Educational Emcees: Mastering Conditions in Education Through Hip-Hop and Spoken Words
Date
2019
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Abstract
Inspired by the second wave of Hip-Hop educational research, I asked three questions in this study: 1) What is Hip-Hop educational leadership? 2)What are the conditions Hip-Hop educational leaders make possible for Black and Brown youth learning and engagement in schools? and 3) How does spoken word poetry function in the lives of Hip-Hop educational leaders? I conducted a Hip-Hopography of spoken word poets, rappers, and emcees who also serve as community partners inside urban high schools around the United States. Using poetic transcription and a Hip-Hop aesthetic methodological framework (sample, layer, flow, rupture, affect, embodiment and performance) as data analysis, findings from this study suggest Hip-Hop educational leaders are “educational emcees” who through a series of meaningful practices, invoke love and spoken word poetry as an organic Hip-Hop pedagogy in their pursuit to liberate learning and engagement conditions for Black and Brown youth in American public education.