Teaching and Exploring Hip Hop

This session focuses on using Hip Hop Culture and its impact as a teaching tool in the classroom. During the session, participants will explore and discuss various ways of using Hip Hop in the classroom, models and approaches to integrating Hip Hop into the curriculum, interdisciplinary approaches to lesson creation, and tactics for research gathering and use of information. This session hopes to give its participants a new perspective on Hip Hop as pedagogy and empower educators to use Hip Hop as a teaching tool without having to become an authority on the culture. Participants will begin to envision lesson plans and activities centered on Hip Hop’s place in our society and its impact. When completed, participants should have greater efficacy in integrating Hip Hop into their teaching and a more profound sense of the possibilities.

Dasan Ahanu has served as a visiting lecturer at various institutions, is an alumnus of Harvard University’s Nasir Jones Fellowship, and was North Carolina’s 2023 Piedmont Laureate for poetry. A respected recording artist, he has collaborated with many jazz, soul, and hip-hop artists in North Carolina and has released several singles, EPs, and albums. He is the co-founder and managing director of Black Poetry Theatre, an African American theater company that creates and presents productions centering on spoken word and Hip Hop. A scholar whose academic work focuses on critical writing, creative writing, Hip Hop, and popular culture, he swings a mean pen and represents the SOUTH.

NAfME presents this live virtual event at no charge to all as a service to the music education profession. To register, you must enter your NAfME member information or create a nonmember account. After registering, check your email for instructions. A recording of this program will be available to all registrants for one week following the live event. Members can also view archived NAfME webinars in the NAfME Academy.

The views expressed are those of the presenter; they do not necessarily reflect the views of NAfME.