Clover Hope
Journalist
English
Guyanese-American
New York University (BA)
Pop music, hip hop, interview
2005 — present
Black is King (co-writer)
Early life and education[edit]
Hope was born in Guyana and immigrated to New York City when she was three years old.[2] She was raised in both Brooklyn and Queens.[2] She cited DMX's It's Dark and Hell is Hot and the work of Missy Elliott as two sources that cultivated her love for hip hop.[3][4]
Hope graduated magna cum laude from New York University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.[2]
Career[edit]
Journalism[edit]
Hope's first job in journalism after college began in 2005 as an online editor at Billboard.[5] She went on to work at XXL for three years and then moved on to be senior editor at Vibe.[2] She was hired as a staff writer for Jezebel in 2014 and left in 2020.[6][7] Her work has also appeared in outlets including The Village Voice, ESPN, GQ, and Harper's Bazaar.[1][2] She has been a contributing editor at Pitchfork since 2020.[1]
Beyoncé's featured September 2018 Vogue editorial included an as-told-to interview with Hope.[8] The writer again collaborated with Beyoncé as a co-writer on Black Is King (2020).[9]
Other work[edit]
She is a co-executive producer for Black Renaissance, a Black arts and culture YouTube Originals special that premiered February 26, 2021.[10]
Hope is an adjunct professor at New York University.[7]
Her debut book The Motherlode: 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop was released in 2021.[11] The book profiles iconic women in hip-hop like Roxanne Shanté and Nicki Minaj and provides historical context as well as the perspectives of the featured artists.[3]