PERSON: Chenjerai Kumanyika

Dr. Chenjerai Kumanyika is an artist, activist, and assistant professor in Clemson University’s department of Communication Studies. Currently his roots in hip-hop culture, and his experience in the cultural industries inform his scholarship and on social movements, popular culture and digital literacy and his activism. Before his career in academia, Dr. Kumanyika was the front man for the rap group The Spooks Their first album, S.I.O.S.O.S. Vol. 1 (2000) produced singles that reached gold-selling status in four countries, and placed highly on top ten charts around the world. During the production of the Spooks second release, Faster Than You Know (2003), Chenjerai looked for ways to support a new generation of hip-hop artists and scholars and designed and implemented hip-hop production/media literacy programs in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Currently in addition to his scholarly work, he is a board member of Street Poets, and several youth mentoring programs, and a news analyst for Uprising Radio, and an amateur podcast producer. His January 2015 article on Vocal Color in Public Radio produced for Transom.org spawned a nationwide discussion of diversity and voices in public media. It was featured on National Public Radio, the Washington post and Buzzfeed and trended nationally on Twitter.