French hip hop or French rap, is the hip hop music style developed in French-speaking countries. France is the second largest hip-hop market in the world after the United States.
Black studies or Africana studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field that primarily focuses on the study of the history, culture, and politics of the peoples of the African diaspora and Africa. The field includes scholars of African-American, Afro-Canadian, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latino, Afro-European, Afro-Asian, African Australian, and African literature, history, politics, and religion as well as those from disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, education, and many other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. The field also uses various types of research methods.
Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, theologian, political activist, politician, social critic, and public intellectual.
Patricia Hill Collins is an American academic specializing in race, class, and gender. She is a distinguished university professor of sociology emerita at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the former head of the Department of African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Collins was elected president of the American Sociological Association (ASA), and served in 2009 as the 100th president of the association – the first African-American woman to hold this position.
Black pride is a movement which encourages black people to celebrate their respective cultures and embrace their African heritage.
Ed Guerrero is an American film historian and associate professor of cinema studies and Africana studies in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University Tisch School of the Arts. His writings explore black cinema, culture, and critical discourse. He has written extensively on black cinema, its movies, politics and culture for anthologies and journals such as Sight & Sound, FilmQuarterly, Cineaste, Journal of Popular Film & Television, and Discourse. Guerrero has served on editorial and professional boards including The Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board.
A video vixen is a woman who models and appears in hip hop-oriented music videos. From the 1990s to the early 2010s, the video vixen image was a staple in popular music, particularly within the genre of hip hop. First appearing in the late 1980s, when hip-hop culture began to gain popularity. It was most popular in American pop culture during the 1990s and 2000s. Video vixens are aspiring actors, singers, dancers, or professional models. Artists and vixens have been criticized for allegedly contributing to the social degradation of black women and Latinas.
Tommie Shelby is an American philosopher. Since 2013, he has served as the Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy at Harvard University, where he is the current chair of the Department of African and African American Studies. He is particularly known for his work in Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, social theory, and the philosophy of social science.
Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism by Patricia Hill Collins is a work of critical theory that discusses the way that race, class and gender intersect to affect the lives of African American men and women in many different ways, but with similar results. The book explores the way that new forms of racism can work to oppress black people, while filling them with messages of liberation.
Shawn A. Ginwright is Professor of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University and author. His research examines the ways in which youth in urban communities navigate through the constraints of poverty and struggle to create equality and justice in their schools. Ginwright has also been noted for his studies in hip hop academics.
Hip hop feminism is a sub-set of black feminism that centers on intersectional subject positions involving race and gender in a way that acknowledges the contradictions in being a black feminist, such as black women's enjoyment in hip hop music and culture, rather than simply focusing on the victimization of black women in hip hop culture due to interlocking systems of oppressions involving race, class, and gender.
Hip hop studies is a multidisciplinary field of study that encompasses sociology, anthropology, communication and rhetoric studies, religious studies, cultural studies, critical race theory, missiological studies, art history, dance, musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and gender studies. The term "hip hop studies" began circulating in the mid-2000s, and though it is not clear who first coined the term to label the field, the field of hip hop studies is often cited as having been crystallized by the publication of That's the Joint!: The Hip Hop Studies Reader in 2003. That's the Joint! includes approximately 25 years of scholarship, criticism, and journalism. The publication of this anthology was unprecedented, and highlights the evolving and continuous influence of "one of the most creative and contested elements of global popular culture since its advent in the late 1970s." The publication of the first edition of That's the Joint! marked a consolidating moment for the field of hip hop studies because it brought together key writings on hip hop from a diversity of hip hop authorities.
Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America is a 1994 book by Tricia Rose. It was released in hardback on April 29, 1994 through Wesleyan University Press.
John L. Jackson Jr. is an American anthropologist, filmmaker, author, and university administrator. He is currently the Provost and the Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and was previously Dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice and Special Adviser to the Provost on Diversity at Penn. Jackson earned his BA from Howard University and his PhD in anthropology from Columbia University. He served as a junior fellow at the Harvard University Society of Fellows before joining the Cultural Anthropology faculty at Duke University.
Crystal Marie Fleming is an American sociologist and author. She is full professor of sociology and Africana studies at Stony Brook University. Fleming is the author/editor of four books about race and white supremacy.
Rebecca Futo Kennedy is Associate Professor of Classics, Women's and Gender Studies, and Environmental Studies at Denison University, and the Director of the Denison Museum. Her research focuses on the political, social, and cultural history of Classical Athens, Athenian tragedy, ancient immigration, ancient theories of race and ethnicity, and the reception of those theories in modern race science.
Dustin Hodge is an American television writer and producer. He is the founder of Hodge Productions, a Colorado media company. He is known for working on a variety of nonfiction content. His most notable works are as the showrunner for Little Britches Rodeo and a producer for The Tight Rope podcast. His work primarily focuses on under-served and under-represented communities and issues: the convergence of cultural and ethnic borders on indigenous peoples, the sustainability and resilience of impoverished areas, and the struggles of first-generation students.
The Tight Rope is a weekly podcast hosted by Cornel West and Tricia Rose. The episodes are generally one hour long, frequently feature guests, and are released every Thursday. Since June 2021, the podcast has been exclusively available on Patreon, with highlights uploaded on YouTube. The podcast covers issues of race, social affairs and culture. The show is produced by Ceyanna Dent and Dustin Hodge for SpkerBox Media. Several of the episodes were recorded in front of a live audience.
Ellie Hisama is a Japanese-American music theorist who is dean of the faculty of music and a professor of music at the University of Toronto. Hisama's work focuses on issues of gender, race, sexuality, and the sociology of music.
Masculinity, often linked to manhood, encompasses traits, behaviors, and roles traditionally associated with men. In Western societies, masculinity is often characterized by strength, leadership, and independence. For African American men, this identity intersects with broader societal and cultural norms shaped by historical subjugation and systemic oppression. In We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, the author bell hooks argues that historical factors like slavery and systemic oppression shaped notions of Black masculinity, pushing some men to adopt hyper-masculine traits for survival and recognition. African American masculinity both adapts to and resists dominant narratives, such as hegemonic masculinity often tied to White culture, while facing scrutiny in various social settings. This complex identity reflects adaptation, resistance, and the influence of historical and ongoing racial dynamics.
