Dr. Amara Pope

“A Canadian Student Is Doing a PhD on Drake…Pope (who completely blew through her media studies undergrad and masters degree by skipping summer breaks to go to school instead) told VICE Monday that her research on Drake is one of three case studies that are planned for her thesis project, which is looking at artists reflect their cultural, religious, and ethnic identities”

“Radio interview with Ismaila Alfa on Fresh Air ”Canada’s Missing R&B History and Representations of Canadian-ness in Contemporary Media”

“My doctoral research has examined how Drake, Bieber and Jessie Reyez each innovatively approach R&B music — and build distinctly Canadian lifestyle brands that reinforce, complicate and/or challenge dominant beliefs about Canadian identities as exclusively white and R&B as a genre style exclusively practised by Black American artists.”

“A PhD student’s dissertation looked at the missing history of Canadian R&B and how the country’s newest artists are redefining it”

“Drake and Justin Bieber are among the biggest popular music stars in the world. Part of their appeal has been blurring pop, hip-hop and R&B — music genres the music business has traditionally segregated along racialized lines.”

Radio interview with Craig Norris on The Morning Edition K-W. “Drake, Bieber and Reyez, Ph.D Amara Pope presents her dissertation”

“Pope published “Musical Artists Capitalizing on Hybrid Identities: A Case Study of Drake the ‘Authentic’ ‘Black’ ‘Canadian’ ‘Rapper.’” Pope says her paper represents how Canadian media has gone global. Amara Pope discusses how Drake’s success stems from his ability to create a hybrid identity.”

“[Dr. Pope] examines how artists like Drake, Justin Bieber, and Jessie Reyez broke into the music industry, representing a diverse range of Canadian R&B artists”

“‘I still love his music, but as an academic I’m just very much in awe in the ways in which he was able to brand himself through these different forms of identity politics and really generate so much marketing and attention to his image,’ said Pope.”

“Most Western students will be fine with listening to Drake with their headphones in, grinding away at Club Weldon. But Amara Pope took it a step further. As a media studies graduate student at Western, Pope studies her favourite rapper Drake for her PhD research paper.”

“‘I looked at the narratives he created in the three music videos and compared the lyrics, and then drew on particulars like geographical locations, props and communities,’ Pope said, adding she kept an eye out for how he represented race, class and religion.”

“Today, Dr. Amara Pope is a passionate and confident marketing manager, the first in a loving working-class family to graduate with a PhD. Music became an important part of her life growing up, the understanding of why and how significant came later in the journey, with Pope’s insightful PhD dissertation.”

Trinidadian-Canadian scholar unearths the hidden history of Canadian R&B in her groundbreaking dissertation.

This interview reached audiences FAR and WIDE, spanning Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands (Tortola), Cayman Islands, Colombia (San Andres), Dominica, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks & Caicos, Canada, and the United States of America via Bell Fibe TV and local television stations.

“Canadian R&B and hip-hop artists have long contributed to Canadian culture. But racism shaped representations of Canada as an exclusively white rock and country nation.”

“Expert insight: How artists like Drake and Justin Bieber complicate ideas of race, music and nationality. Canadian artists blur pop, hip hop and R&B, music genres that have traditionally been segregated along racialized lines. Special to Western News

“[Pope] She realized after her dissertation that musical artists like Bieber, Drake, and Reyez resonated with her younger self and allowed her to embrace different parts of her identity in ways that her immediate environments did not permit.”

I was invited to speak with the Jewish London Community about my contemporary research on Canadian Ideologies of Identity and offer a Q&A with community members.

“Drake plays the role of “high-class rapper and low-class citizen,” she says, which makes him a timely example of how the Internet can help shape identity. ‘It can go beyond him as a case study into examining different ways of communicating on social media,’ Pope says.”

“‘In watching the music videos I saw that he was making that attempt to connect to these different communities…But then upon researching I found that all of these positions that he’s promoting in these different music videos are actually drawn from his real-life experiences.’

“Her article was well received and led her to present at conferences across the country and undertake several interviews with the media. Amara shares her work with academics and non-academics alike and is deeply invested in making her research accessible.”

Instagram Takeover for Q&A and day-in-the-life of me

Social media video feature summarizing my PhD dissertation,

Video interview

“Pope’s well researched work uncovers the missing history of Canadian R&B which had been excluded from Canadian media in the past. She features stories with Crack of Dawn, Oscar Peterson, Jackie Shane, Eleanor Collins & others.”