Abstract: The first behaviorally modern human beings were Black and musical.  Were their Blackness and their musicality key components of their ability to think and learn?  During the transformative trauma of the transatlantic slave trade polyrhythmic Black/African musical traditions were carried across the globe influencing what went on to become Blues, Samba, House, and Hip-Hop.  We know Black music comes from Africa, but what if Black music is actually a spiritual technology with cosmic origins?  How has this spiritual technology merged with various material technological innovations (i.e. djembe drum, turntables, and generative AI)  in order to induce rhythmic entrainment and raise consciousness?  In this interactive conversation, we explore how Black Music can be used to transform modern learning environments in the age of Artificial Intelligence.  

Bio: Dr. Kalonji is a cultural psychologist, rapper, and educator exploring how young people’s holistic development is influenced by the cultural lifeworlds and scenes that they inhabit.  His work explores how the histories and cultures of our communities are inherited in our bodies, minds, and practices. One major strand of his research has attended to young people in hip-hop scenes and how their participation as hip-hop artists, critics, writers, composers, and producers provides them with philosophical orientations, literacy skills, and technological savvy to engage in self-authorship, cultural production, and community artivism.  As a rapper and hip-hop practitioner himself Dr. Kalonji also produces music that draws on Black ancestral legacies, depicts the sociopolitics of the hood, and explores visions of Afrofuturist healing.  His research has informed the design of learning environments for all ages, multimedia arts exhibitions, and is published in the Journal of Cognition & Culture and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  He is currently the Director of CU Boulder’s RAP Lab (Ritual Arts & Pedagogy), an interdisciplinary hub for the study of hip-hop praxis. 

https://www.colorado.edu/education/kalonji-nzinga