Hip-Hop’s Fifth Element:
Knowledge, Pedagogy, and Artist-Scholar Collaboration
PI: Prof. Justin A. Williams (University of Bristol)
Part of the UK-German Funding Initiative in the Humanities (AHRC-DFG)
German PI: Prof. Oliver Kautny (University of Cologne, Hip Hop Institute)
German project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).
German Project website here
ABSTRACT
The aim of this first-of-its-kind project is to critically investigate hip-hop culture’s fifth element: knowledge. Founded in the 1970s in New York City, hip-hop culture consists of four core elements: DJing, emceeing, graffiti, and dance. While hip-hop culture contains other elements beyond its core, many hip-hop artists and fans worldwide understand the fifth element to be knowledge. It refers to the fact that practitioners and fans understand the importance of the history, values, and artistry of the culture beyond their own background. With roots in the Universal Zulu Nation, a quasi-religious group led by hip-hop founder Afrika Bambaataa (Chang 2005), hip-hop’s fifth element includes aims of self-realisation (‘knowledge of self’), empowerment, and includes information about the history of the genre and its key practitioners (Gosa 2015). Because of its emancipatory potential, hip-hop is increasingly used in schools, at universities, and in a variety of youth and community education contexts. Knowledge is therefore central to hip-hop’s inner logic, global popularity, and institutionalisation. (More on the Gateway to Research website)
Part of a German-UK research initiative, the grant was conceived and written by Prof. Williams and European Network of HipHop studies founder and scholar Dr. Sina Nitzsche. In the UK, the project consisted of a number of global projects, all intended to illuminate how knowledge manifests and flows both through and within hip-hop culture. More information on the German-based activities can be found via the University of Cologne Hip Hop Institute website.
PROJECT OUTPUTS
Journal of Global HipHop Studies Special Issue Vol. 5.1 and 5.1, edited by Darren Chetty, Sina Nitzsche, Justin A. Williams
The aim of this Special Double Issue of Global Hip Hop Studies is to present an expansive view of knowledge about, of and within global hip hop culture: in the music itself, in education and pedagogy, through the four elements, across inter-generational communities, and inside or outside the academy.
Original Pirate Material: The Streets and Transatlantic Hip-hop Exchange, By Justin A. Williams
With his debut album Original Pirate Material (2002), Mike Skinner, who recorded under the name The Streets, combined the world of UK dance music with US hip-hop. OPM is the result of the so-called ‘bedroom producer’, hybridizing previous forms into something novel. This Element explores a number of themes in this album: white masculinity, the everyday, technology, sampling, hybridity, the Black Atlantic, and US-UK transatlantic relations.
Bristol Headz Zine , Vol 1, issue 3, By Adam de Paor Evans and James McNally (author-editors)
Taking the form of the fanzine with a critical edge, the HEADZ-zINe challenges the convention of academic knowledge production and dissemination. HEADZ-zINe seeks to capture the personal, local, and communal histories of hip hop. HEADZ-zINe is foremost interested in the stories of its participants, and through a series of in-depth interviews and complimentary analysis of the artefacts and archives of hip hop, reveals a set of previously untold stories.
Tanzania Hip-hop Documentary Project - Hip Hop Dar es Salaam: Muziki Ya Kizazi Kypia (dir. O-Key, 2025)
Hip Hop Dar es Salaam: Muziki Ya Kizazi Kypia captures the early history of hip-hop in Tanzania which has yet to be fully or widely told. In making the documentary we adopted new equitable methods of collaboration with hip hop practitioners in which their knowledge of both Tanzanian hip hop history and creative practice are central.
Open Educational Resources Project, led by Dr. Sina Nitzsche with Justin A. Williams
This project investigates the hip-hop knowledge available for university teaching in the form of Open Educational Resources (OER). OER are digital resources that are freely accessible for any learner with an internet connection. Conducting a first-of-its-kind online survey of OER hip-hop studies resources, we ask which open teaching resources exist on hip-hop studies and hip-hop culture.
The Hip-hop Listener, led by Dave Hook (MC Solareye)
The Hip-hop Listener is an ongoing project in conversation with Forman, Neal, Bradley (eds) The Hip-hop Studies Reader, and developing the knowledge within hip-hop and through hip-hop. A number of rappers were commissioned to write rap ‘chapters’ on a theme of their choosing in the same way that a written anthology is collated, contributing to new forms of knowledge generation and exchange, with its own website in progress.
Black British Music Study Day: Sacred and Secular
The aims of the day were to put scholarship about Black British sacred and secular music in conversation with one another, and to support academics and practitioner-scholars of all levels in building a community around these significant areas of study. This day featured keynote presentations, performances and book celebrations.
An Afternoon of Dilla, led by James Kenneby (VICE BEATS)
This project, with additional Brigstow Institute seed funding, helped to support a research project based on artist-scholar collaboration. The goal was to think through, test, and refine models for artist scholar collaboration: a) to widen the notion of knowledge within and outside the academy, to value different forms of knowledge and b) to create research impact from those findings.
Bangkok Beat CIpher VOL.1 (ZINE), by Dr. Jason Ng & Michael Chuvessiporn
The Bangkok Beat Cipher Zine, chronicles both the history and current trajectory of the local Thai hip hop music production scene. From bedroom producers to internationally renowned artists, this zine explores practitioner knowledge, influences, ambitions and creative processes in their own words.
PSYCHOACTIVE (EP), BY JASON NG & JULIAN JAVANOVSKI (SUBNET & JUJO)
The project title is ‘Psychoactive’ – which uses the notion in the conceptual storytelling of the album to highlight music as a mind altering substance in a dystopian future where experimental hip-hop becomes the disruptive music to awaken masses from mind-control perpetuated through large music conglomerates (who operate like state governments and other structural forces).
Hip-hop music producers’ labour in the digital music economy, By Dr. Jason Ng & Dr. Steven Gamble
There has been much debate concerning the changing nature of cultural production and distribution in the digital creative economy. . This article critically builds atop perspectives on the platformisation of cultural production to investigate how independent hip-hop music producers develop their careers in the era of digital media platforms.