The topic of the intellectual importance of song lyrics reached new heights last year when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in October. Now it has come to light that another artist has become the focus of attention in the academic world: Outkast.
Armstrong State University in Georgia, USA has recently introduced a new course celebrating the state’s biggest musical alumni: Outkast.
Armstrong State University in Georgia, USA has recently introduced a new course celebrating some of the state’s biggest musical alumni: André 3000 and Big Boi.
A literature class called ‘Outkast and the Rise of the Hip-Hop South’ is now being offered by professor Dr. Regina Bradley. The course aims to discuss “ideas about the South and southernness seep into other Southern writers.”
“My areas of interest are African-American literature and popular culture,” Dr. Bradley told the Savannah Morning News. “Often, students get most of their information, their outlook from how they engage in popular culture… ”
She continues: “I also don’t want to overlook or shun the folks who aren’t familiar with hip-hop at all. I’m pretty sure I have a couple of folks in there who have no clue who Outkast is or don’t listen to hip-hop at all, which is why they’re there — they want to learn something different.”
Bradley was a Ph.D. student and a Nasir Jones fellow at Harvard’s Hiphop Archive & Research Institute and will have her students write “a paper that’s 12-15 pages… what I call a ‘nerdy hip-hop review’. They’ll take an album of their choice — preferably an Outkast album — and give a discussion of the themes and what they hear.”
Goddamn, that sounds like some learning.
[via FACT]
