Suzi Analogue, Ladybug Mecca named Harvard’s newest hip hop fellows
The two trailblazers are a part of W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute’s 2026-2027 class.
Left to Right: Suzi Analogue, Ladybug Mecca. Photos: Vanessa Diaz/Instagram, CheckTheRhime/Fandom
Harvard University has two new hip hop fellows.
According to a press statement published on June 15th, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research announced the class for its 2026-2027 Fellowship Program.
Among the 20 fellows selected this year are Never Normal Soundsystem founder and BY ANY MEANZ SONICALLY creator Maya Shipman, better known as Suzi Analogue, and Mariana S. Vieira, the GRAMMY Award-winning artist known as Ladybug Mecca of Digable Planets. Both have been awarded the Nasir Jones Hip Hop Fellowship.
As part of her fellowship, Shipman will continue developing BY ANY MEANZ SONICALLY, a creative research project exploring women's contributions to hip hop history. The project premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in February 2025 as part of a program curated by Alfreda's Cinema.
Vieira will use the fellowship to develop Sounding Black Brazil: Rhythm, Language, and the Politics of Hip-hop: a sonic documentary and accompanying book examining the history, aesthetics, and political significance of Brazilian hip hop.
Established in 1975, the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute has placed its Fellowship Program at the center of its mission to advance scholarship in African and African American Studies. To date, the institute has supported more than 700 fellows across a wide range of disciplines.
In 2024, Suzi Analogue was a speaker for Harvard University’s “A Black History of Electronic Dance Music” lecture series, where she gave a talk on “Mapping Black Club Music Ecologies.” Rewatch it here.
Read our live review of the BY ANY MEANZ SONICALLY premiere and find the complete list of fellows on Hutchins Center website.
