Assistant Professor, Musicology
About
Gustavo Souza Marques, also known by his stage name Gusmão, is an ethnomusicologist, drummer, composer, and instrumental hip-hop music producer. His main research interests include postcolonialism, critical race theory, media studies, performance, and popular music—primarily hip-hop—in the Americas.
Marques served as a postdoctoral fellow with the ERC CIPHER Hip Hop Interpellation project at University College Cork, National University of Ireland, where he was the Latin American and circum-Caribbean specialist for the global hip-hop knowledge mapping initiative. His forthcoming book, Tyler, The Creator: Hip Hop’s Revolution—Beyond Gangsta, is based on his doctoral research, also conducted at University College Cork. The book examines the musical work of Tyler, the Creator through the lenses of critical race theory, postcolonialism, media studies, and performance studies. It is under contract with Bloomsbury as part of the series New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media and is scheduled for release in 2026.
For his master’s degree, Dr. Marques conducted a pioneering ethnomusicological study on the Duelo de MCs (MCs’ Duel), the largest street hip-hop battle in Brazil, held in his hometown of Belo Horizonte. During this time, Gusmão was the drummer for the live hip-hop band Julgamento, while also participating in Duelo as a freestyling rapper. This dual role enriched his academic exploration of rap music and hip-hop culture.
His next scholarly project explores the intersections of magical realism, ecomusicology, and transmodernism in hip-hop across the Americas. It began in the summer of 2023 with Professor Marques’ fieldwork in the U.S., Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, and Brazil as a Posdoctoral Fellow for the CIPHER Hip Hop Interpellation project. In 2025, he is also conducting research in Santiago and Valparaíso, Chile, while continuously engaging in dialogue with influential hip-hop artists from across the Americas as part of this ongoing study.
In Winter 2025, Professor Marques initiated the formation of a hip-hop community within the School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD). Under the provisional name Hip Hop Coalition, Marques and other scholars from the Dance Department—namely lecturer Krisilyn “Tony” Frazier and graduate students Kiana Cook and Timothy Tsang—along with staff member and rapper Nickie P, began developing a space aimed at bridging the gap between hip-hop scholarship and practice in academia. Marques and his collaborators are enthusiastic about the coalition’s potential and hope it will contribute to a brighter future for hip-hop studies, practice, and culture at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Marques is currently focused on teaching, expanding his perspectives on hip-hop in the Americas, and continuing his career as an instrumental hip-hop music producer, which began in 2018 with his debut beat tape A Cor da Casca (The Color of the Shell).
On the artistic front, Gusmão produced the 2024 album Japomex by legendary Mexico City rapper MC Luka, which features other renowned Mexican rappers such as Sociedad Café. He also produced several singles for MC Luka, including Lupita Taco Shop, Vol. 2 (2024).
In 2025, Gusmão released two new albums: Urso Futurismo and Cut Through. Urso Futurismo is a beat tape that blends Brazilian genres like samba and bossa nova with Caribbean styles such as Jamaican raggamuffin, infused with fragments of alternative rock. These diverse musical elements fall under the umbrella of experimental hip-hop, a defining feature of Gusmão’s sound. The album’s first single, Samba Triste (Sad Samba), features a visualizer on his YouTube channel and was released in January 2025.
Cut Through, released in the spring after a productive teaching semester at SMTD, features heavier, more energetic beats that contrast with the lo-fi textures of Urso Futurismo. Gusmão regularly releases beat tapes on his YouTube channel, which are also available on his Bandcamp and SoundCloud pages. Starting this summer, his albums will also be available on major streaming platforms such as Spotify. You can find all his links here.
Selected Publications
Marques, Gustavo Souza. “Full of Rage and References: Understanding Coronel’s Frenesi (Frenzy) in the Brazilian Rap Scene.” Global Hip-Hop Studies, volume 3, issue 1-2, 2023.
Marques, Gustavo Souza. “Fighting for Attention Through Rap Music: Shock-Value, Racial Play and Web Culture in the Musical Work of Tyler, The Creator.” INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology, issue 8, 2022.
Marques, Gustavo Souza. “Virilidade, machismo e violência: o ethos guerreiro no hip-hop.” Revista Brasileira de Música. v. 27, n. 2 (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2014): 281-299.
Selected Discography
Gusmão - The Dorothy Ashby Beat Tape (2024)
MF DOOM x Black Sabbath (mashup album) (2021)
Gusashi - South Samurai (2021)
Gusmão - MNDCHNG (2019)
