Front, Back, Side to Side: The Automobility of the Hip Hop South

Dr. Wilkins will examine the ways in which slabs, donks and bubbles--popular vernacular car cultures--have been cultivated within southern Black communities and have become commonplace in the lyrics, instrumentation and iconography of the hip hop music that grew alongside them in Southern cities like Houston, Huntsville, and Memphis. He argues that the automobility of southern hip hop reflects the unique histories, folk artistry, desire for self-expression of southern Black communities.