About

Ebony A. Utley, Ph.D. is an expert in hip hop, race, and love relationships. She is an assistant professor of Communication Studies at California State University Long Beach and author of The Gangsta’s God: The Quest for Respectability in Hip Hop (Praeger 2012, forthcoming). In this ground-breaking book, Utley blends rap music, religion, and urban African American history to explain how a God-sanctioned gangsta identity empowers young black people facing declining opportunities in education, employment, and the economy.

Utley’s publications on race examine how Americans talk about race and racism, and her publications on relationships survey youth definitions of love, ask probing questions about women’s experiences with infidelity, and investigate African American beliefs about marriage.

Utley is co-editor of Hip Hop’s Languages of Love (2009) and on the advisory board for The Yale Anthology of Rap (2010). Her work has appeared in Critical Studies in Media Communication, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, The Journal of Men’s Studies, The Western Journal of Black Studies, and Women and Language.

In addition to national radio and print outlet appearances, Utley lectures at universities across the country and is a contributing blogger for Ms. Magazine.

Utley was graduated with highest distinction from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in Speech Communication and a certificate in Journalism. She immediately entered graduate school as a Jacob K. Javits fellow in the communication studies department at Northwestern University where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D.

Utley CV