BOOKS
Hip Hop between New York and Paris: A Transatlantic History. Forthcoming from University of California Press.
New Perspectives on the History of Marcus Garvey, the U.N.I.A., and the African Diaspora (co-edited with James G. Spady and Louis Jones). Philadelphia: Marcus Garvey Foundation Publishers, 2011.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Marcus Garvey Foundation (a non-profit educational organization), this collection brings together essays by established and emerging scholars that examine a wide range of topics relating to the history of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, as well as broader issues in local, global, and transnational histories of the African diaspora.
The Global Cipha: Hip Hop Culture and Consciousness (co-authored with H. Samy Alim and James G. Spady). Philadelphia: Black History Museum Press, 2006.
This book is a documentary history that covers more than thirty years of the global Hip Hop cultural movement and includes oral histories with musicians, visual artists, dancers, deejays, and record producers from around the United States, Europe, Africa, and Caribbean. Featured are: well-known Hip Hop artists--such as Talib Kweli, Eve, Young Jeezy, Jay-Z, Foxy Brown, Mos Def, Pitbull--as well as figures like Black Arts Movement poet/professor Sonia Sanchez, Funk legends George Clinton & Rick James; and international musicians such as Puerto Rico's Ivy Queen, Algeria's Cheb Mami, and Jamaica's Lady Saw, among many others.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Liner Notes in Smithsonian Anthology of Hip Hop and Rap:
• Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”
• Nas, “NY State of Mind”
• Mobb Deep, “Shook Ones (Part II)”
• Jay Electronica, “Exhibit C”
“‘Fear of a Black Planet’: The Transnational Racial Politics of Hip-Hop in France, 1990-1991.” In Hip-Hop en Français: An Exploration of Hip-Hop Culture in the Francophone World, edited by Alain-Philippe Durand. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020.
"'A Weapon In Our Struggle For Liberation': Black Arts, Black Power, and the 1969 Pan-African Cultural Festival." In The Global Sixties in Sound and Vision: Media, Counterculture, Revolt, edited by Timothy Scott Brown and Andrew Lison. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. (LINK)
"From Harlem to Algiers: Transnational Solidarities Between the African American Freedom Movement and Algeria, 1962-1978." In Black Routes to Islam, edited by Manning Marable and Hishaam Aidi. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. (LINK)
This chapter examines the political solidarities that African Americans and Algerians forged with one another in the midst of global Cold War struggles, Third World decolonization, and the Civil Rights/Black Power movements. As Algerians fought for their independence from imperial France and as African Americans fought for equality in the United States, activists and intellectuals from both communities sought symbolic and practical support from their comrades across the Atlantic. Particularly through widespread favorable coverage of Algeria's revolution in the African American press, the many local screenings of the popular film The Battle of Algiers, and the circulation of Frantz Fanon's writings, Algeria came to hold an important place in the iconography, rhetoric, and ideology of key branches of the African American freedom struggle.
"Der globale HipHop als 'Global Cipha'" (translated into German from the English, "Global Hip Hop as Global Cipha") (co-authored with James G. Spady and H. Samy Alim). In Translating Hip-Hop , edited by Detlef Diedrichsen, Johannes Ismaiel-Wendt, and Susanne Stemmler. Frieburg: Orange Press, 2012.
SCHOLARLY ARTICLES
"Remixing the Historical Record: Revolutions in Hip Hop Historiography." Western Journal of Black Studies , vol. 37, no. 2, pp. 94-102. (LINK)
This article traces the emergence of Hip Hop historiography, and argues for the importance of the groundbreaking contributions of scholar/journalist James G. Spady for the rethinking & rewriting of Hip Hop history. This article appeared in a Special Issue of the Western Journal of Black Studies dedicated solely to the work of James G. Spady, and edited by philosopher George Yancy.
"The Making of a Global Hip Hop Nation, From the Bronx to the Banlieues: An Oral History with Sidney Duteil." Black Arts Quarterly , Winter 2007, vol. 12, no. 1.
This article examines the life, career, and impact of French-Caribbean deejay/musician Sidney Duteil, host of the world's first regularly, nationally broadcast Hip Hop television show (and the first Black host in the history of French television). The oral history explores the history and globalization of Hip Hop, the politics of postcolonial immigration in France, and Duteil's family history between Guadeloupe and metropolitan France.
POPULAR PRESS
“In D.C.’s Food Justice Renaissance, Honoring Those Who Laid the Foundation,” The Washington Informer, September 20, 2021. (LINK)
“‘Prepare to Participate’: When Dr. King Urged for Community-Led Development in DC,” The Washington Informer, January 9, 2020. (LINK)
“Hip-Hop à la Française,” The New York Times, Opinion Pages - “Room For Debate”: “Is France Becoming Too American?” October 14, 2013. (LINK)