Bangladesh: Songs of Subversion “The U.S. government has observed the power of hip hop culture as a vehicle for expression, protest, and a political voice for young people,” Professor Sujatha Fernandes, a sociologist at the University of Sydney and the author of the book, “Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation,” told MintPress News.  “Groups like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID earlier consistently chose Black cultural expressions from jazz to hip