Welcome to the Evolving Man Project’s ‘Evolved Man of the Week’ profiles. Each week we will highlight an individual that embodies what it means to be an evolved man, famous and non-famous men alike. The world needs to know their stories and deeds. This week’s honor goes to hip-hop artist, activist, poet, and the University of Virginia’s new Assistant Professor of Hip-Hop and the global south, A. D. Carson.
Professor Carson set social media abuzz and went viral when he turned his dissertation into a full-fledged hip-hop album. The album, “Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes and Revolutions” uses hip-hop to explore such ideas as identity, justice, economics, citizenship, and language. The songs have garnered tens of thousands of views on YouTube, more than 50,000 streams and download on SoundCloud and hundreds of thousands of hits on Facebook. Here is Professor Carson in his own words:
“Being detained out in front of Sikes, then to have Clemson tweeting and posting on Facebook about this “innovative dissertation project’…it was really a surreal moment,”…”Just a year ago it seemed as though the institution had taken a stance against me and now the institution is championing this work. They’ve taken a certain credit for it.”…”They weren’t willing to engage – they were just interested in public perception.“
Today we honor A.D. Carson as our Evolved Man of the Week.
Evolving Man Project 