u.net has spent the last two decades moving between archives and street corners, building one of the most rigorous bodies of work on hip hop culture and African American history in Europe. His approach is ethnographic at its core: oral history as a method, marginalized voices as primary sources, the block as a research site.
He is the author of Renegades of Funk, Bigger than Hip Hop, Louder than a Bomb, Stand 4 What! and Original London Style, all published by Agenzia X. In collaboration with Paradise the Architect (X Clan), he co-authored No Half Steppin’ (Wax Poetics Books, 2016). He also directed Unstoppable, a documentary tracing the origins of hip hop culture in London.
In 2019, he was awarded the NAS Fellowship at the Harvard Hip Hop Archive & Research Institute. Since 2006, he has lectured and participated in conferences at leading US universities, bringing his fieldwork into academic conversation without ever leaving the street behind. He writes regularly for Alias (Il Manifesto).
Publications
- 2006 – Bigger Than Hip Hop (Agenzia X)
- 2009 – Renegades of Funk (Agenzia X)
- 2012 – Louder Than a Bomb (Agenzia X)
- 2015 – Don’t Believe the Hype
- 2016 – No Halfsteppin (WaxPoetics)
- 2016 – Unstoppable
- 2018 – Stand 4 What (Agenzia X)
- 2022 – Original London Style (Agenzia X)
- 2023 – The Accidental Archive in Murray Forman, Mark Campbell, Hip-Hop Archives: The Politics and Poetics of Knowledge Production (Intellect Books, 2023)
- 2024 – Original London Style – English edition (Agenzia X)
- 2024 – Renegades of Funk – Nuova edizione aggiornata (Agenzia X)