Episode 6
In This Episode
July 6, 2021: Stacey Robinson on Art, Hip-Hop, and Black Liberation
"I have a lot more questions than answers, but I turn my questions into an art practice." In this episode, host Augustus Wood and Professor Stacey Robinson explore numerous threads—from James Baldwin and Frances Cress Welsing to hip-hop historian Jeff Chang, and album cover artists Pedro Bell and Overton Lloyd to the golden age of hip-hop—as they consider questions like What is our vision for a better society? and What are the terms and conditions of Black liberation? They also discuss Robinson's new book with writer Alverne Ball, Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre, which was released this summer on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre.
See more:
- Professor Robinson's art on Tumblr and Instagram
- Black Matters billboard exhibit with CEPA Gallery
- Newest book: Across the Tracks: Remembering Greenwood, Black Wall Street, and the Tulsa Race Massacre
- ES1, Episode 6 Transcript (opens in PDF)
About the Guest: Stacey Robinson
Stacey Robinson is a graphic design professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As part of the collaborative team Black Kirby with artist John Jennings, Robinson creates graphic novels, gallery exhibitions, lectures, and workshops that use strategies to imagine new worlds inspired by design, hip-hop, the arts and sciences, and diasporic African belief systems.
In 2019–20, Robinson held the Nas Fellowship at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. The Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship is named in honor of the rap artist Nas and funds scholars and artists who demonstrate exceptional scholarship and creativity in the arts in connection with hiphop.