As part of her work with Bay Area and Sacramento hip-hop artists, Sarah Lappas has explored the unique contributions of mainstream and underground hip-hop artists in local manifestations of the Black Lives Matter movement. Hip-hop music frequently intersects with the growing movement confronting police brutality, and provides contour to the conditions of police surveillance and intimidation in communities of color. In this presentation, Sarah will discuss how hip-hop in Northern California and across the United States works as both a record and an agent of change in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Sarah Lappas is an ethnomusicologist specializing in musics of the African diaspora, with a particular interest in global hip-hop music. She recently served as a Chancellor’s Public Scholar in American Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley, where she directed a community engaged scholarship program bringing Cal students together with the youth and staff at RYSE Richmond to study and perform hip-hop. She is currently on faculty in the School of Music at Sacramento State, where she teaches original courses in Musics of the World, Musics of Africa, and Hip-Hop in Urban America.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Music Department, Performance Studies, African American and African Studies and the Campus Community Book Project.

Free