Tosin Gbogi
310 Pillsbury Dr. S.E.
Minneapolis,
MN
55455
Tosin Gbogi is a literary scholar, cultural critic, linguist, and poet. His central research and teaching interests move between African and African diaspora literatures; poetry and poetics; hip-hop and popular culture; and postcolonial and decolonial theories. He is the author of the monograph Nigerian Hip-Hop: Race, Knowledge, and the Poetics of Resistance (Oxford University Press, December 2025). Drawing on a wide range of sources, including lyrics, music videos, visual arts, archival materials, and interviews, it examines Nigerian hip-hop in relation to its popular poetry, intermediality and multimodality, Afrodiasporic connections, and contemplative reflections on race in the afterlives of slavery and colonialism. All through, the book makes a case for why we should take seriously the decolonial and epistemic contributions of hip-hop in Africa, where youths have consistently turned to the music and the broader culture surrounding it to create and curate knowledge about self, race, and nation. As a poet, he is also the author of the tongues of a shattered s-k-y (Blackgraphics, 2012) and locomotifs and other songs (Noirledge, 2018).
Before joining UMN, Professor Gbogi taught at Adekunle Ajasin University (Akungba, Nigeria) and, most recently, at Marquette University.
Educational Background
- PhD: Linguistics (Interdisciplinary), Tulane University
- MA: English Literature (with Distinction), Anglia Ruskin University
- BA: English Studies, Adekunle Ajasin University
Specialties
- African and African diaspora literatures
- Poetry and poetics
- Popular culture and hip-hop
- Postcolonial and decolonial theories
- Critical and cultural theory