Zebra Katz’s “Imma Read”: The Aesthetic and Affective Power of a Black Girlhood and Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy

• In Event: A Space of Our Own: Transforming Education, Innovating Pedagogy, and Upgrading Literacy With Black and Brown Girls in Mind

Abstract

The song, “Imma Read” by Zebra Katz musically incites queer ball culture of color vernacular in its repetitive invocation of the verb to read, to mean diss, call out, and forthrightly address issues and people. As the song gained popularity, cultural outsiders critiqued it as misogynist. In this paper, I analyze the music video for “Imma Read” against literature in literacy and hip-hop feminist pedagogy (Brown, 2008; Brown & Kwayke, 2012; Richardson, 2006).
As a response and redress to its critics, the video features Black woman artist, Njena Red Foxx and visually incites various aesthetic signs and affective sensibilities of Black girlhood and hip-hop feminist pedagogy. My analysis demonstrates how the video gestures toward something greater than literacy, and works as an example of Black (girl) genius capable of “reading and righting” wrong interpretations. The aesthetic choices and affective sensibilities invoked in the video suggest Black girlhood as a creative potential, or subversive imaginary, recuperates queerness in context of a Black girl aesthetic and affect, and vice versa.

Author

• Ruth Nicole Brown, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign