The days when hip hop music was considered “dangerous” and “radical” are officially over (Masciotra 71). Hip hop has become the next closest representation of the mainstream culture that the 21 st century has to offer (Alim “Critical Hip-Hop Language Pedagogies” 162). However, it seems that, by borrowing the attributes of the traditional hip-hop style, people may have forgotten about the messages and innuendoes underlying the hip hop tradition. In his book Know What I Mean?: Reflections on Hip-Hop , Mickey Dyson addresses the theme of prison (Kitwana 83) and imprisonment ( Jailhouse Roc: The FACTS About Hip Hop and Prison for Profit para. 2) that the hip hop culture is shot through (Cundiff 72). By incorporating the concept of spiritual captivity (Byerman 135) and the social ostracism into his definition of prison as applied to the African American people defining themselves as the adepts of the hip hop culture (Dobrin 5), Dyson makes his argument compelling and all-embracive, therefore, mailing down the essence of the aforementioned cultural movement. First and foremost, the analysis of the effects of prison as a facility for convicts on African American people, primarily, male African Americans, is provided. Dyson makes it very obvious that, being neglected to the point where they become completely ostracized from the rest of the society, African Americans consider prison, with its unique universe and a specific set of principles, an alternative to the process of integrating into the society: “because the society throws you few other options, means that you’re already in a kind of psychological and spiritual prison” (Dyson 14). By addressing one of the most controversial issues regarding the African American culture, i.e., the fact that Black people have an extremely limited set of options for becoming a member of the society (Hess 374; Collins 26), Dyson makes his argument very strong. Though considering the controversy that has been the “elephant in the room” for quite a time, Dyson clearly takes his argument to an admittedly high level of convincingness, it is not only the consideration of the effects of prison onto the lives of African Americans (Baxter and Marina 108), but also the analysis of the spiritual evolution of the Black culture (Liu 147) in relation to hip hop that makes Dyson’s point so impressive. Indeed, there are more of African American people and the people belonging to the Black culture among convicts than those that are traditionally associated with the white culture (Forman para. 5). The fact that a number of African American people appear behind the bars more frequently than the white population is only partially explained by the fact that crime rates among the African American residents of the United States are higher. As a result, “part of the fascination with prison is a reflection of the sad existential truths of young black male life” (Dyson 14). Therefore, Dyson makes his argument all the stronger by stressing that the problem of prison and imprisonment is a recurrent theme in the art of most African American hip hop performers. To understand where the problem stems from, a more detailed scrutiny of the African Am