Bakari Kitwana, in collaboration with community members, organizations and institutions, created Rap Sessions—a national conversation on Hip Hop and Race. Rap Sessions is a multiracial panel of Hip hop experts who tour California and the nation to engage youth in candid, compelling conversations about race, gender, and power.

In 2005/2006, Rap Sessions, the first national tour of its kind, brought town hall-style meetings focused on race and hip-hop to 15 cities across the country. By touring the nation with leading hip-hop activists, artists and thinkers, Rap Sessions helped jumpstart crucial local debate and connect local hip-hop communities to national hip-hop arts/activists networks.

These “town hall” styled meetings have expanded our nation’s current understanding of race and youth culture. Rap Sessions added new virtual components to its website to allow youth who cannot attend to learn from the forum. These components include digital stories, video blogs, and a short documentary. Currently, 300-500 youths attend each event; the virtual component have increased the number of youth who are exposed to the Rap Sessions forum and on-going dialogue dramatically. Community dialogues hope to serve as a "virtual comunity center" where issues of vital concern to the hip hop generation are debated. The purpose of the dialogue is to assist community building and social change by helping evolve new frameworks for thinking through the crises of our time. In 2007, the question they are taking on is, "Does Hip Hop Hate Women?"

For more information, visit Rap Sessions