Freedom Moves

This expansive collection sets the stage for the next generation of Hip Hop scholarship as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the movement’s origins.
 
Celebrating 50 years of Hip Hop cultural history, Freedom Moves travels across generations and beyond borders to understand Hip Hop’s transformative power as one of the most important arts movements of our time. This book gathers critically acclaimed scholars, artists, activists, and youth organizers in a wide-ranging exploration of Hip Hop as a musical movement, a powerful catalyst for activism, and a culture that offers us new ways of thinking and doing freedom.
 
Rooting Hip Hop in Black freedom culture, this state-of-the-art collection presents a globally diverse group of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, Arab, European, North African, and South Asian artists, activists, and thinkers. The “knowledges” cultivated by Hip Hop and spoken word communities represent emerging ways of being in the world. Freedom Moves examines how educators, artists, and activists use these knowledges to inform and expand how we understand our communities, our histories, and our futures.

Contents

Preface 
Shout Outs

Making Freedom Move(s): Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures
H. Samy Alim, Casey Philip Wong, and Jeff Chang

PART I: BLACK, INDIGENOUS, AND DIASPORIC KNOWLEDGE

1. Sweat the Technique: The Politics and Poetics of Hip Hop 
Rakim, Chuck D, and Talib Kweli

2. Know the Ledge(s): The Meanings of Knowledge of Self in “Post”-Apartheid South Africa
Shaheen Ariefdien and Emile YX?

3. “Al-shaab yurid isqat al-nitham!”: Sustaining Revolution in Palestine and Syria 
through Hip Hop
DAM (Tamer Nafar, Suhell Nafar, and Mahmoud Jreri), Omar Off endum, and Ramzi Salti

4. “The Revolution Will Be Indigenous”: Collective Liberation, Healing, and Resistance 
to Settler Colonialism through Hip Hop
Jessa Calderon, Gunner Jules, Lyla June, Tall Paul, and Tanaya Winder, with Casey Philip Wong

5. “Luchando Derechos” in Neoliberal Spain: Hip Hop Visions beyond Racism, Xenophobia, 
Islamophobia, and the Gentrifi cation of El Raval, Barcelona
La Llama Rap Colectivo with H. Samy Alim

PART II: HIP HOP ORGANIZING FOR ABOLITION, REPARATIONS, HEALING, AND GROWTH

6. 1Hood: Hip Hop Art, Activism, and Media Creation in Pittsburgh 
Jasiri X

7. “Protection from Police Who Hinder Respiratory Airways”: Hip Hop Theatre and Activism with
Kuumba Lynx in Chicago
Jacinda Bullie, Jaquanda Saulter-Villegas, and Leyda “Lady Sol” Garcia

8. Ripples of Hope and Healing: Sustaining Community by Creating a Social Justice Arts Ecosystem 
Sonya Clark-Herrera, with Measha Ferguson Smith, hodari blue fka Adorie Howard, Reagan Ross, and
Casey Philip Wong

9. Beyond Trauma: Storytelling as Cultural Shift and Collective Healing
Bryonn Bain, Mark Gonzales, A-lan Holt, and Michelle Lee

PART III: HIP HOP AS CRITICAL, CULTURALLY RELEVANT AND CULTURALLY SUSTAINING PEDAGOGY

10. “Where the Beat Drops”: Culturally Relevant and Culturally Sustaining Hip Hop Pedagogies 
Gloria Ladson-Billings, Django Paris, and H. Samy Alim

11. How Hip Hop Means: Retrospect for Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life 
Marc Lamont Hill

12. The Magic behind Science Genius: How Hip Hop Can Transform Science Education 
Christopher Emdin and The GZA, with Bryan Brown

13. Hip Hop, Whiteness, and Critical Pedagogies in the Context of Black Lives Matter 
A. J. Robinson

PART IV: QUEER, FEMINIST, AND DIS/ABILITY JUSTICE HIP HOP FEATURES 

14. The Pleasure Principle: Articulating a Post–Hip Hop Feminist Politics of Pleasure
Joan Morgan, Brittney Cooper, Treva Lindsey, Kaila Adia Story, and Esther Armah

15. “When Can Black Disabled Folks Come Home?”: The Krip-Hop Movement, Race, and Disability Justice
Leroy F. Moore Jr. and Stephanie Keeney Parks

16. Queering Hip Hop Feminist Pedagogies in the New South
Bettina Love, Regina N. Bradley, and Mark Anthony Neal

17. “These Are Not Sonnet Times”: Building toward Liberatory Futures
Maisha T. Winn

Contributor Bios
Index