J. Griffith Rollefson

J. Griffith Rollefson is a Professor of Music at the University College Cork, Ireland, affiliated with the School of Music and Theatre. He holds a PhD in Musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has previously taught at the University of Cambridge and University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on Hip Hop Studies, Postcolonialism, African American Music, and Jazz, with a particular emphasis on cultural hybridity and decolonial methodologies.

Education: PhD in Musicology (University of Wisconsin-Madison), MA in Music History and Composition (Bowling Green State University), BA in Music (Macalester College).

Research interests include Hip Hop’s global postcolonial dimensions, Afrofuturism, Jazz studies (especially Charles Mingus), and interdisciplinary cultural criticism. He leads the ERC-funded CIPHER project mapping hip hop knowledge flows worldwide and co-edits Global Hip Hop Studies. His books Flip the Script and Critical Excess explore hip hop’s sociopolitical and economic dimensions.

Awards include UCC Researcher of the Year (2019) and SEM Ruth Stone Book Prize (2019). He has secured over €2 million in research grants, including Horizon 2020 funding for CIPHER.

Teaching emphasizes student-led research, with courses like “Planet Rap” integrating digital scholarship and community engagement. His pedagogy prioritizes critical thinking and public scholarship, as seen in his UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Public Scholar role.

Labs/Teams: CIPHER Project (ERC grant), Global Hip Hop Studies journal (co-edited), and community partnerships like the RYSE Center (Bay Area).