Hip-Hop in the Golden Age

In honor of black history month, and in celebration of the 30^th anniversary of De La Soul’s groundbreaking album 3 Feet High and Rising, Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music presents the interdisciplinary conference “Hip-Hop in the Golden Age.” Our keynote speaker will be Prince Paul (Paul Huston) of De La Soul.

Hip-hop’s golden age (ca. 1988–95) was a time of unprecedented creativity. Having crossed over into mainstream culture but not yet bound by the restrictions of major labels, rappers and producers explored seemingly limitless avenues of beat production, flow, and lyrical topics. This conference will explore any and all aspects of the golden age of hip-hop, including the historical circumstances that gave rise to it, and its impact on later artists: thus, paper presentations need not deal explicitly with hip-hop produced during that time. We envision this as an interdisciplinary conference, and welcome proposals from scholars in a variety of different disciplines, including those outside music.

Submission guidelines

The program committee invites proposals for individual presentations on any aspect of hip-hop that the author envisions as connected to golden-age practices. Papers should be planned for presentation in twenty minutes, followed by ten minutes for questions. We also welcome suggestions for non-traditional presentation formats, poster sessions, musical performances, and so forth. The program committee is firmly committed to promoting the scholarship of diverse voices. Proposals should consist of a single PDF containing an anonymous abstract of 250 words or fewer, with footnotes, citations, and examples not included in the word count but not to exceed three additional pages. Send proposals by November 2 to Prof. Kyle Adams, [email protected], with the subject line “Hip-Hop Conference Proposal.”

Notification

Participants will be informed of the committee’s decision no later than December 15, 2018.

Program committee

Prof. Kyle Adams (music theory), Indiana University
Prof. Amy Coddington (musicology), Amherst University
Prof. Jarritt Sheel (music education), Berklee College