Professor Usher is a brilliant B-Boy intellectual from Brooklyn, New York City.
Not only is he one of the first to write a doctoral dissertation on Hip Hop, but he is also among the first to teach courses on Hip Hop at three of the nation’s premier universities. His groundbreaking course titled Planet Rock earned him teaching awards, global fellows appointments, and other accolades.
Dr. Usher writes and lectures about Disco Fever, Latin Quarters, Harlem World and Tunnel because he is a sound historian and scholar but also because he was there!!! This 80s B-Boy's playground was Albee Square Mall as well as The Brooklyn Museum. Professor, as he is affectionately known, does not like the label hip hop scholar; he prefers to be called a scholar who is Hip Hop.
Either way, he is both.
FLY: Urban Fashion is Black Dandyism
Joyful everyday people smiling and posing juxtaposed with sophisticated, artsy portraits of celebs including Dapper Dan, Spike Lee, Slick Rick, Naomi Campbell, Coco Mitchell, Nicola Vassell, Eugena Washington, Camila Alves, Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Noémie Lenoir, Dan'ee Doty, Liu Wen, Alex Santy, Yasiin Bey, Venus Williams, Yasmin Warsame, Kylie Jenner, ILfenesh Hadera, Elvis Nolasco, Slick Rick, and Selita Ebanks. A cross-generational masterpiece featuring a foreword by Kenneth J. Montgomery and essays by historian Carlton Usher, professor Elena Romero, and photographer and writer Diana McClure, Drama & Flava is a love letter to everyday Black fashion and style. It’s pure Jamel Shabazz, man and spirit.
Lyrically Inclined
Professor Usher is also the author of the groundbreaking A Rhyme is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Hip Hop in search of a Political Philosophy.
“A Rhyme” is generally regarded as seminal hip hop scholarship, scientific method, and political philosophy.
Skilled in the trade of that ole boom bap
Usher, along with hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy, world renowned photographer Jamel Shabazz, and award-winning journalist Jeff Chang coauthored the critically acclaimed book titled Back In The Days: The Remix.
Hip Hop Lectures by Dr. Carlton Usher
Is Hip Hop Liberating Theology
Hip Hop Culture and Hip Hop Music are conflated to mean the same thing?
Espistemological Vacccum
Is Hip Hop a tool for the elevations of progressive politics?
Governed
Hip Hop Cuture and the State: Using Hip Hop to separate voters not unite
Historiography and Hip Hop: Hip Hop is Art and Propaganda.
This lecture focuses on the need for a new interpretative history; a reexamination of herstory. Using reflective narratives from The Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement we interrogate the functional utility of “art for art sake” and “art as political.”
Reel 2 Real
Here we address how trends such as urban radio content filtering, anti-intellectualism, and didactic nihilism are impediments to civic and social responsibility. Strategies to counter the "dumbing" down of Hip Hop America are central focus of this lecture.
series 2
Hip Hop and Political Philosophy:
This lecture is designed to aid participants in the development a sound political philosophy. There is a epistemological vacuum in hip hop’s core philosophy.
Hip Hop and Masculinity
Using Hip Hop pedagogy, we investigate black masculinity, gender, sex and the rise of multiple identities. These inquiries allow us to examine masculinity as empowering, as duplicitous, at times counteractive, but often prescriptive. Nihilism and anti-intellectualism within the spectrum of American life is a also focus.
Man, God, and Civilization:
This lecture examines Hip Hop and religion and Hip Hop as religion. We examine the God ideal within Hip Hop. Here we counter the hypothesis that spirituality in Hip Hop is symbolic and empty. To the contrary, we detail the rich tapestry of the intersectionality of religion and the hip hop.
East Coast, West Coast ,Worldwide
This is an examination of the global contributions to Hip Hop culture. The global impact of Hip Hop in the world community is explored. We interrogate the values exported globally, imported locally, and as indigenous creations.