Doing It For The Culture: Sneaker Stories

Dr. Jemayne Lavar King

Director of the Institute of Hip-Hop and Cultural Studies and Associate Professor of English at Virginia State University.

Jemayne Lavar King, Ph.D., a native of Franklin, Virginia, is a 2017 TEDx speaker finalist and a member of Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society and Delta Epsilon Iota, and Delta Alpha Pi Academic Honor Societies. King’s first poem, “Richard Morgan Flier,” was published in 2002, followed by the books Sole Food: Digestible Sneaker Culture, Life Within the Dorm and Other College-Related Poems, Managing Relationships: Bridging the Communication Divide, 20 First Dates: The Poetic Mixtape, The Soles of Black Folk: African American Sneaker Culture in Literature, Film, Television, Sports Studies and Music, and The New York Mets in Popular Culture.

King is the creator of the world’s first collegiate English course dedicated to Sneaker Culture literature and identification within Sneaker Culture. Dr. King holds a Bachelor of Arts in English-News Media from Elizabeth City State University, a Master of Arts in English Literature from Virginia State University, and a Ph.D. in English-Literary Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

In 2018, he became the 34th recipient of Johnson C. Smith University’s highest pedagogical honor, the Par Excellence Teaching Award. He has been recognized domestically and internationally by entities including, but not limited to, The White House, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Charlotte Observer, ESPN, ESPN+, and Paris, France’s 66 Minutes, via the M6 Network. King resides in Chester, Virginia, where he operates Sole Food Brand LLC and serves as the Director of the Institute of Hip-Hop and Cultural Studies and Associate Professor of English at Virginia State University.