The Rhizome of Blackness; A Critical Ethnography of Hip-Hop Culture, Language, Identity, and the Politics of Becoming

The Rhizome of Blackness is a critical ethnographic documentation of the process of how continental African youth are becoming Black in North America. They enter a (S0(Bsocial imaginary(S1(B where they find themselves already falling under the umbrella of Blackness. For young Africans, Hip-Hop culture, language, and identity emerge as significant sites of identification; desire; and cultural, linguistic, and identity investment. No longer is (S0(Bplain Canadian English(S1(B a site of investment, but instead, Black English as a second language (BESL) and (S0(BHip-Hop all da way baby!(S1(B (as one student put it). The result of this dialectic space between language learning and identity investment is a complex, multilayered, and (S0(Brhizomatic third space,(S1(B where Canada meets and rubs shoulders with Africa in downtown Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal in such a way that it produces its own (S0(Bticklish subject(S1(B and pedagogy of imaginary and integrative anti-racism.