Hip Hop Philosophy, Pedagogy and Liberation

In this week’s episode of the Black Studies Podcast, we’re joined by Professor Reuben May and Dr. Dalitso Ruwe to discuss hip hop philosophy, pedagogy and liberation.

Our conversation about Black self-fashioning and collective liberation discusses Tupac, Public Enemy, Nipsey Hussle, Richard Wright, Tricia Rose, Lewis Gordon, Malcolm X, and many other artists, intellectuals and activists. In addition to our discussion about hip hop music and culture, we reflect on house music, policing, mentorship, stand-up comedy and other sites of power, contestation and desire.

Professor Reuben A. Buford May is the Florian Znaniecki Professorial Scholar and Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign. He is also the author of three books: Urban Nightlife: Entertaining Race, Class, and Culture in Public Space, the award-winning book Living Through the Hoop: High School Basketball, Race, and the American Dream (2008) and Talking at Trena’s: Everyday Conversations at an African American Tavern (2001). He has been a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting professor at MIT. May received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago, and his research focuses on race and culture, urban ethnography, the sociology of sport, and the sociology of the everyday. In addition to his awards, books and other scholarly publications, May has been featured on radio and television and in print media, in particular for his performance as the #rappingprofessor Reginald S. Stuckey. He has performed at venues like Kyle Field, the Chicago House of Blues, Hard Rock Café in Seattle, as well as others in major cities.

Dr. Dalitso Ruwe holds a joint appointment as an Assistant Professor of Black Political Thought in the Philosophy Department and Black Studies Program at Queen’s University. His research interests are intellectual history of Africana philosophy, anticolonial theory, Africana legal history, Black male studies, and Black philosophies of education. His recent publications appear in APA Newsletter: The Black Experience, Theory & Event, Teachers College Record and The Blackwell Companion to Public Philosophy, Journal of Critical Race Inquiry & Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy.

Transcript

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