As Hip Hop continues to expand, its reach finds its way into undergraduate classrooms.
One such classroom is Professor Michael Eric Dyson’s Georgetown course, SOCI-124-01 or “Sociology of Hip-Hop – Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z.”
“This class is about the politics, the culture, the racial dimensions, the class dimensions, the economic dimensions of Hip Hop culture seen through a figure like Jay-Z.” said Dyson an an interview with The Washington Post.
“This is not a class meant to sit around and go, ‘Oh man, those lyrics were dope,’ ” explains Dyson, who penned the book Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop, which features an introduction from Jay-Z and an afterword from Nas. “We’re dealing with everything that’s important in a sociology class: race, gender, ethnicity, class, economic inequality, social injustice…. His body of work has proved to be powerful, effective and influential. And it’s time to wrestle with it.”
“I’m a tweener, man! I couldn’t march with Dr. King and them. And I’m too old to be a Hip Hopper,” added Dyson, who sees his role as bridging the gap between generations of music listeners that often don’t see eye-to-eye. “But I’ve been granted honorary status in each generation…. I see my tongue as a bridge over which ideas can travel back and forth.”
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I wish I could meet this dude and learn something from him. His point of view on hip hop is pretty eye opening.
Is this class recorded? I would pay to be in that class gosh
he had a class doing the same thing with 2pac’s lyrics. Pac and Hov are just on another level.
Only in your opinion. Even if they were, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from anything Jay-Z says.
A teacher was fired bcoz of showing Em’s superman video in class. Just shedding lights !
You know what you can learn form Jay Z.
How to fake it till you make it.
It seems like this generation has got that down pack. Everyone talking about how much money they have when they really don’t have any.
This dude is a genius. I love watching clips of him on YouTube tearing down conservatives
You’re never too old to be down with HipHop I’m still gonna play The Black Album when I’m 68 like my bampy did with The White Album!
Hov 101 LMAO…
Day one. Homework for the Jay Z class.
Give me 10 ways you can fake it till you make it.
Day 2: Explain how a man who went from project drug dealer to hip hop icon gets so much hate from ignorant, spiteful people to this day.
OH boy and we wonder why, society have fail our kids, are you serious, what have Jay Z done to change society, most of his song talk about how he use to sell drugs, this is why our kids seem to think going to school and putting hard work is a waste of time, you want to teach, teach about the people that work 9 to 5 with out no health care, just to get by, this is what worng with these teacher they have our kids reach for these so call stars and i am not talking about mars because all that you teaching these kids, teach them for every Jay Z made there is 99% wanta be that end up dead or in jail.
Maybe a dream is what the kids in the projects need, you ignorant piece of garbage. You think poor kids want to hear how shitty their own lives are? You think the kids in the ghetto should be hearing about the incredible odds they are up against? Maybe, just maybe, they want to hear about the guy who made it. Through hard work and ambition, he made it from where they are now to the top. Fuck you and kill yourself if you can’t sympathize with that, asshole.
You don’t get it whatsoever. Jay-Z NEVER condoned selling drugs. Go listen to a song like Regrets then come back when your educated.
The rappers that screw up kids are the ones who go out of their way to glorify selling drugs and being a gangster and act like there’s nothing fucked up about it.
That first comment was dumb and biased as fuck. Jay talked about the bad sides of that lifestyle since the beginning. ”Renegade”, ”D’Evils” and the intro off ”Can I Live” alone shit all over your favorite concious rappers best songs.
”Hov’ is back, life stories told through rap / Niggas actin’ like I sold you crack / Like I told you sell drugs – No! / Hov’ did that so hopefully you won’t have to go through that”
Damn Which one of you Niggas do I get to slob on first? Ol Defending a nigga who don’t give 2 shits about you ass coon niggas….LMAO Learn math nigga
Good point Yeah this class is a waste… something you take as an elective that in the end means nothing… Shaking my head at these niggas wasting they time with this nonsense… Instead of learning about Martin Luther King, This professor riding Jiggas nuts harder than the 3 niggas defending jigga…learn Math nigga…learn something useful… forget how to be a dickrider too….
All your’ll niggas is crazy that class is a wast of time and money, for real there is just to much of this garbage been push to our kids, man there is nothing wrong with looking at where you live and putting hard real work to get out, how come they never mention the real niggas that done it, with out drugs and guns, it got to stop for to long we keep telling out kids that’s the only way out is for them to be a rapper or a ball play, and no one tell them the true, about true edaucation so some making it been a rapper and a ball player and the white educated man that behind them robbing the blind, who offten have we seen this. @Ahovibaby,@YouSerious?,@Yeah where you at keeping real stupid, it keeping real fake.
Black people will always lack in the education department, you got teacher teach about Jay Z, that a plus in today society, only thing is the real world deal with fact and number, most black kids cant read or count but can rap, Once again i say black people you’ll winning that why you’ll are the weakess and the pooress in today society
First off, your grammar is horrible. You understand nothing of punctuation. Also it’s “whining” not “winning”, though we seem to be doing the latter. Also last time I checked all over the country there’s a movement called Occupy(insert city) which points out something that you probably don’t understand: black, white, yellow, etc. are all getting fucked by the same people.
Sincerely,
Educated Black Guy 🙂
@hhfan are you serious black are the weakess and stupid too and you educated, i think you mean Gay most black men are
It’s easy to sit behind a computer and run your mouth about something you know you would never say to any black person face to face. But it’s ok because it’s people like you that motivate black people to become president of the U.S, billionaires,entertainers, athletes etc. So keep the hate coming, please!!
@knowledge and sure who motivate them to be crimials and animals and rejects from society
I think we’re smart enough to see 2 rebel-rousers trying too hard and are ignoring them.
Jay-Z line on next album:
Told yall in 09 that you cant buy class
In my own league, yeah I have my own classssss
Example of why I skip rap these days,very predictable it sounds EXACTLY like something he would say.
lol, love jay-z, but your freaking right
I’m not going to argue with some kids on the internet. Enjoy your mom’s basement.
I go to Villanova. I wish they had a class like this here…
The class could be taught about any rappers lyrics.
I think Jay is the easy choice – longest discovery – depth of lyrics/popularity etc
it’s a novel idea and an interesting way to juxpose the urban economic and socio-economic plight against wider societal issues as a whole.
from another educated black guy!
too bad its just Georgetown right now. its community colleges that need this course.
I am a fan of Jay-Z but I don’t see a need to teach a course on him.
I think you missed the greater point of the course.
I agree instead of teaching a class about this Nigga…They should offer classes on how to buy a House and not get ripped off….Waste of time Nigga!
@ DoDo Yeah no doubt, I bet there gonna charge out the ass to take the class too….smh at these niggas! Nothing useful will come from this… Just another throw away class….
Why are you guys complaining none of us are smart enough to get into Georgetown anyway. I trust the guy with the PHD over a guy on a blog.
THIS IS DUMB AS FU(K…
Jay’s a cool rapper… but ive never learned anything by listenin to his music… its mostly just look at me im rich, im a ex drug dealer…
it does not hold knowledge…
“Do you dudes listen to music or do you just skim through it”
Jay is not responsible for your stupidity, always looking for some keywords and dismissing the hidden message.
im *an* ex
Judging by a lot of the comments on here, it’s obvious that a lot of ya’ll need to take “A” class if not this one. I’m not even sure if most of ya’ll even read the article or maybe you did and just ignored everything your eyes just sent to you brain…
“This class is about the politics, the culture, the racial dimensions, the class dimensions, the economic dimensions of Hip Hop culture seen through a figure like Jay-Z.” The course is not about his lyrics, looks like most of y’all need to take English 101.
Is there a course on Malcolm X? Rosa Parks? Hell no! There is no course on Martin LUTHER KING JR. WHY JAY-Z?
Malcolm X and MLK are part of studies involving Civil Rights. Rosa Parks is as well. Plus, how could you stretch out a class about Rosa Parks for an ENTIRE semester?
EDMUND HUSSERL in particular, and the phenomenological school of thought in general, would probably be interested in studying tracks like “STREETS IS WATCHING” and/ or “BLUEPRINT/ MOMMA LOVES ME”. yeah, i totally ‘get it’, why JAY-Z would be studied, academically.