Dr. Imani Kai Johnson is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research focuses on African diasporic ritual cultures, Hip Hop dance in global circulation, and intersections of race, nation, and gender. Her book on breaking cyphers and their epistemological possibilities, titled Dark Matter in Breaking Cyphers: the Life of Africanist Aesthetics in Global Hip Hop was published in Oct. 2022 with Oxford University Press. Through an examination of Africanist aesthetics within Hip Hop and specifically breaking culture, the manuscript looks to the ritual dance circle – the cypher – to illuminate the layers of political, cultural, and spiritual understanding embedded in the practice. Using the physics metaphor of “dark matter,” the manuscript addresses histories of exclusion, marginalization, and invisibilization of Black aesthetics in global Hip Hop. She is currently an Associate Professor of Dance and of Black Study at UC Riverside.