Penn Arts & Sciences at Work: Simone Eccleston, C’02

Simone Eccleston, C’02

Director of Hip Hop Culture and Contemporary Music, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
African American Studies Major
Washington, DC

I am the Director of Hip Hop Culture and Contemporary Music at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. In my position, I curate and produce our annual season of programming and build the strategy for how Hip Hop and Contemporary music live inside the Kennedy Center.

When you think about the Kennedy Center’s role as the national cultural center, we’re responsible for making sure that we reflect the nation. There’s no way we can achieve this aspiration without Hip Hop Culture as a core part of our work. It’s one of the most transformative forces within contemporary culture. It has shaped and shifted society and transfigured global culture. In addition, it has served as a powerful conduit for community and social change. Therefore, it was only fitting for us to include it as an institutional pillar. Being able to create this program—which offers a space where people can see themselves powerfully reflected and see Hip Hop Culture celebrated—has been game changing.

In my junior year of high school, I read Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and it was transformative for me because it was the first time that I felt seen in literature. The novel was thought provoking and breathtaking. Although Morrison was offering up a societal critique on how a community failed a child, and the impact of internalized racism, there was something that felt personal, sacred, like a call to action. The Bluest Eye would find its way back to me through Hip Hop, when I heard Black Star’s “Thieves in the Night”—Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and Talib Kweli used Morrison’s epilogue as the foundation for the song’s chorus. This connection between the music that I loved and the literature that moved me was powerful. Each artist was offering up societal commentary, just using a different lens.

Fast forward to the summer before my first year at Penn. With the support of myparents, I participated in the Africana Studies Summer Institute. It was such an important foundation for me, and it set a standard for my undergraduate experience. It was intellectually rigorous, deeply inspiring, and one of the most important times I had at Penn. Understanding that we had professors like Herman Beavers and Farah Jasmine Griffin as well as a community of peers who were deeply committed to our success was extraordinary. That experience really cemented my desire to major in African American Studies [what is today Africana Studies], which prepared me for my career trajectory before I even knew what it would be.

So, the advice I want to give to undergraduates today is, don’t be afraid to follow your passion. You can create a career based off of what you love and what inspires you. You never know where your passion will lead you and the kind of impact it will have on others. — as told to Michele W. Berger