Kristen Cornwall

Capstone Project: From Oriki to the Booth: Hip Hop, Creolization, and the Performance of the Embodied Repertoire in Black History

This essay examines how one of the golden ages of hip hop stages creolization as an ongoing, and ever-changing performative ritual, transforming the griot and oríkì traditions of the African continent into something wholly and continuously new. Drawing on Diana Taylor's theory of embodied repertoire, performance as an episteme, and transculturation, the essay argues that the rapper is not merely a cultural product or living archive, but a performing body through which Black diasporic memory, genealogy, and reconstruction are continuously enacted. Through three case studies — Nas's "N.Y. State of Mind" (1994), Jay-Z's "Where I'm From" (1997), and Foxy Brown’s “My Life” (1999) — this essay traces how the rapper's body, voice, and lyric function as a living stage for creolization within and beyond the Black community. Ultimately, this essay contends that hip hop does not simply preserve tradition; it performs it, ruptures it, and reconstitutes it, making creolization itself the ongoing show.

What inspired your project?

My capstone project grew naturally out of the interests I have carried throughout my four years in the Performance Studies program. With a deep investment in Black music forms — and Hip Hop in particular — I found myself continuously drawn to questions of archive, history, and how performance itself becomes a site for preserving and transmitting Black life and culture. These themes have woven through my studies from the very beginning, and this project feels like the truest expression of where my intellectual and creative passions have landed. In many ways, it is both a culmination of my time at Tisch and a glimpse into the work I hope to continue carrying forward.

Bio

Kristen Cornwall is a senior at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, pursuing a dual focus in Performance Studies and Africana Studies. Her scholarly and creative work centers on Black diasporic life and history, with a deep investment in Black music and performance traditions — spanning Hip Hop, Jazz, Reggae, Blues, and beyond. Kristen approaches these forms not simply as genres, but as windows into the deeper mechanics of Black life and existence. She has gained hands-on experience at the Center for Black Visual Culture within NYU's Institute of African American Affairs, where her intellectual passions have taken real-world shape. Looking ahead, Kristen hopes to carve a path across music journalism, academia, and the Performance Studies scholarly community.