Imani Kai Johnson is Assistant Professor of Critical Dance Studies at UC Riverside. She specializes in African diasporic ritual cultures, global popular culture, and Hip Hop. Dr. Johnson founded and directs of the Show & Prove Hip Hop Studies Conference Series. She is also co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies, and has published works in Women & Performance and Dance Research Journal.
In critically celebrating the immeasurable mass of hip-hop dance, Imani Kai Johnson significantly advances the thought and practice of Blackness as global field and global force. Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers is a beautiful necessity. * Fred Moten, New York University * Professor Imani K. Johnson provides a ringside seat and exceedingly informed analysis in Dark Matter. Her writing is a Hip Hop 'show and prove' performance of meaning and pervasiveness, grounded in contemporary reiterations of Africanist aesthetics within global Black lives. * Yvonne Daniel, Smith College *