PERSON: Jason Nichols

Professor

Jason Nichols is an academic and artist with a range of interests, which include black masculinities, hip-hop music and dance, bullying amongst emerging adults, and black and Latino identities and relations. He is a full-time lecturer in the African American studies department at the University of Maryland College Park and the current editor-in-chief of Words Beats & Life: The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, the first peer-reviewed journal of hip-hop studies. Dr Nichols is also a rap artist who raps under the moniker Haysoos and is one half of the internationally recognised rap group Wade Waters.

— theguardian.com