A.D. Carson

A.D. Carson is an award-winning performance artist and educator from Decatur, Illinois. His work focuses on race, literature, history, rhetorics & performance. His album, i used to love to dream, the first-ever rap album peer-reviewed for publication with an academic press, was released with University of Michigan Press in 2020. This work is the third in a series of albums that build on concepts from his doctoral dissertation and forthcoming peer-reviewed album, Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions. The 2017 version of Owning My Masters was internationally heralded and was also recognized with the Outstanding Dissertation Award from Clemson’s Graduate Student Government.

Dr. Carson received the 2021 Research Award for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities from the University of Virginia after the release of i used to love to dream, which was also a Category Winner (Best eProduct) of a Prose Award from the Association of American Publishers in 2021. His work at Clemson University with students, staff, faculty, and community members attempting to raise awareness of historic, entrenched racism was recognized with a 2016 Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Excellence in Service. He has authored a novel, COLD, which hybridizes poetry, rap lyrics, and prose, and The City: [un]poems, thoughts, rhymes, & miscellany. 

Dr. Carson’s work has been featured by Rolling Stone, SPIN, Complex, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Forbes, Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, NPR’s All Things Considered and Code Switch, OkayPlayer, Time, and XXL among others. His most recent album, V: ILLICIT, and other projects are available to stream/download free from aydeethegreat.com.