WeMove: Transforming Leadership in Hip Hop

Abstract

WeMove is an Arts Council England funded 'Transforming Leadership' project that is focused on designing and delivering a leadership development programme to inspire, support and promote changemakers from the Hip Hop dance community, led by a consortium of leading UK Hip Hop organisations. The programme aims to nurture future leaders to build a sustainable, innovative and representative infrastructure for Hip Hop, alongside influencing decision making within the wider cultural sector. Our research into the effectiveness of this programme with a first cohort of participants in 2020 has highlighted key learnings from the first year of its implementation and raised questions on how existing (Western, patriarchal, colonialist) models of leadership may need to be re-thought for the future of our field. This presentation offers an initial, mixed-method qualitative action research evaluation of the project, with data gathered through reflection sessions, observational field notes, digital communication records, and semi-structured interviews to develop case studies on cohort/consortium/core delivery team members of the project.

Analysis of this data was conducted using an inductive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006), alongside some descriptive quantitative analysis data. We will discuss key findings from the first cohort of participants, the consortium design process, and implications for the future of the project as well as for developing leadership within the sector as a whole.