Emile YX?, South African Hip Hop Activist and Educator

Emile Jansen, also known as Emile YX?, is a South African Hip Hop activist, educator and founder of the Heal the Hood Project and Black Noise. Jansen has been selected as the spring 2026 witness for the Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau Witness in Residence Initiative.

Man in tshirt with the shape of Afica on it stands smiling for the camera with his hands in his pockets.

Raised under Apartheid, he left formal teaching in 1993 to use Hip Hop culture, breaking and storytelling, as an educational tool for healing and personal and social transformation.

He is internationally recognized for work that reframes Hip Hop Culture as a living practice of dignity, creativity, and liberation.

He has written and contributed to over 40 books, including Reconnect the String: The African Origins of Hip Hop Culture and its Ancestral Healing Power.

Some of his accolades include: 2019 South African Hip Hop Museum Hall of Fame inductee, American Association of Applied Linguistics 2022 Distinguished Public Service Award recipient, and 2022 Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity fellow.

Event Details

Tuesday, April 7
4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Fretwell Building, Room 100