📘 The book: *Hip Hop Can Save America!* https://www.mannyfaces.com/book
🎤 Watch my TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/5rRxG1i5iRo?si=jOkW43tVbrYeqdIT
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What happens when Hip Hop’s deepest history meets the power of visual storytelling? In this episode of Hip Hop America, Manny Faces sits down with historian Dr. Walter Greason and visual Afrofuturist Tim Fielder, the duo behind "The Graphic History of Hip Hop," a project that has exploded across classrooms, museums, Comic-Cons, and global Hip Hop circles.
Together, we dig into:
🎨 How a simple classroom project became a nationwide phenomenon
📚 Why they chose to tell Hip Hop’s story as a graphic history, not a comic
🌍 The global impact — from NYC schools to the Smithsonian, San Diego Comic-Con, and Senegal
🧠 The role of Hip Hop as pedagogy, historical analysis, and Afrofuturist innovation
🔥 How young people are responding (“middle schoolers literally stormed the room…”)
🕊 Why Hip Hop keeps becoming the blueprint for the future — culturally, politically, and academically
This conversation hits everything from James Brown to Nelson Mandela, Public Enemy to the Native Tongues, the Bronx to Afrofuturism, and the ongoing fight to place Hip Hop where it belongs: at the center of global cultural change.
If you care about Hip Hop, art, education, Black history, visual culture, or the future of storytelling — this is the one.
Get the book:
https://www.graphichistorycompany.com
Follow the guests:
Dr. Walter D. Greason — https://www.walterdgreason.com/
Tim Fielder (DieselFunk) — https://www.dieselfunk.com
(streaming links inside)
My book: Hip Hop Can Save America! Inspiration for the Nation from a Culture of Innovation" - https://www.mannyfaces.com/book
The Hip Hop Can Save America! media ecosystem (podcast, newsletter, Discord, and more): https://www.hiphopcansaveamerica.com
Support this important cultural journalism: https://www.patreon.com/mannyfaces
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00:00 – Introduction & Guest Intros
01:56 – How the Graphic History of Hip Hop Began
04:20 – Tim’s Visual Approach & Artistic Background
10:28 – Portraiture, Accuracy & the Challenge of Representation
12:43 – What Makes a “Graphic History” Different
16:31 – Hip Hop’s Global and Historical Context
24:03 – Choosing What Goes In (and What Gets Left Out)
35:21 – How Kids and Educators Are Responding
39:49 – Hip Hop in Museums, Academia & Global Culture
47:50 – Final Thoughts & What’s Next
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HIP HOP CAN SAVE AMERICA!
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MONDAYS, 9PM ET
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