Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures

Please join KPFA at The Backroom on Wednesday, February 22nd at 7:00 PM when we welcome H. Samy Alim, Jeff Chang, and Casey Philip Wong to celebrate the release of their new publication, Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures. This live and in-person event will feature H. Samy Alim, Jeff Chang, and Casey Philip Wong in conversation with KPFA’s Davey D, host of Hard Knock Radio.

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.

"Artists, educators, and activists discuss how hip-hop goes beyond music in this prolific and illuminating book." - Library Journal

"This collection presents essays reflecting on how hip-hop music has helped communities around the world understand their histories and identities in the last half-century." - New York Times Book Review

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.

H. Samy Alim is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences and Associate Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, where he directs the Hip Hop Initiative. His books include Neva Again: Hip Hop Art, Activism, and Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Roc the Mic Right: The Language of Hip Hop Culture and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies: Teaching and Learning for Justice in a Changing World.

Jeff Chang is a writer, organizer, and teacher. His books include Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America, Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America, and We Gon’ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation.

Casey Philip Wong is Assistant Professor in Georgia State University’s College of Education and Human Development. His forthcoming book is adapted from his dissertation, Pray You Catch Me: A Critical Feminist and Ethnographic Study of Love as Pedagogy and Politics for Social Justice. He has helped organize four Hip Hop Think Tank gatherings and worked in the field of Hip Hop pedagogies for over fifteen years.

Davey D is multi-media journalist, professor, hip-hop historian, radio show host, dj, activist, speaker, and commentator with a long history of playing and reporting on hip hop, fostering community awareness and involvement, and questioning structures of power and is the host of KPFA’s long-running show, Hard Knock Radio.

DETAILS:

H. Samy Alim, Jeff Chang, and Casey Philip Wong for Freedom Moves: Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures

Date: Wednesday, Feb 22, 2023 at 7:00 PM

Location: The Back Room, 1984 Bonita Ave, Berkeley, CA 94704

Admission: $20 with a limited number of discounted tickets available for students and fiscally challenged.

Media Contact: Kevin Hunsanger, KPFA Radio: [email protected] 510-684-3401

Host or Publisher KPFA Radio 94.1 FM