Join Adriana N. Helbig, Chair of the Department of Music at Pitt, in an exploration of a lesser known side of Ukrainian culture
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In Hip Hop Ukraine, we enter a world of urban music and dance competitions, hip hop parties, and recording studio culture to explore unique sites of interracial encounters among African students, African immigrants, and local populations in eastern Ukraine. Adriana N. Helbig combines ethnographic research with music, media, and policy analysis to examine how localized forms of hip hop create social and political spaces where an interracial youth culture can speak to issues of human rights and racial equality. She maps the complex trajectories of musical influence--African, Soviet, American--to show how hip hop has become a site of social protest in post-socialist society and a vehicle for social change.
Dr. Adriana Helbig is Chair of the Department of Music at the University of Pittsburgh where she teach courses on global hip-hop, music and disability studies, and prison sounds. As the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Councils for International Education, IREX, and Fulbright, she have focused my research interests on issues relating to music and human rights. Her books include Hip Hop Ukraine: Music, Race, and African Migration (Indiana University Press,2014), Hip Hop at Europe’s Edge: Music, Agency, and Social Change, co-edited with Milosz Miszczynski (Indiana University Press, 2017) and ReSounding Poverty: Romani Music and Development Aid (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).