This expansive collection sets the stage for the next generation of hip hop scholarship as we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the movement’s origins.

Freedom Moves travels across generations and beyond borders to understand hip hop’s transformative power as one of the most important cultural movements of our times. This book gathers critically acclaimed scholars, artists, activists, and youth organizers in a wide-ranging exploration of hip hop as a musical movement, a powerful catalyst for activism, and a culture that offers us new ways of thinking and doing freedom.

Rooting hip hop in Black freedom culture, this state-of-the-art collection presents a globally diverse group of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, Arab, European, North African, and South Asian artists, activists, and thinkers. The knowledges cultivated by hip hop and spoken word communities represent emerging ways of being in the world. Freedom Moves examines how educators, students, and activists use these knowledges to inform and expand how we understand our communities, our histories, and our futures.