Name: Vibe Revived: Reflections from Vibe Magazine’s Trailblazing Writers and Editors
Start: 2025-03-15T19:30:00-0700
End: 2025-03-15T21:30:00-0700

POP CONFERENCE 2025

Baby, It’s a Look!
Popular Music, Style, and Fashion at the Edge

March 13 - 15, 2025

Los Angeles, California

Presented by USC Thornton School of Music

With the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US) and Critical Minded

Over three exciting days of panels, roundtables, keynotes, and special events, the 23rd annual Pop Conference will explore the deep and complex relationship between popular music, style, and fashion. This year’s theme, “Baby, It’s a Look: Popular Music, Style, and Fashion at the Edge,” draws its inspiration from a 2017 Leikeli47 lyric and marks the first joint gathering of PopCon and IASPM-US since 2012.

Fashion and music are inextricably linked, from Josephine Baker’s banana skirt, Cab Calloway’s zoot suits, Billie Holiday’s signature gardenia, to The Beatles’ mop-top haircuts. Today, the connection between pop music and fashion remains stronger than ever. Visualizers thrive on streaming platforms; fashion runways in Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Johannesburg deploy pop music to bring designers’ visions to life; and musicians themselves blaze new trails designing streetwear collections and serving as creative directors for major fashion houses.

But style has always been much more than just commerce or escapism—it has long been a space for critique, refusal, defiance, and radical expression. At its most powerful, style challenges norms, blurs boundaries, and pushes artistic and cultural frontiers, moving us right to the edge.

This year’s conference returns to USC’s Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles just months after January 2025’s catastrophic Eaton and Palisades wildfires, and during a time of profound global upheaval and turmoil. The 2025 “Baby, It’s a Look: Popular Music, Style, and Fashion at the Edge” conference presents a remix, an opportunity to reconsider how fashion and music shape the world we live in, reflecting our realities, struggles, and aspirations while leading us toward the very edge of what feels possible.

Open to the public and free admission with conference registration on Eventbrite. Some events may require separate registration.

Saturday March 15, 2025 7:30pm - 9:30pm PDT

Newman Recital Hall

An Eventbrite reservation is required. Seating at this event is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

With:
Keith Clinkscales
Rob Kenner
Joan Morgan
Scott Poulson-Bryant
Emil Wilbekin

In the early 1990s, Quincy Jones launched Vibe magazine, a hugely influential publication that forever changed the landscape of Black popular culture. With its cutting-edge journalism, bold photography, and deep coverage of hip-hop, R&B, and the cultural movements surrounding them, Vibe became the definitive voice of a generation.

This special panel will feature original music writers, critics, and editors from the early days of Vibe, reflecting on the magazine’s impact, legacy, and the evolution of music journalism. It is the final event in USC Thornton School of Music’s yearlong Quincy Jones: Beyond Category tribute series, as well as the Closing Night special event of the 2025 Pop Conference, with its focus this year on the connections between music, fashion and style.

Confirmed panelists include Joan Morgan, a pioneering hip-hop feminist and author who served as an original staff writer for Vibe Media Group's Vibe magazine from 1993 to 1996; Emil Wilbekin, a founding editor and former editor-in-chief of Vibe, and a key voice in shaping the magazine’s vision and influence; Rob Kenner, a founding editor of Vibe who joined in 1992 and whose nineteen-year run at the magazine played a key role in chronicling hip-hop’s rise to global prominence; Keith Clinkscales, who helped Quincy Jones establish Vibe in 1993 and was named president and chief executive officer, and founded the publication's digital counterpart, Vibe.com, in 1994; and Scott Poulson-Bryant, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, and a founding editor of Vibe who has written for Spin, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, The Source, and Essence. They will discuss the groundbreaking stories they covered, the artists they profiled, their connection with Quincy Jones, and the behind-the-scenes moments that shaped Vibe’s influence.

Vibe set the stage for today’s media landscape and its continued resonance in contemporary culture. Join us for an evening of storytelling, insight, and celebration of a singular publication that changed the way we see, hear, and write about music.

Speakers

Pop Conference 2025

Keith Clinkscales

Rob Kenner

Joan Morgan

Scott Poulson-Bryant

Emil Wilbekin

Attendees (27)