{"id":24685,"date":"2021-03-15T01:20:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T01:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=24685"},"modified":"2021-03-16T03:09:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T03:09:59","slug":"hip-hop-professor-looks-to-open-doors-with-worlds-first-peer-reviewed-rap-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/hip-hop-professor-looks-to-open-doors-with-worlds-first-peer-reviewed-rap-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Hip-hop professor looks to open doors with world’s first peer-reviewed rap album"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A.D. Carson<\/a>, University of Virginia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a rap artist who is also a professor of hip-hop, I always make it a point to have my songs reviewed by other artists I admire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when I released \u201ci used to love to dream<\/a>\u201d \u2013 my latest album \u2013 in 2020, I turned to Phonte Coleman, one half of the trailblazing<\/a> rap group Little Brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust listened to the album. S\u2014 is dope!\u201d Phonte texted me after he checked it out. \u201cSalute!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I responded with sincere appreciation for his encouraging words. I told him they meant a lot to me, especially coming from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNah, bro. The bars are on point,\u201d he replied. \u201cMuch love and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This informal conversation with a highly esteemed rapper<\/a> \u2013 one whose work I\u2019ve studied and hold in high regard \u2013 is perhaps the most resounding affirmation I can ask for as an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation is similar in academia. That is, in order to establish oneself as a serious scholar, an academic must get their work \u2013 typically some sort of written product \u2013 published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is a journal in which works are evaluated by others in a given field to ensure their relevance and quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a rap artist and academic, I wondered if I could do the same thing with my new album. Could I get my album \u201cpublished\u201d through an academic press?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, I have discovered that the answer was \u201cyes.\u201d In August 2020, my album became what Michigan Publishing described as the \u201cfirst ever peer-reviewed rap album published by a university press<\/a>.\u201d This is a development that I believe could open doors for scholars from all kinds of different backgrounds \u2013 including but not limited to hip-hop scholars \u2013 to contribute new forms of knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New methods<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith this new form of scholarship comes a new approach to the peer review and production process,\u201d the University of Michigan Press stated<\/a> in an article about my work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in order to get a peer-reviewed rap album, it\u2019s not like I just went into the studio, rapped over some beats and hoped for the best. I presented liner notes and created a documentary about how I made the album, which I refer to as a \u201cmixtap\/e\/ssay\u201d \u2013 an amalgamation of the words \u201cmixtape<\/a>,\u201d which is a sampling of an array of select songs, and \u201cessay.\u201d I also submitted articles that help explain how the music relates to certain academic conversations, events in society and my own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
\u2018i used to love to dream\u2019 is a semi-autobiographic take on Carson\u2019s life growing up. Amy Jackson, CC BY<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For instance, since the album is semi-autobiographical and I am from Decatur, Illinois, I note how in May 2020, my hometown was listed as America\u2019s third-fastest shrinking city<\/a>. Since my album deals with Black life, I note how USA Today ranked Decatur as one of \u201cthe 15 worst cities in America for Black people<\/a>\u201d in terms of various metrics, such as household income, educational attainment, homeownership, incarceration and life spans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My album \u2013 which is free and open source \u2013 deals with topics that range from race and justice to identity and citizenship. https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=734046536\/size=large\/bgcol=333333\/linkcol=0f91ff\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Confronting societal ills<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the lyrics, I reflect from where I am now \u2013 in my career as an assistant professor of hip-hop at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville \u2013 on my memories growing up and living in the central Illinois town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The content of the album demonstrates this, covering issues like the war on drugs and its legacy in the 1980s and 1990s and contrasting it with the current opioid crisis on the song \u201ccrack, usa<\/a>\u201d; the seeming inevitability of police killings of Black people and how we might prepare ourselves and our loved ones on \u201cjust in case<\/a>\u201d; and the trap of incarceration and institutionalization presented on \u201cnword gem<\/a>.\u201d It also provides space for processing mental health matters like trauma, alienation, alcoholism and depression with tracks like \u201campersand<\/a>,\u201d \u201cstage fright<\/a>\u201d and \u201casterisk<\/a>.\u201d https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2HBw0Wpka5o?wmode=transparent&start=0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I published my album with University of Michigan Press because I believe it\u2019s important that hip-hop \u2013 and hip-hop scholarship \u2013 occupies a space that\u2019s not an \u201cexotic other\u201d and, instead, functions as a way of knowing, similar to, but distinct from, other resources such as a peer-reviewed paper or book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
Professor A.D. Carson and students in the Rap Lab at the University of Virginia. Miguel ‘MiG’ Martinez, CC BY<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In order to review my album as an academic work, the academic publisher had to \u201ccome up with appropriate questions for the evaluation of a sonic, rather than written, work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe press\u2019s standard peer review questions consider purpose, organization, and audience,\u201d the University of Michigan Press has stated<\/a>. \u201cWhile many of those general themes were captured in the questions developed for \u2018i used to love to dream,\u2019 the process for coming up with new questions was much more collaborative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is higher ed ready?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I must admit \u2013 both before and during my doctoral studies \u2013 I was skeptical of the formal peer-review process. My thought was, what is the university to ask hip-hop to prove itself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But my skepticism faded once I saw the responses from the anonymous scholars who reviewed my album. Based on their insightful feedback, I got the sense that they truly understood Black music and Black rhetoric. They encouraged me to consider how to present the album online in a way that would help audiences better understand the content, which is part of the reason I included the short documentary<\/a> about the making of the album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.<\/em> Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not my first academic foray using rap. I actually earned my Ph.D.<\/a> for writing a rap album<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I appreciate that hip-hop is sometimes celebrated in the academic world, but it seems to me that a lot of the excitement focuses on hip-hop as a particular kind of content rather than what it teaches people about other things in the world, many of which aren\u2019t hip-hop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, hip-hop is like a telescope, and the topics I discuss are like celestial bodies and galaxies. Taking that astronomical analogy a step farther, I would ask: Does it make sense to spend more time talking about the telescope that brought those faraway objects into focus and a sharper view? Or should more time be devoted to discussing the actual phenomena that the telescope enables people to see?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can fully understand and appreciate how hip-hop \u2013 being not just a telescope but a powerful telescope \u2013 would generate a fair amount of discussion as a magnifier. At the same time, at some point society should be able to both focus on the potency of the lens of hip-hop and also concentrate on what hip-hop brings into view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A.D. Carson<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Hip-Hop, University of Virginia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A.D. Carson, University of Virginia As a rap artist who is also a professor of hip-hop, I always make it a point to have my songs reviewed by other artists I admire. So when I released \u201ci used to love to dream\u201d \u2013 my latest album \u2013 in 2020, I turned to Phonte Coleman, one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":24686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[292],"tags":[3459,9599,9603,3461,4596,9602,9600,253,501,5164,5349,453,9601,1427,7809,2482,200,53,3039,2895,7807,2545,2086,1872,1812],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24685"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24688,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24685\/revisions\/24688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}