Cornel West

Cornel West is a leading African-American scholar, philosopher, civil rights activist, author, political critic and commentator. He is currently the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University where he teaches in both the department of Religion and the Center for African American Studies.

In addition to writing and lecturing for an academic audience, West also appears in popular culture as a way of reaching out to "ordinary people" - he has appeared in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions as "Councilor West". He has also been involved in a number of hip-hop recording projects - specifically Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations (recorded with BMWMB - Black Men Who Mean Business - and a range of rappers and recording artists including KRS One, Talib Kweli, Andre 3000, Jill Scott and Gerald Levert - and the group Cornel West Theory.