alternative hip hop like all genres of art is a social construction and as such the definition is open to debate if with the term social construction in this sentance the statement alternative hip hop like all genres of art is a social construction is meant to convey that any musical work one calls alternitive hip hop happens to be the product of an agent operating under certain social conditions as opposed to working in a vacuum or if it is meant to establish that the term alternative hip hop was created by such an agent then the statement is quite true however a social construction typically is opposed to a natural kind in that it is only conventional in this sense it is not altogether clear if in fact the statement is true take the art genres oil painting and punk rock it is not merely as a point of convention that we say these two genres are different there is a matter of fact about it however in neither of these senses does it straightforwardly follow that as such the definition is open to debate i do not mean to contend that the definition isn't open to debate but only that its openness to debate isn't tied in any direct way to whether it is a social contruction in the first case consider the terms integer and one both terms where surely created by agents in a social setting yet their definitions are particularly rigorous as for the second case i might say that a man is jewish just in case his mother were jewish jew in this sense is a social construction it is purely social convention and not a natural kind in any ordinary way nonetheless we already stipulated a perfectly rigourous definition j