Pluriversal Pedagogy in the Planet Rap Project

Description

This paper examines the intersection of music education, postcolonial theory and Hip Hop in higher education. It examines the potential of Hip Hop pedagogy to disrupt Eurocentric frameworks in music education and build “pluriversal” models of knowledge sharing (Mbembe 2015). Drawing on experiences from our collaborative course, Planet Rap: Global Hip Hop and Postcolonial Perspectives, and its incorporation into a virtual classroom transnationally, we reflect on how Hip
Hop’s diverse, community-based philosophies of knowledge-making might reshape classroom dynamics in both physical and virtual environments. Further, we offer insights on how this work might be developed into an open access textbook and digital teaching platform for Hip Hop studies. We argue that teaching Hip Hop as more than a musical genre—as a multi-element set of practices and philosophies—encourages students to question dominant narratives of music history and
knowledge production. Finally, by reflecting on the successes and challenges of Planet Rap’s virtual and digital tools for engagement, assessment, and cross-border collaboration within the UNIC project, the paper contributes to debates about decolonial approaches in music education and decolonial pedagogies more broadly.

Period	9 Apr 2026
Event title	We Want More: Music / Sociology!
Event type	Conference
Location	Rotterdam, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International