Biography and CV
BIography
The MCing half of progressive rap duo Kidz in the Hall, Naledge was born Jabari Evans in Cincinnati, OH, but grew up on Chicago's South Side since he was two years old. Raised by two Ph.D.-educated parents, the high-school valedictorian academically had an easy time in school and found his niche in poetry and writing. However, it was cousin Memo, one-third of Chicago production outfit the Molemen, who convinced him to transform his writing prowess into hip-hop rhymes. He first met his DJ/producer partner, Double O, in 2000 on a recruiting visit to the University of Pennsylvania, and the two became good friends and musical collaborators. While still attending Penn, Naledge acquired a solo deal with Rawkus Records, but ended up bringing the Kidz in the Hall brand under Rawkus management as well, once he and Double O finally decided to start the group.
Soon after Naledge graduated from Penn in 2004, he released The College Graduate mixtape, which was a nod to Kanye West's breakout debut album, The College Dropout. After a few Kidz in the Hall mixtapes and an aggressive Internet-promoting campaign, Naledge and Double O dropped their debut, School Was My Hustle, in 2006. Naledge's solo debut, tentatively titled Naledge Is Power, was intended to come out not long after the Kidz in the Hall LP, but the two wound up severing ties with Rawkus and signed on with Boot Camp Clik imprint Duck Down in 2007. Kidz in the Hall's fourth studio album, Occasion was released November of 2011.
Additionally, Naledge is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Social Work and earned his PhD at Northwestern University's Media, Technology and Society program, where he was a research associate at the Center on Media and Human Development. He is also a past selection for the PhD Research Internship at Microsoft’s Social Media Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Naledge is currently an Assistant Professor of Race and Media at the University of South Carolina in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a 2022-23 Visiting Scholar at the Rebooting Social Media Institute within the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Soon after Naledge graduated from Penn in 2004, he released The College Graduate mixtape, which was a nod to Kanye West's breakout debut album, The College Dropout. After a few Kidz in the Hall mixtapes and an aggressive Internet-promoting campaign, Naledge and Double O dropped their debut, School Was My Hustle, in 2006. Naledge's solo debut, tentatively titled Naledge Is Power, was intended to come out not long after the Kidz in the Hall LP, but the two wound up severing ties with Rawkus and signed on with Boot Camp Clik imprint Duck Down in 2007. Kidz in the Hall's fourth studio album, Occasion was released November of 2011.
Additionally, Naledge is a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Social Work and earned his PhD at Northwestern University's Media, Technology and Society program, where he was a research associate at the Center on Media and Human Development. He is also a past selection for the PhD Research Internship at Microsoft’s Social Media Collective in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Naledge is currently an Assistant Professor of Race and Media at the University of South Carolina in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a 2022-23 Visiting Scholar at the Rebooting Social Media Institute within the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Current Projects:
Hip-Hop Civics (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming) is an ethnographic study of a hip-hop-based education (HHBE) program administered by a local nonprofit in two of Chicago’s lowest performing schools. The manuscript explores the program’s impact on middle-school-age students as well as the teacher artists who taught them. The project is articulating the claim that Black youth, particularly those from low-income areas, should be both allowed and encouraged to learn digital media literacy and develop critical thinking schools in a curriculum centered on (an aspect of) their culture, hip-hop, and that their experience, and that of the program, should be extrapolated to “core” or formal education contexts.
(Clout)chasers (Lexington Books, forthcoming) is a collection of empirical papers which deal with the “always on” nature of social media for Drill Hip-Hop musicians, who often are tasked with keeping constant connection between multiple platforms to affirm their street authenticity locally and promote themselves to an imaginary audience of global Hip-Hop fans. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and several interviews with prominent members of Chicago’s Hip-Hop scene, this study examines the role of social media as an economic resource in their artistic labor. Clout was a term that was heavily used by respondents to refer to the way they measured their influence on social media according to counts of likes, views, re-posts and followers. Ultimately, I argue that Black youth of Drill effectively use Hip-Hop cultural norms to harness the power of clout and gain individual celebrity but often with ambivalence over unwanted surveillance of their private lives and the need to rely on negative stereotypes as central to their identities.
Hip-Hop Civics (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming) is an ethnographic study of a hip-hop-based education (HHBE) program administered by a local nonprofit in two of Chicago’s lowest performing schools. The manuscript explores the program’s impact on middle-school-age students as well as the teacher artists who taught them. The project is articulating the claim that Black youth, particularly those from low-income areas, should be both allowed and encouraged to learn digital media literacy and develop critical thinking schools in a curriculum centered on (an aspect of) their culture, hip-hop, and that their experience, and that of the program, should be extrapolated to “core” or formal education contexts.
(Clout)chasers (Lexington Books, forthcoming) is a collection of empirical papers which deal with the “always on” nature of social media for Drill Hip-Hop musicians, who often are tasked with keeping constant connection between multiple platforms to affirm their street authenticity locally and promote themselves to an imaginary audience of global Hip-Hop fans. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and several interviews with prominent members of Chicago’s Hip-Hop scene, this study examines the role of social media as an economic resource in their artistic labor. Clout was a term that was heavily used by respondents to refer to the way they measured their influence on social media according to counts of likes, views, re-posts and followers. Ultimately, I argue that Black youth of Drill effectively use Hip-Hop cultural norms to harness the power of clout and gain individual celebrity but often with ambivalence over unwanted surveillance of their private lives and the need to rely on negative stereotypes as central to their identities.
