Cecelia Cutler received her Ph.D. from New York University in 2002. She is currently a visiting assistant professor at the City University of New York, Lehman College where she teaches applied linguistics. Her dissertation explores on the speech practices of white middle class hip hoppers in New York City, how they construct their authenticity linguistically and discursively, and how stylistic variables can reveal linguistic convergence to another group’s vernacular. She is also very interested in language ideologies and attitudes towards non-standard varieties of English. Most recently she has begun exploring the dynamics of identity formation among immigrant youth and the extent to which they resist or embrace hegemonic racial categories such as whiteness. Additionally, she has been exploring how white rappers stylize their speech in different ways in order to authenticate themselves. She has published pieces in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, the Language and Linguistics Compass, the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Language and Education, and Popular Music and Society.
Awad Ibrahim is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education of the University of Ottawa, Canada. He used to teach for more than five years in Education and American Culture Studies Program at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He is a doctoral graduate of the University of Toronto (Canada) and teaches and publishes in the areas of Hip-Hop studies; Black pop culture; minority adolescents; racially and linguistically mediated identities; antiracism and critical multiculturalism; applied socio-linguistics; cultural studies. His previous research was based in Canada, where he looked at a group of displaced continental African youth and their identity formation. He has published widely and explored the connections between race, language, globalization, culture and the politics of identity; the impact of Black popular culture on young people; and the dialogic relation between continental and diasporic African identities. His books, "Hey, whassup homeboy" Becoming Black: Hip-Hip culture and language, race performativity and the politics of identity in high school (University of Toronto Press) and Global linguistic flows: Hip-Hop cultures, youth identities and the politics of language (co-edited with Samy Alim and Alastair Pennycook - Routledge) are forthcoming in 2008. He was recently awarded (with Dr. Alden Craddock) over one million dollars by Higher Education for Development (USAID/MEPI) to conduct research in civic education in Morocco and Lebanon, which is a continuation to his previous work in Kenya and South Africa dealing with civic education and linking schooling with indigenous knowledge.
Elaine Richardson is a graduate of the Cleveland Public Schools. She received her BA and MA in English from Cleveland State University (1991 & 1993). She went on to earn a doctorate in English Composition and Applied Linguistics from Michigan State University, in 1996. She taught at the University of Minnesota’s General College for two years before joining the English Department faculty at Penn State University, where she taught for nine years. In 2004, she was Fulbright lecturing/researcher in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona Jamaica. She is currently, Professor of Literacy Studies, in the School of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University.
Dr. Richardson has published several books. Her first book is entitled African American Literacies, a significantly revised version of her dissertation, focusing on teaching writing from the point of view of African American Language and Literacy traditions. Her most recent book is Hiphop Literacies, a study of Hiphop language use as an extension of Black folk traditions. The book she is currently writing describes her experiences growing up as a girl from the hood of Cleveland, Ohio getting into the street life and how she climbed out of the underworld to further her education and become who she is today.
Richardson has also co-edited two volumes on African American rhetorical theory and one volume on Hiphop Feminism.
She is the mother of three daughters: Evelyn, Ebony and Kaila. She is also an adviser to a high school extracurricular group that focuses on Black empowerment and higher education. Finally, Dr. E is a singer-songwriter and recording artist, using her voice to reach people who might be down, but not out.
Rayvon Fouché is Associate Professor in History and African American Studies at UIUC. He is also an alumnus of UIUC, where he studied History and Philosophy of Science, and Cornell, where he obtained his PhD in Science and Technology Studies in 1997. As a cultural historian of technological invention and innovation, he explores the multiple intersections and relationships between cultural representation, racial identification, and technological design. He is author of Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation and co-editor of Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power. He is currently working on a project entitled "Digital Turn: Hip-Hop, Technology, and the Crisis of Identity" which addresses what happens to Hip-Hop culture when turntables, a technology that defines a form of this community's expression, change from analogue to digital.
Asad Jafri, whose pseudonym is DJ Man-O-Wax, has been active in the elements of Hip Hop Culture since the early 90's. His interest in DJing and turntablism dates back to the early days of high school. He finally invested in his first set of turntables in college and years later, received recognition from pioneers Kool DJ Herc and Afrika Bambaataa.
Asad graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was one of the founders of UC Hip Hop Congress in 2001. Currently residing in Chicago, he serves as artistic director for F.E.W Artist Collective and a DJ with the Universal Zulu Nation. He is Midwest Regional Director for the Hip Hop Congress, a 501c3 non-profit organization and international grassroots network that seeks to unite, educate, and empower individuals while inspiring civic action, social change, and cultural creativity in the community. Finally, Asad also works professionally as the Youth Programs Coordinator with the Inner-city Muslim Action Network, a community based not-for-profit organization that offers direct services, and promotes the arts and culture, and social justice.
Celiany is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Communications Research at UIUC. Originally from Puerto Rico, she has explored a broad range of queer identities, aesthetics and politics in the Spanish Caribbean. One of her audiovisual projects, Re-choreographing Masculinities: Videographic Interventions in-to Javier Cardona’s 'Ah-men' has been screened in film festivals in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Illinois and Los Angeles. In her dissertation, Celiany examines the media-centered artwork of young women from the Spanish Caribbean, specifically the work of the lesbian feminist Cuban hip-hop trio Las Krudas. As a parallel project, she is currently working on a documentary-style audiovisual piece called T con T: lesbian lives in contemporary Havana.