Twenty-five years ago, Tricia Rose took the dissertation she wrote as a Ph.D. candidate at Brown and turned it into a book called Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America.

Black Noise was the first comprehensive, academic analysis of hip hop culture.  It won awards, was named among the top books of the year, and formed the foundation of how academics study and talk about hip hop. 

Professor Rose has gone on to tackle a range of projects that – in one way or another -- encourage tough conversations about race and ethnicity in America.