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Reckoning with the South

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Justin A. Davis

Justin Davis is a writer and labor organizer. His poems are published or forthcoming in places like Washington Square Review, Anomaly, wildness, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and Apogee Journal. He’s published non-fiction with Science for the People and Labor Notes. He's been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

Posted inRACE & PLACE

"Pull up your pants or go to jail!"

by Justin A. Davis June 30, 2023June 30, 2023

For Black Music Month, a retelling of the moral panic around sagging pants—and how the influences of Southern pop rap and regressive gender politics accelerated efforts to police it.

Posted inRACE & PLACE

Another kind of Memphis Blues

by Justin A. Davis June 15, 2023June 15, 2023
Tina Turner performs onstage at the United Center, October 1, 2000. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images) How Tina Turner's abuse and trauma remains a hip-hop trope.
Posted inARTS & SOUL

How Tina Turner's trauma remains a hip-hop trope—and why we need to abolish it

by Justin A. Davis May 25, 2023November 13, 2023
Posted inRACE & PLACE

How 'the shadow of state abandonment' fostered then foiled Young Thug's YSL

by Justin A. Davis February 9, 2023December 14, 2023
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Cop City, Gentrification, and Young Thug: Atlanta's uneven war over greenspace in 'The City of the Forest'

by Justin A. Davis February 9, 2023December 1, 2023
Memphis rapper Princess Loko's posthumous feature on "Renaissance" asks us to reckon with living on the margins in a surveillance state.
Posted inRACE & PLACE

Longtime Memphis rapper Princess Loko died in obscurity. Will a Beyoncé feature grant her the 'Renaissance' she's overdue?

by Justin A. Davis August 11, 2022December 5, 2023

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