Hip Hop Studies Commons^™

Flows That Teach: Multimodal Hip-Hop Pedagogy For Equity In Special Education, Camille O'Quin, Sara Jozwik

Journal of the Arts and Special Education

Hip-Hop can be more than a soundtrack played at home, it can be a bridge between culture, language, and learning at school. This article shows how Hip-Hop pedagogy, translanguaging, and code-meshing can support students with disabilities, especially those who speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE), in the classroom setting. Grounded in culturally relevant pedagogy and translanguaging theory, the approach uses rhythm, storytelling, and performance to build narrative fluency, language awareness, and confidence. Examples include students drafting rap verses about personal experiences, holding structured cypher circles to practice turn-taking and self-expression, and blending AAVE with Mainstream American English in writing for …

The Unexpected Gift: Using Hip-Hop And Autoethnographic Methods To Challenge The “Symbolic Death” Discourse Of A Child’S Autism Diagnosis, Adam Ellis

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This article explores the social construction of autism through an autoethnographic account of parenting an autistic child in Canada. Drawing on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s grief model, neurodiversity scholarship, and post-traumatic growth theory, the paper examines how parents may experience grief, uncertainty, and the collapse of imagined futures following an autism diagnosis, while also arguing that much of this distress is produced by ableist and deficit-oriented social systems rather than autism itself. Using arts-based research, including a rap song and music video, the article explores: (1) what it is like to receive an autism diagnosis as a parent; (2) the grieving process …

Soundtrack Of Struggle: Racial Injustice, Resistance, And Redemption In To Pimp A Butterfly, Carson Yee

Culture, Society, and Praxis

This paper explores and analyzes the extent to which Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 album, To Pimp a Butterfly, is a profound examination of the contemporary socio-political scene within the United States of America. In the introduction, the topic of protest art is discussed, highlighting the album’s role in addressing America’s ongoing struggle with racial justice. A context surrounding Kendrick Lamar and the formation of the To Pimp a Butterfly album follows, which then sets the stage for a thorough analysis of the various lyrical, musical, and contextual elements that suggest this album is a deeper evaluation of socio-political issues in America. …

We Got You Sis: Body Mapping As An Embodied Pedagogical Approach To Sexual And Reproductive Justice Studies, Renata J. Hall

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Erasing The Artist, Policing The City: Michael Stewart And New York’S War On Graffiti, Vladislav Kirilov

Anthós

The 1983 death of Michael Stewart, a young Black graffiti artist, exposes the violent logic at the center of New York City’s War on Graffiti. Under Mayor Ed Koch and the rise of broken windows policing, graffiti was framed as a racialized symbol of disorder used to justify intensified control of public space. Rather than becoming political in this moment, graffiti is understood here as an already politicized form of expression shaped by racial and spatial inequality. The article examines how Stewart’s killing made police violence visible, provoking responses from artists, activists, and graffiti writers while revealing the human costs …

Digital Griots Playing Lottery Tickets: A Study Of Hip Hop And Social Transformation In Ghana's #Fixthecountry Movement, Jaime M. Kowlessar

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

On June 28, 2021, activist Ibrahim Mohammed (Macho Kaaka) was murdered in Ejura, Ghana, after using social media to criticize government failures. When protesters demanding justice were shot by security forces, politically engaged Ghanaian hip hop artists refused silence, contributing to Ghana’s #FixTheCountry movement—the nation’s largest youth mobilization in a generation. Yet scholarly debates about how hip hop contributes to social change remain unresolved, divided between those celebrating its activist potential and those critiquing its limitations. This dissertation introduces the lottery ticket theory as an alternative framework for understanding cultural activism’s relationship to political transformation. Rather than asking whether hip …

Tailoring Black Style And Its Powerful Pieces: From West Africa To The U.S. West Coast And Everything In-Between, Gabriel Capellan

Occasional Essays

Introduction:

On September 19, 2025, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum (MET) with some of the Bronx African American History Project team. The people in attendance were Graduate Assistant, Anthony Rosado, and Undergraduate Assistants, Serena Velasquez and Emma Garr, wonderful people, I tell you. After the tour, we ended up at the American art exhibit and had podcast conversations about history for what felt like both hours and very brief minutes... We went to the MET to see a particular piece that was in the Superfine: Tailoring Black Style exhibit curated by Barnard professor, Monica L. Miller …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

“Tell Your Papa”: Aesthetics Of Confrontation And Visual Witnessing In Nigerian Protest Music, Omotayo Jemiluyi

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This study analyzes the music video “Tell Your Papa” (2025), a politically charged protest song by Nigerian artiste Eedris Abdulkareem, as an exemplary case of aesthetics of confrontation, here conceptualized as a multimodal strategy in which direct address, anti-spectacle visual style, literalism, and discomfort converge to confront political power. Focusing on the song’s explicit critique of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his son Seyi Tinubu, and other prominent political figures, the analysis demonstrates how Abdulkareem renders indistinct the line between music and political discourse through a visual-sonic language that is accusatory, documentary-stylized, and unflinchingly courageous. While building on the lineage …

Stolen Moments: Jazz And The Opportunity To Capture Hip Hop Fans, Fahiym Abdul-Wasi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the intricate relationship between jazz and hip-hop, examining how these two influential genres intersect culturally and musically. Jazz, with its rich history and expressive improvisation, laid the groundwork for hip-hop, a genre that emerged as a powerful voice for Black Americans and other disenfranchised communities. The thesis highlights the impact of sampling, a fundamental technique in hip-hop that allows artists to repurpose jazz recordings and thereby preserve their legacy while infusing contemporary narratives. By analyzing key albums and the contributions of notable artists, this study underscores the potential for reintroducing jazz to new audiences through hip-hop. As …

It's Deeper Than Rap. Exploring The Lived Experiences Of Black Faculty With Hip-Hop Epistemologies Through Counterstory, Austin Ashe

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation study explores the experiences of Black professors who carry Hip-Hop epistemologies and utilize Hip-Hop as a method to navigate the social and structural systems within their predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Grounded in Critical Race Theory, the study utilizes narrative inquiry and counterstorytelling. The analysis involved the development of a composite counterstory featuring the fictional protagonist, Hampton Franklin. The findings highlight common experiences among participants. Findings suggest that Black faculty are insiders whose positions grant them access and influence. Second, they are outsiders that navigate hypervisibility, invisibility, and racial battle fatigue. Third, each participant was a “pedagogue of the …

Feelings That Drive, Kayla M. Jackson

LSU Master's Theses

Feelings That Drive is an interdisciplinary, multimodal thesis that blends poetry, personal narrative, lyrical essays, and spiritual reflection to explore the complex intersections of Black identity, memory, trauma, resilience, and healing in the contemporary American South. Framed in five thematic sections—Worn, Anxiousness, Desperation, Hopeful, and Restored—the work traverses emotional and geographic landscapes, most notably the author’s home in New Orleans, to trace the cumulative effects of racialized trauma, familial rupture, and spiritual seeking. Through nonlinear storytelling and form-breaking verse, the thesis confronts experiences such as anti-Blackness in institutional spaces, gendered violence, economic precarity, generational silence, and the haunting …

Visibly Invisible: Reclaiming Atlanta Black Architecture Through Black Expression, Sean M. Spencer

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Architecture has long grappled with questions of self, community, and cultural identity. While the number of Black architects is growing, architecture that genuinely reflects Black identity remains rare. This lack of representation has contributed to a sense of invisibility for Black communities within the built environment—whether by design or neglect. There is an urgent need to define and celebrate Blackness and Black space in ways that reflect the cultural richness of Black communities. As George Will points out, broad labels like African American or African often obscure the unique cultural experiences within Black communities. Historically, the lack of economic and …

Heartbeat Of The Heartland: Sonic Engagement With Hip-Hop In The American Midwest, Lauren R. Millhorn

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This project analyzes Hip-Hop artists from the American Midwest through the context of the Midwest’s construction as a nostalgic, peaceful area where conflict seems nonexistent. This study applies Adam Ochonicky’s concept of nostalgic spatiality, or “instances in which nostalgia is projected onto a physical environment, thereby altering the perception, understanding, and/or experience of that space and its accompanying cultural sphere” (Ochonicky 29) to close readings on Midwest Hip-Hop texts. In the case of the Midwest, projected nostalgia is rooted in whiteness and propels the narrative that the Midwest is predominantly occupied by white people who maintain its peace and serenity …

Beyond Just The Negros’ Art: Langston Hughes And The Poetic Renewal Of Black Musical Tradition, Samuel Adewumi

All Theses

Where do we begin the study of Black music in America? Is there even a beginning to it? As a poet, how does Langston Hughes contribute to its continuance during the Harlem Renaissance? These are some of the questions that shape the trajectory of this research. In it, I set a precedent for African orature in future studies of Black music in America. Essentially, I trace the survival of African orature and Langston Hughes’s role in the sustenance and utility of its style and themes in the early 20th century. Through it, I argue that Hughes’s poetry serves not as …

Black Sonicism: Cultural Maintenance And Evolution Through New Orleans Bounce Music, Leandrea L. Clay

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

As a form of regional hip-hop, Bounce music operates as an expressive culture native to New Orleans with generational lineages of artists. Black sonicism is a regionally and digitally-sensitive theoretical framework that seeks to conceptualize how Black soundmakers and their audiences create a dialogic relationship through three components: responsive participation, spatial relatability, and expressed ratchetry. I catalog each of these components through three audience formations—origin, scope, and reception—to understand the tensions between Black music, regional identity, and technology. From this project, I propose a theoretical development to consider how Black artists continually pass down communal histories through their music while …

Liner Notes On Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music As A Praxis Of Self-Fashioning, Shawn J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer …

Fueling The Fire! How Black Students Make Sense Of Their Experiences With Youth Development Programs And Their Roles In Post-Secondary Transition And Success, Erica Austin

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I used a phenomenological research design to explore how Black students make sense of their experiences with Youth Development Programs (YDPs)and how the program components contributed to their transition and success in postsecondary education. An analysis of the interview data gathered from ten black students through the lens of Social Identity Theory revealed three themes: (a) YDPs help students feel prepared and supported by equipping them with essential academic and life skills, mentorship, and leadership opportunities; (b) Representation within YDPs fosters self-efficacy and aspiration, as mentors and role models who share students’ cultural backgrounds inspire confidence and …

Echoes Before Language: A Written Thesis On Movement, Origin, And Becoming, Shadidja Parker

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis presents a body-based, lineage-informed approach to movement development into dance, honoring both scientific and spiritual knowledge systems. It engages in a blend of qualitative, embodied, and autoethnographic methods—including dance studies, developmental science, phenomenology, and cultural analysis—to examine how movement emerges, evolves, and carries meaning. Grounded in my lived experience as a dancer, mother, and Black woman, this research frames the body as both a site and source of knowledge. I use my own body as an instrument of movement, memory, and identity, positioning my embodiment as a form of inquiry. The thesis is organized in two parts: a …

Connections And Contrasts Between “Enactments Of Power: The Politics Of Performance Space” By Ngugi Wa Thiong’O, Kendrick Lamar’S 2025 Superbowl Performance, And Sunni Patterson’S “We Made It.”, Crystal Endsley Taylor

Open Educational Resources

This assignment by Dr. Crystal Endsley Taylor uses all Open, "low-tech" solutions to create an active learning module that prompts students to pause, retrieve, re-state and reconsider several texts, including The Politics of Performance Space” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kendrick Lamar’s 2025 Superbowl performance, and Sunni Patterson’s “We Made It.” It was made as part of a workshop on OER-based Active Learning at John Jay College in 2025.