A People's Hip-Hop Scholar Bringing Critical Hope and Resistance Beyond Hip-Hop Scholarship

• In Event: You Know How We Do It: Hip-Hop Pedagogy in the Classroom, Counseling, and Life

Abstract

As Hip Hop Pedagogy continues to popularize throughout academia, it is relevant to examine the “academisation of Hip-Hop” (Petchauer 2009, 2012; Söderman 2013). While Hip Hop scholars and Hip Hop intellectualism are crucial to the evolution of Hip Hop Studies and the necessity of Hip Hop knowledge-building; it is essential to challenge the exclusion of Hip Hop practitioners and artists from university settings, research, and academic spaces. Granted, many Hip Hop scholars have included Hip Hop artists in their research work however, many Hip Hop artists, particularly Hip Hop pioneers, are not viewed as experts or “Hip Hop Scholars” of their own fields in which they have founded. Non-degree’d Hip Hop practitioners hold credentials, have credibility, and are valid experts in Hip Hop Studies.
Utilizing a storytelling methodology, this working paper serves a threefold purpose. Firstly, it explores how Hip Hop practitioners have created their own theoretical frameworks and praxis as they journeyed into their critical consciousness through and with Hip Hop. Secondly, i highlights the specific ways Hip Hop practitioners can and should continue to sharpen their analysis and strengthen their cultural organizing efforts as they develop their own Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy. Finally, this paper expands the exploration of non-degree’d Hip Hop practitioners by studying the ways in which Hip Hop storytelling has provided a pathway to look into “the unexamined life” as they build Critical Hope and Resistance towards Hip Hop scholarship and collective liberation (Duncan-Andrade 2009).

Author

• Kandi Custodio, Next Level