Sekou Cooke
Season 2, Episode 6: Sekou Cooke interrogates the notion of Hip-Hop Architecture through a close reading of his latest book, and shares the origins of the Black in Design Conference.
Sekou Cooke. Photo Courtesy of Michael Barletta via sekou cook Studio.
Overview
Sekou Cooke reveals the events that led to the first Black in Design Conference in 2015. In discussing his latest book, Hip-Hop Architecture, Sekou draws parallels between Hip-Hop and the built environment. Through conversation ranging from sampling and notions of property to grids and scaffolding, we discuss how vocabulary can be transferred across the two fields to share a common mode of production.
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About Sekou Cooke
Sekou Cooke is an architect, researcher, educator, and curator born in Jamaica and based in Charlotte, NC. He is the newly appointed Director of the Master of Urban Design program at UNC Charlotte and a recipient of the 2021/2022 Nasir Jones HipHop Fellowship at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Within his professional practice, sekou cooke STUDIO, he brings thoughtful processes and rigorous experimentation to a vast array of project types from public, non-profit, and residential works in New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, to mixed-use projects and tenant improvements in California, to speculative developments locally and internationally.
Sekou holds a B.Arch from Cornell University, an M.Arch from Harvard University, and is licensed to practice architecture in New York and North Carolina.
How to Listen
You can listen to all available episodes and find program notes here on our website, or subscribe to the series via one of these providers: iTunes, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Stitcher.
About the Show
Developed by the African American Design Nexus at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, The Nexus is a podcast that explores the intersection of design, identity, and practice through conversations with Black designers, writers and educators. The Nexus is produced in conjunction with a commitment by the Frances Loeb Library to acquire and create an open-access bibliography of various media suggested by the GSD community on the intersection between race and design.
Show Credits
The Nexus Season 2 is hosted by Tara Oluwafemi and Darien Carr, students in the Master of Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The show is recorded and edited by Maggie Janik, and the theme music is produced by DJ Eway.
Contact
For all inquiries, please email [email protected].