Dr. Layli Phillips is executive director of the Wellesley Centers for Women in Wellesley, Mass. She was formerly the associate professor of women’s studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she is also a faculty affiliate in the African-American studies department. Her teaching and research are on women and hiphop, womanism, black feminism and black […]

Dr. Dawn-Elissa Fischer is an associate professor in the department of africana studies at San Francisco State University. She teaches courses on international Black popular culture, information technology and visual ethnography. She was the education outreach coordinator for Stanford University’s Hiphop Archive and the founder of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention. She works with youth in […]

James Scandrick directs the Institute on Black Church Sacred Music and Worship at Nashville’s American Baptist College.

Cathy J. Cohen is professor of political science  and deputy provost for graduate education at the University of Chicago, where she formerly directed the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture. She wrote The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (University of Chicago Press, 1999). She directs the Black Youth Project at the […]

The Rev. Ralph C. Watkins is the Peachtree associate professor of evangelism and church growth for Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga. Watkins co-authored The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation (Judson Press, 2007). Watkins, a pastor and musician, works to resolve gaps between the hiphop generation and its elders.

Benjamin Chavis Muhammad lead the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, a nonprofit founded in 2001 to use hiphop as a catalyst for improving society and addressing poverty and injustice. Contact through Jody L. Miller.

Michael G. Datcher, clinical assistant professor of English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, co-edited Tough Love: The Life and Death of Tupac Shakur (BlackWords Inc., 1996). He can discuss criticism of rap music and of the hiphop ethos.

Dancer Jessica Ralph, a member of the National Baptist Convention USA, directs workshops using hiphop, liturgical dance and other art forms in a religious context. She is a member of the World Council of Churches’ transformation team, a group with varied backgrounds and talents who lead classes and workshops.

Marcyliena Morgan is a professor in the department of African and African American studies at Harvard University and author of Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2006). She founded the Hiphop Archive at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University while on the faculty there. She now directs the Hiphop Archive@Stanford University and is working […]