11/22/25-11/25/25: Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR)

In the Time of Sky-Rhyming: How Hip Hop Resonated in Brown Los Angeles

An Author Meets Respondents Session

In the Time of Sky-Rhyming: How Hip Hop Resonated in Brown Los Angeles (Oxford University Press 2024), by Jonathan Calvillo, traces Hip Hop’s reception and adaptation within the Latine communities of Los Angeles in the 1980s. Resonating with the emergence of Pentecostalism in Los Angeles in the early twentieth century, the early Los Angeles Hip Hop scene was shaped by Black American movements, afrodiasporic practices, and multiracial innovations, including from Latinos.  Moreover, brown creatives were active in establishing key spaces of Hip Hop resonance in the Los Angeles scene.  Religion and spirituality, it turns out, are constant yet often overlooked threads that run through the accounts of brown creatives present in the burgeoning West Coast scene. 

Dr. Dara Delgado: Assistant Professor of Religious Studies-Christianity at Allegheny College

Dr. Alyssa Maldonado Estrada: As Associate Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College.

Dr. Jon Ivan Gill: Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gustavus Adolphus College

Dr. Daniel White Hodge: Professor of Intercultural Communications and Chair of the Communication arts Department at North Park University

Presider:

Dr. Yara Gonzalez-Justiniano:  Assistant Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt Divinity School,

Author:

Dr. Jonathan Calvillo: Assistant Professor of Latinx Communities at Candler School of Theology at Emory University

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