In Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers, Imani Kai Johnson explores the role Africanist aesthetics play in the things we do not see that nonetheless matter. This multi-sited study follows breaking events in US, European, and Canadian cities. Johnson uses the physics concept of dark matter--invisible or non-luminous matter that bridges galaxies--as a metaphor to represent the influence that Africanist aesthetics have on Hip Hop, and to capture the ways that these aesthetics have been de-emphasized or invisiblized in popular understandings of Hip Hop as a global cultural signifier. Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers argues that the ensemble of Africanist aesthetics animated in cyphers both activates non-western epistemological sensibilities, and kinesthetically teaches lessons in non-normative ways of moving through and acting in the social world. Each chapter explores operative Africanist aesthetics in cyphers that focus on particular themes or groups of practitioners: those who name spiritual and liberatory experiences; '70s and '80s breakers in the South Bronx; b-girls from around the world; those negotiating differences in race, ethnicity, and nationality in discourse and practice. Johnson's book is a critical intervention into the quickly globalizing and rapidly evolving world of Hip Hop, and an innovative theoretical study of 20th and 21st century Africanist aesthetics in music and dance.
Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers : The Life of Africanist Aesthetics in Global Hip Hop