[ecrea] CfP Hip Hop Studies Conference - University of Cambridge

‘It Ain’t Where You’re From, It’s Where You’re At’: International Hip 
Hop Studies Conference
Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
23-24 June 2016
http://hiphopstudies.org

Keynote speakers:

Tricia Rose, Brown University
Murray Forman, Northeastern University


The AHRC ‘Performing hip hop Englishness’ project, in collaboration with 
Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge, is pleased to invite 
proposals for papers to be presented at the international hip hop 
studies conference ‘It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at’.

It ain’t where you’re from:
The line ‘it ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at’, from 
Rakim’s ‘In the Ghetto’, has become a commonly articulated hip hop trope 
that can be variously understood as a way of emphasizing one’s location 
and action in the moment, as well as privileging one’s orientation over 
one’s ontology. How can we, as scholars from diverse disciplinary 
backgrounds working in the field of hip hop studies, interpret this 
phrase? How far can it take us? What does it obscure? What is the role 
of negation in the construction of hip hop’s various histories, its 
cultural politics, and its re-territorialisations?

It’s where you’re at:
The line ‘it ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at’ can also be 
used to highlight the roles of artistic skill, cosmopolitan awareness, 
and critical engagement with the local. How can an emphasis on ‘where 
you’re at’ help us to understand the ethics and aesthetics of hip hop? 
What relevance does the privileging of orientation have to the 
development of hip hop studies as an interdisciplinary field? We 
encourage papers that shed light on this phrase and its implications for 
hip hop culture and hip hop studies, particularly in relation to issues 
of place, space, temporality, language, ethnicity, ethics, and politics.

Where are we at?
Over the last four decades hip hop has grown to become one of the most 
popular cultural forms and practices across the globe. As hip hop 
evolves so too does hip hop studies. However, the trajectory of hip hop 
studies is not only dependent on the changing nature of its object of 
study but also its own methods, theories and contexts. What should hip 
hop scholars be doing now and in the future? This conference will 
attempt to take stock of where both hip hop and we as hip hop scholars 
are at.

We invite proposals (title and abstract) of no more than 200 words for 
20 minute papers. Please send submissions to the conference convener, 
James Butterworth ((jrb86 /at/ cam.ac.uk)), by 4th March 2016. Acceptances will 
be issued by mid-March.

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