In honor of black history month and in celebration of the 30th anniversary of De La Soul’s groundbreaking album 3 Feet High and Rising, the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music – with support from the the IU Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies – will present an interdisciplinary conference, entitled “Hip-Hop in the Golden Age.” Record producer and recording artist Prince Paul (Paul Huston) has been announced as the keynote speaker.
Hip-hop’s golden age (ca. 1988–95 in the US) 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.
For those unable to attend the conference in person, all papers and events will be streamed live at https://music.indiana.edu/iumusiclive/ and the organizers will have a Twitter hashtag for those who wish to ask questions or participate remotely.
Read more on the program, registration, and conference committee.
The European Hiphop Studies Network 