KINGSTON, R.I. – September 21, 2006 – Tricia Rose, professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, will speak on hip-hop culture at the University of Rhode Island on Tuesday, Sept. 26 in Edwards Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The educator is also an author, hip-hop scholar, feminist, and respected commentator on politics, popular culture and gender issues.

Her visit is part of URI’s Honors Colloquium, Songs of Social Justice: The Rhetoric of Music. The semester-long series examines how music is used as a means of expression, persuasion, and mobilization. All events are free and open to the public.

Rose will be joined by Providence’s AS220, a group of talented, high-energy high school students using music to explore the challenges faced by inner-city youths.

Rose authored Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, which made the Village Voice’s top 25 books of 1994 and won an American Book Award from the Before Christmas Foundation in 1995. She co-edits Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture.

Rose whose visit to URI is also in conjunction with the University’s annual Diversity Week coordinated by the URI Multicultural Center, lectures frequently to audiences on a wide range of topics, such as American cultural politics, black culture and music and gender. She has been featured on national radio outlets, television and in newspapers and magazines such as Time, Essence, The New York Times and The Village Voice.

AS220 Brown Street Studio is an AS220 youth arts program that focuses on the transition of young people from the Rhode Island Training school through the arts. The Rhode Show is a performance program that addresses the challenges faced by inner city youths through original hip-hop compositions. AS220, a non-profit community arts center, is located in downtown Providence.

Visit www.uri.edu/hc for the colloquium schedule and directions. For more information, contact the URI Honors Center at 401-874-2303 or debg@uri.edu.

Major sponsors for the series are The Providence Journal, the URI Division of University Advancement, the URI Honors Program, the URI Office of the President, and the URI Office of the Provost.