Scholar. Synthesizer. Tsunami.
Kashema Hutchinson is an interdisciplinary educator and creator. Her work is an alchemy of sources that values and highlights the knowledge production of Black youths usually through a Hip Hop lens. Kashema creates Hip Hop infographics that are used to facilitate discussions about knowledge of self in various educational spaces including New York City correctional facilities and random ciphers. She has taught CUNY undergraduate and early college students. Kashema was a co-director of The CUNY Peer Leaders, a community-based program that supports CUNY undergraduate students’ scholarship and creative work in the Humanities and assists students in developing leadership skills to implement within their colleges and communities. She is an assistant editor of Blacklanguagesyllabus.com.
Kashema has a PhD in Urban Education and her dissertation, “The Lopez Effect Remixed: The Significance of Mattering Through a Hip-Hop Lens in Education and Beyond” focused on mattering and Hip-Hop education. Her research interests include mattering and marginalization, and Hip-Hop as a theoretical framework.
I was pursuing my Ph.D. to bring the knowledge of higher education to my community to build bridges. While doing so, I realized that not only did my community have said knowledge, we KNOW more. It’s just not recognized or valued. Now, my aim is to center our knowledge because it’s necessary.
She has been featured on NPR and in Upscale Magazine.