“One Mic, One Movement” Returns to Fordham

Following its successful launch last year, the “One Mic, One Movement” conference will return to Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus this weekend for the second annual gathering on the subject of hip hop therapy and psychology.

“One Mic, One Movement 2: Advances in Hip Hop Therapy and Hip Hop Psychology” will convene practitioners and researchers from a variety of fields to present on the many ways that hip hop can help at-risk youth.

Saturday, April 27
9:15 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Pope Auditorium | Lowenstein Center
Lincoln Center Campus | 113 West 60th Street, New York, N.Y.

Conference Co-Chair Edgar Tyson, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) is the pioneer of hip hop therapy, which refers to treatment that uses hip hop music and culture to help troubled adolescents.

Leading the conference with Tyson is Lauren M. Gardner, a psychology doctoral student at the CUNY Graduate Center and co-founder of Hip Hop Psychology.

“Hip Hop Psychology is very firmly based in traditional science,” Gardner said. “We use that traditional science and meet that with our artistic backgrounds. The idea is to create an authentic experience for clients through which they can connect with their life experiences, can evoke and feel and express their emotions, and ultimately create some sort of artistic piece that is expressive and authentic to themselves.”

Sessions include:

• “The Rise and Call of Group Rap Theory: A Critical Analysis,” by Alonzo DeCarlo, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Seton Hill University;
• “Strength of a Cypher: Hip-Hop Hope and Healing for Traumatized Youth,” by Jaleel Abdul-Adil, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical psychology and associate director of the Disruptive Behavior Clinic at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and
• “Dialogues on Hip Hop Feminism,” by Rikiesha Pierce, a student at the University of Southern California.

The conference will conclude with a concert featuring various hip hop performers.

Click here to register.

— Joanna Klimaski