Dr. Adam J. Banks

 
 

the pic above  is an alternate cover for Digital Griots, designed and created by Lexington artist Ronald Davis. Used with permission and gratitude--with Ron’s permission and my gratitude.


a little love for the DJ as griot and master rhetor...and the inspiration for Digital Griots


standing between tradition and future, holding the power to shape how both are seen/heard/felt/known. exhibiting mastery of techniques, but always knowing that techniques carry stories, arguments, ways of viewing the world, that the techniques arrange the texts, that every text carries even more stories, arguments, epistemologies.

analyzing audiences their wants their needs their knowledges their attitudes joys pains fears—in any given situation—at a moment’s notice.  holding the crowd in the palm of one's hands, on the tips of her fingers. always on some new ish technology cut song line break but always understanding the importance of knowing traditions, always searching always questioning always researching digging in the crates looking for that cut that break that connection nobody else has found, nobody else has used quite that way. practicing her craft constantly.


bearer of history, memory, and rememory, able to turn on the planetary or intergalactic time space transporter within seconds. interpreting a world, implicitly and explicitly telling us how to manage the madness of it all, how to live in it but still escape with our souls.


from Digital Griots:  African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age
SIU Press, 2011

Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Media - University of Kentucky

Assistant Chair, Conference on College Composition and Communication

adam.banks3@uky.edu / @dradambanks (twitter)