Temple University is set to announce a new course that concentrates on popular rapper Kendrick Lamar and his impact on Black excellence.
Reports have said that the course is titled “Kendrick Lamar and the Moral of M.A.A.D. City,” and fans have been reacting.
The course would be taught by Professor Timothy Welbeck, who teaches in the Department of Africology and African American Studies, and is presently the Director of the Centre for Anti-Racism.
Timothy has been lecturing at Temple University for more than one decade, and he has often included hip-hop and the Black experience in his courses.
The professor recently taught students of the institution everything they needed to know about urban Black politics, 2Pac, and the intersection of rap with Black identity.
Timothy stated that he has been working on the Kendrick course for more than 12 months, stressing that he even used the rapper’s material in his recent classes.
According to him, Kendrick Lamar is a household name when it comes to rap music the current generation can relate to, plus his art and life perfectly reflect the Black experience in several ways.
“My current department chair was very open to the idea and received it almost immediately. In a lot of ways, our department at Temple, specifically, and Temple more broadly, has embraced the study of hip-hop in academic spaces.
Kendrick Lamar is one of the defining voices of his generation, and in many ways, both his art and life are reflective of the Black experience in many telling ways.
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,” he said to NBC10.
Timothy concluded by saying that he hopes the course will help students to realize the power of hip-hop as a form of art and storytelling.
