An Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside, Liz Przybylski specializes in Indigenous hip hop practices in Canada and the United States. A graduate of Bard College (BA) and Northwestern University (MA, PhD), Liz has presented research nationally and internationally, including at the Society for Ethnomusicology, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, and International Council for Traditional Music World Conferences. Recent and forthcoming publications focus on popular music pedagogy and hip hop, and appear edited volumes, academic journals, and popular press sources. Liz was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research with hip hop artists and music broadcasters in Winnipeg. Her ongoing work develops an innovative methodology of on- and off-line ethnographic research. In addition to her university teaching, Liz has taught adult and pre-college learners at the American Indian Center in Chicago and the Concordia Language Villages program of Concordia College in Bemidji. A radio enthusiast, Liz hosted the world music show “Continental Drift” on WNUR and has conducted interviews with musicians for programs including “At The Edge of Canada: Indigenous Research” on CJUM. Liz currently serves as the Media Reviews Editor for the journal American Music.
I am a hip hop scholar with area expertise in Indigenous popular music in the U.S. and Canada. I work with urban First Nations, Native American, and Inuit artists who use heritage sources in their performances. My work analyzes how artists use genres of music (i.e. powwow, round dance, and rabbit dance songs), language (i.e. Inuktitut, Ojibwe, and Cree), and other markers of band-specific and intertribal culture (i.e. narrative styles, gesture, and instrumentation) and incorporate these markers of Indigeneity into contemporary popular culture through hip hop performance. With my research grounded in cities with active Indigenous cultural scenes, I analyze how these performances are changing public narratives about urban Indigeneity in the contemporary moment.
