Interested in learning more about the world and history? Suffolk Discovers meets to discuss a new theme each session that explores the cultures and backgrounds of people in our communities. For adults.

No registration required to attend in person, the speaker will be attending virtually. Registration required for to attend virtually. Registered participants will provide their email address to receive a link to the Zoom meeting at least 15 minutes before the event begins.

About the Talk

Expressive culture has always been an important part of the social, political and economic lives of Indigenous people. More recently, Indigenous people have blended expressive cultures with hip hop culture, creating new sounds, aesthetics, movements and ways of being Indigenous. Indigenous people use hip hop culture to assert their sovereignty and challenge settler colonialism. From rapping about land and water rights from Flint to Standing Rock, to remixing "traditional" beading with hip hop aesthetics, Indigenous hip hop artists flip the notion of "tradition" and create alternative visions of what being Indigenous means today, and what that might look like going forward.

About the Speaker

Kyle T. Mays (he/his) is an Afro-Indigenous (Saginaw Chippewa) writer and scholar of US history, urban studies, race relations and contemporary popular culture. He is an Associate Professor of African American Studies, American Indian Studies and History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America (SUNY Press, 2018), An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2021) and City of Dispossessions: Indigenous Peoples, African Americans, and the Creation of Modern Detroit (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022).