Todd Boyd

Todd Boyd, aka "Notorious Ph.D.", is the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race & Popular Culture and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Boyd is a media commentator, author, producer, consultant and scholar. He is considered an expert on American popular culture and is known for his pioneering work on cinema, media, hip hop culture, fashion, art and sports. Boyd received his PhD in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa in 1991 and began his professorial career at USC in the fall of 1992.

Since the late 1990s, Boyd has appeared in numerous documentary features and docuseries, including appearances in the award winning, The Last Dance (ESPN, 2020), winner of the 2020 Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series and Twenty Feet From Stardom (2013) winner of the 2014 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Music Film.

Boyd has also appeared in The Crossover: 50 Years of Sports and Hip Hop (ESPN, 2023), Goliath [Wilt Chamberlain] (Showtime, 2023),Say Hey, Willie Mays! (HBO, 2022), Ken Burns’ Muhammad Ali (PBS, 2021), Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of RickJames (Showtime, 2021) Blood Brothers (Netflix, 2021) and The Movies (CNN, 2019), Sammy Davis Jr.: I Gotta Be Me (American Masters/PBS, 2019), The Nineties and The 2000s (CNN, 2017, 2018) among numerous other titles.

Boyd’s video essay Basquiat: Bebop 2 Hip Hop featuring Dr. Todd Boyd (2021) is part of The Broad museum series, “Time Decorated: The Musical Influences of Jean-Michel Basquiat.” His video essay “Dr. Todd Boyd on David Hammons” (2021) is a part of The Broad’s series “Up Close.”

Boyd is the author/editor of eight books and over 100 articles, essays, reviews, and other forms of commentary.

His books include Rapper’s Deluxe: How Hip Hop Made the World (Phaidon, 2024), The Notorious Ph.D’s Guide to the Super Fly 70s (Broadway/Random House, 2007), Young Black Rich and Famous: The Rise of the NBA, the Hip Hop Invasion, and the Transformation of American Culture (Doubleday/Random House, 2003), The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop (NYU Press, 2002) and Am I Black Enough for You? Public Culture from the ‘Hood and Beyond (Indiana University Press, 1997). He is also the editor of African Americans and Popular Culture Vol. 1–3 (Praeger/Greenwood, 2008), Basketball Jones: America Above the Rim (with Kenneth Shropshire, NYU Press, 2000) and Out of Bounds: Sports, Media and the Politics of Identity (with Aaron Baker, Indiana University Press, 1997).

His written work has also appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, ESPN, and The Root.

Boyd was the executive producer for the Netflix documentary, At All Costs (2016). He was writer/producer on the Paramount Pictures cult classic film The Wood (1999).

He has also provided voice-over commentary on the DVD edition of the films Stormy Weather (1943), Cabin in the Sky (1943), Super Fly (1972), and Uptown Saturday Night (1974).[10]