For as long as he can remember, Dr. James Braxton Peterson has always been enamored with hip-hop. In his native Newark, New Jersey, it was all around him as a kid.
“I grew up with hip-hop,” says Peterson, who remembers listening to the music in 1979 at the ripe age of 8 years old. “I was at an age when hip-hop was just dawning so I was able to grow up with it.”
It’s no coincidence then that Peterson, who is director of the Africana Studies Program and an associate professor of English at Lehigh University, recently released The Hip-Hop Underground and African American Culture: Beneath the Surface (Palgrave Macmillan), which grew out of his dissertation.
The book has been receiving widespread recognition and praise by academicians and a host of grassroots activists.
“I worked on the book for 20 years,” says Peterson, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003 and has taught hip-hop related courses since graduate school. “This work is near and dear to me. I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of the underground within hip-hop culture.”
Now, a rising star within the academy, Peterson has become a sought-after voice on hip-hop and other matters. His presence as a visible commentator on MSNBC has allowed him to shed a light on how the hip-hop generation was able to mobilize in the wake of the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin and the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
