At a time when people are questioning the usefulness of going to college, we get this:
Yes, if you go to Temple University in Philly, you could take a class on the rapper Kendrick Lamar.
This will certainly ... help you in your future career endeavors?
According to NBC10 in Philadelphia, the course is titled "Kendrick Lamar and the Morale of M.A.A.D City" and will be taught by Timothy Welbeck, a professor in the Department of Africology and African American Studies and the Director of the Center for Anti-Racism. Welbeck, who has taught at Temple for 14 years, has long incorporated hip-hop and Black cultural expression into his classes, such as courses on 2Pac, urban Black politics, and the intersection of hip-hop and Black identity.
This same prof in the Department of Africology (yes, that's apparently a real thing and not a cartoon a Darwinian racist came up with) has taught courses on Tupac, Beyonce, and Jay-Z before.
But Kendrick Lamar, who you might remember from this year's Super Bowl halftime show, is the newest subject for Welbeck's class.
(Because how can one be fluent in Africology without studying one of the most prominent modern rappers?)
'Kendrick Lamar is one of the defining voices of his generation, and in many ways, both his art and life is reflective of the Black experience in many telling ways,' Welbeck told NBC10. 'Being able to discuss his art in the environment that helps lead him into being the man that he is in a lot of ways can tell you him as an individual, but can also talk about the journey's towards self-actualization particularly as it is related to the Black experience.'
Or, you could be like me, not be able to name a single song or lyric from Kendrick Lamar, and still, somehow, function in today's society pretty much without an issue.
Welbeck said he had been planning this course for almost a year, but he had since used Kendrick's material in his other classes for a decade, thanks to Temple having 'embraced the study of hip-hop in academic spaces.'
Alright, that's enough "higher education" for today.
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