Essays on hip-hop feminism featuring relevant, real conversations about how race and gender politics intersect with pop culture and current events.
For the Crunk Feminist Collective, their academic day jobs were lacking in conversations they actually wanted—relevant, real conversations about how race and gender politics intersect with pop culture and current events. To address this void, they started a blog that turned into a widespread movement. The Collective's writings foster dialogue about activist methods, intersectionality, and sisterhood. And the writers' personal identities—as black women; as sisters, daughters, and lovers; and as television watchers, sports fans, and music lovers—are never far from the discussion at hand.
These essays explore "Sex and Power in the Black Church," discuss how "Clair Huxtable is Dead," list "Five Ways Talib Kweli Can Become a Better Ally to Women in Hip Hop," and dwell on "Dating with a Doctorate (She Got a Big Ego?)." Self-described as "critical homegirls," the authors tackle life stuck between loving hip hop and ratchet culture while hating patriarchy, misogyny, and sexism.
About the Authors
Susana M. Morris is co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective and a contributing writer on the blog. She received her Ph.D. from Emory University and is currently Associate Professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her book, Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women’s Literature, was published by the University of Virginia Press in February 2014.
Robin M. Boylorn is Assistant Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication at The University of Alabama. She received her Ph.D. from University of South Florida in 2009. She is the author of the award-winning monograph Sweetwater: Black Women and Narratives of Resilience (Peter Lang, 2013), and co-editor of Critical Autoethnography: Intersecting Cultural Identities in Everyday Life (Left Coast Press, 2014).
What People Are Saying
“Our favorite sister bloggers.” Elle.com
“Much like a good mix-tape, the book has an intro, outro, and different layers of based sound in the activist, scholar, feminist, women of color, media representation, sisterhood, trans, queer and questioning landscape.” Lambda Literary Review
“The range of subject matter and myriad voices is representative of a new wave of vibrant and multifaceted feminism, at home in the academy and the beauty parlor.” Publishers Weekly
“A valuable record of the collective’s contributions to a growing cultural awareness of feminist issues and criticism, particularly for women of color.” Kirkus Reviews
"Witty, digestible passages. . . . the writings, although unmistakably political, speak to the personal with familiarity, honesty, and focus." Booklist
“By centering a Black Feminist lens, The Collection provides readers with a more nuanced perspective on everything from gender to race to sexuality to class to movement-building, packaged neatly in easy-to-read pieces that take on weighty and thorny ideas willingly and enthusiastically in pursuit of a more just world.” Autostraddle
"The pieces made me laugh from my gut, cry for hours, and really reckon with the fact that there will be no freedom, no liberation, no American deliverance without a wholehearted embrace of crunk feminist consciousness. One of the most important books I have ever read." Kiese Laymon, author of Long Division
"We are made better because of these scholars-in-sisterhood and their collective commitment to live, love, dance, desire, dissect, imagine, challenge, and give testimony. I'm 'bout it!" Janet Mock, author of Redefining Realness
"A must-read for anyone interested in feminist discourse produced by Black women from the hip hop generation." Beverly Guy-Sheftall, author of Words of Fire
"Erudite, revolutionary, and most definitely crunk, this book is poised to become a classic tome of feminist writing that speaks to many generations to come." Gwendolyn D. Pough, author of Check It While I Wreck It
"Refreshing and timely." Bitch