Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers: The Life of Africanist Aesthetics in Global Hip Hop

by Imani Kai Johnson

Overview

The dance circle (called the cypher) is a common signifier of breaking culture, known more for its spectacular moves than as a ritual practice with foundations in Africanist aesthetics. Yet those foundations—evident in expressive qualities like call and response, the aural kinesthetic, the imperative to be original, and more—are essential to cyphering's enduring presence on the global stage. What can cyphers activate beyond the spectacle? What lessons do cyphers offer about moving through and navigating the social world? And what possibilities for the future do they animate? With an interdisciplinary reach and a riff on physics, author Imani Kai Johnson centers the voices of practitioners in a study of breaking events in cities across the US, Canada, and parts of Europe.

Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers: the Life of Africanist Aesthetics in Global Hip Hop draws on over a decade of research and provides a detailed look into the vitality of Africanist aesthetics and the epistemological possibilities of the ritual circle.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190856700
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/07/2022
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	9.13(w) x 6.18(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Imani Kai Johnson is Assistant Professor of Critical Dance Studies at UC Riverside. She specializes in African diasporic ritual cultures, global popular culture, and Hip Hop. Dr. Johnson founded and directs of the Show & Prove Hip Hop Studies Conference Series. She is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies, and has published works in Women & Performance and Dance Research Journal.

Table of Contents

Preface: "Being There"

Introduction: Dark Matter, Breaking
Chapter 1. Dark Matter & Diaspora: Cyphers in an Africanist Context
Chapter 2: Battling in the Bronx: Social Choreography & Outlaw Culture
Chapter 3. Badass B-Girls Dancing the Dissonance of a Breaking Sociality
Chapter 4. Dancing Global Hip Hop: Negotiating Difference & Tradition

Acknowledgements
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"In critically celebrating the immeasurable mass of hip-hop dance, Imani Kai Johnson significantly advances the thought and practice of Blackness as global field and global force. Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers is a beautiful necessity." — Fred Moten, New York University

"Professor Imani K. Johnson provides a ringside seat and exceedingly informed analysis in Dark Matter. Her writing is a Hip Hop 'show and prove' performance of meaning and pervasiveness, grounded in contemporary reiterations of Africanist aesthetics within global Black lives." — Yvonne Daniel, Smith College

From the Publisher