Adam Bradley

Adam Bradley is the Duwain E. Hughes, Jr Distinguished Chair of English and the author/editor of numerous books, including Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, The Anthology of Rap, and the national bestseller One Day It'll All Make Sense (with the rapper and actor Common). He is a writer-at-large for the New York Time's T Magazine and a curator of cultural exhibitions in the United States and abroad. As the founding director of the Laboratory for Race & Popular Culture (the RAP Lab), which he led for more than a decade, Bradley spearheaded public humanities projects that reached K-12 schools and incarcerated communities. His research and teaching interests include poetry, poetics, and 20th and 21st century African American literature. 

Selected Publications 

Air Jordan (Foreword by Michael Jordan) (Assouline Press, 2025)

"My Own Version of You," The Poetry of Bob Dylan: Thirty Essays on Thirty Songs, ed. Michael Chaser (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025)

The Poetry of Pop (Yale University Press, 2017)

One Day It'll All Make Sense (with Common)(Atria Books, 2011)

Ralph Ellison in Progress (Yale University Press, 2010)

Three Days Before the Shooting: The Modern Library Edition of Ralph Ellison's Second Novel, (with John F. Callahan)(Random House, 2010)

The Anthology of Rap, (with Andrew DuBois)(Yale University Press, 2010)

Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop (Basic Civitas, 2009)