted as normal, as, for example, when Coolio sampled ("interpolated") Kool and the Gang's song "Too Hot" to make its catchy riff and lyrics more relevant for the 90s: " 'A mind is a terrible thing to waste'/That was the slogan/But now it's '95 and its 'Don't forget