2026/01/28 by Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Diverse Music Education Insights #Critical Race Theory in Education #Music History and Culture
paper · doi:10.1080/15505170.2025.2594089
openalex publication_date 2026/01/28 · openalex created_date 2026/01/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
Hip-hop pedagogy as a form of literacy has proven to be an asset in secondary education that challenges traditional paradigms. This paper explores the impact of centering the narratives/interior lives of Black women in hip-hop on students’ reading comprehension, media literacy, and writing in the authors’ classroom. As an extension of hip-hop pedagogy/feminism, the author engages Black women’s hip-hop narratives (BWHN) to more incisively analyze how the specificity of Black women’s voices shaped learning and increased critical awareness for her students. Reviewing literature in Black feminist theory, culturally relevant pedagogy, hip-hop pedagogy, and assessing student engagement and learnings through BWHN is the inspiration for the Cypher Cs. This work introduces the Cypher Cs as the combination of (1) communal learning, (2) critical thinking, and (3) critical creativity—all critiquing the hegemonic structures of power frequently perpetuated in educational environments. The Cypher Cs center Black women in an English Language Arts (ELA) classroom to dismantle the alienation that often comes with canonical text. Through Blackgirlwoman autoethnography, the author reflects on the impact of BWHN and the Cypher Cs in supporting student literacy.