K for the Way: DJ Rhetoric and Literacy for 21st Century Writing Studies

＂K for the Way＂ explores writing, rhetoric, and literacy from the perspective of the Hip Hop DJ. Todd Craig, a DJ himself, establishes and investigates the function of DJ rhetoric and literacy, illuminating the DJ as a fruitful example for (re)envisioning approaches to writing, research, and analysis in contemporary educational settings. Because it is widely recognized that the DJ was the catalyst for the creation of Hip Hop culture, this book begins a new conversation in which Hip Hop DJs introduce ideas about poetics and language formation through the modes, practices, and techniques they engage in on a daily basis.

Using material from a larger qualitative research study that illustrates the Hip Hop DJ as a twenty-first-century new media reader, writer, and literary critic, Craig blends interviews from prominent and influential DJs in the Hip Hop community with narrative and interdisciplinary scholarship from writing studies, Hip Hop studies, African American studies, urban education, and ethnomusicology. The voices of DJs sit front and center, presenting a revolutionary conversation about writing and communication in the twenty-first century.

Weaving Craig’s life experiences with important discussions of racial literacies, ＂K for the Way＂ is a layered and utterly singular exploration of culture, identity, and literacy in America.

Todd Craig is associate professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), where he teaches in the African American Studies Department at New York City College of Technology and in the English Department at the Graduate Center. A writer, educator, and DJ whose career meshes his love of writing, teaching, and music, he is the author of the multimodal novel tor’cha, and his work has been published in Staten Island Noir, Across Cultures, Fiction International, Radical Teacher, Killens Review of Arts and Letters, Modern Language Studies, Changing English, Kairos, Composition Studies, and Sounding Out!