Pop Conference 2016

Emily J. Lordi is an assistant professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of Black Resonance: Iconic Women Singers and African American Literature and a forthcoming 33 1/3 book on Donny Hathaway Live. “Erykah Badu’s Afropresentism” | In her recent remix of Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” Erykah Badu replaces Drake’s catchy lament, “you used to call me on my cell... Read More →

Joshua Alston is a staff writer and television critic for The A.V. Club. He lives in Atlanta.  “Chopped, Screwed, and Regendered: Vocal Dynamics and Tempo in Houston Hip-Hop” | Houston’s esoteric hip-hop scene, and its homegrown “chopped and screwed” subgenre, briefly attracted national attention due mostly to the drug culture that sprang up around “purple drank” and the recreational use of... Read More →

Nicholas Forster is a PhD candidate in African American Studies and Film and Media Studies at Yale University. Interested in the relationship between technology, race, sound, and history he has recently published pieces in Film Quarterly, The Journal of Popular Music Studies, and liquid blackness. “‘You Know We Can Get Away, Because I’m Calling Your Name’: Young Thug, Melody, and the Contemporary Hip-Hop Soundscape&rdquo... Read More →

Lauren Jackson is a third year PhD student in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Inquiry, and The Awl among other places. With interests in dialect, sound, and linguistic diffusion, her work tracks moments of misrecognition in the ongoing entextualization of Black vernacular in 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century American literature. “‘My... Read More →

Based in New Orleans, Melissa A. Weber is an MA candidate in musicology at Tulane University. A respected crate digger and authority on funk, soul, and disco, she’s been featured in Nelson George's Finding the Funk documentary, Wax Poetics magazine, and the book Dust and Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting. As the award-winning DJ Soul Sister, she hosts "Soul Power,” the longest-running rare groove show in the U.S., on WWOZ... Read More →