Rachel Raimist - Bio

I am a mother, filmmaker, scholar, educator, hip-hop feminist, activist, community organizer, and blogger. People still seem to get excited about my documentary Nobody Knows My Name (about women in hip-hop). I still get booked to travel to speak at film festivals, colleges, and hip-hop conferences all over the world.

I'm currently pursuing a Phd in Feminist Studies. In my life before school I've filmed for the Wake Up Show, have written and photographed for The Source, URB, Complex, Remix, and other publications. My work has been written about in The Village Voice, Spin, LA Weekly, City Pages, and Jane and I've appeared on The Jenny Jones Show (it was a serious show about doc filmmakers!), 60 Minutes, and on numerous international radio shows and online programs.

I received my B.A. and M.F.A in Film Directing from the UCLA School of Film and Television. I've taught video production at the University of California, Irvine and Los Angeles, and women of color/third wave activism in the Women and Gender Studies Program at Macalester College.

Currently, I'm in post-production (read: trying to balance babies, papers, and phd while motivating to edit) on a documentary about incarcerated intelligence, poets inside the Stillwater Correctional Facility in Minnesota. My first book, which I co-edited with Gwen Pough, Elaine Richardson and Aisha Durham, Home Girls Make Some Noise!: A Hip Hop Feminist Anthology will be published in 2007.

Download an Interview from 2005, film journal Velvet Light Trap Journal HERE

Clips of my writing/photography are available on this gallery