Lupe Fiasco to affix Johns Hopkins College’s Peabody Institute college as they launch Hip-Hop program led by Wendel Patrick.
In recognition of the enduring cultural significance of hip-hop, the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins College introduced it should launch the first-ever Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop program, fittingly bringing the primary undergraduate hip-hop diploma to the primary conservatory in the US.
Led by composer, producer, beatmaker, pianist, and professor Wendel Patrick, inaugural college will embrace Grammy Award-winning rapper, songwriter, and file producer Lupe Fiasco as a distinguished visiting artist.
The brand new program will mix the assets and strengths of Peabody’s industry-leading Music Engineering and Expertise (MET) packages with the Conservatory’s lengthy historical past of innovation and excellence in efficiency coaching.
Originating from a single class in hip-hop first launched by Patrick in 2016, the brand new diploma builds upon the energy of Peabody’s MET program, which has grown from 50 college students 5 years in the past to greater than 150 as we speak.
The Hip Hop curriculum will heart on the talents of rapping, beatboxing, turntablism, and producing, alongside courses on the cultural historical past and evolution of hip-hop fashion, approach, and know-how.
Hip Hop college students will hone their abilities and efficiency expertise with personal instruction from world-class skilled practitioners underneath the one-on-one studio educating mannequin that has lengthy been on the core of the Conservatory’s inventive coaching.
College students can even have alternatives to collaborate and have interaction with the colourful hip-hop scene in Baltimore, and Peabody’s signature Breakthrough Curriculum profession growth program will equip them with the skilled and promotional expertise to achieve a quickly altering, more and more entrepreneurial arts panorama.
“With Wendel Patrick’s considerate management, a burgeoning curiosity in packages on the intersection of music and know-how, and Peabody’s dedication to increasing the definition of Twenty first-century inventive coaching, this is a crucial alternative to direct Peabody’s strengths towards a necessary American cultural motion that has been a driving inventive power for greater than half a century,” mentioned Peabody Institute Dean Fred Bronstein. “Peabody has been a pacesetter on the intersection of artwork and schooling for over 150 years, and we couldn’t be extra excited to foster and help the abilities of future generations of hip-hop artists in collaboration with those that are pushing the artwork kind ahead, and to take action in a metropolis, Baltimore, that itself has lengthy been fertile floor for the voices of hip-hop.”
Wendel Patrick, who additionally performs classical and jazz piano underneath the identify Kevin Reward, is understood internationally as a music producer of outstanding imaginative and prescient, talent, and expertise.
His 5 albums—’Sound’, ‘Forthcoming’, ‘JDWP’, ‘Passage’, and ‘Journey’—have been all produced with Patrick enjoying each instrument electronically.
The co-founder of the Baltimore Growth Bap Society and co-producer of the nationally syndicated NPR program “Out of the Blocks”, Patrick was chosen as a Nasir Jones Hip Hop Fellow on the Hip Hop Archive and Analysis Institute at Harvard College for the 2021-22 educational 12 months.
He majored in music and political science at Emory College and earned his Grasp of Music in piano efficiency at Northwestern College.
Patrick received the 2015 Baker Artist Awards’ Mary Sawyers Baker prize and is presently the host of Artworks on Maryland Public Tv.
“I’m thrilled to work with my colleagues at one of many prime conservatories within the nation to advance the coaching of younger rappers, turntablists, producers, and beatboxers. College students on this rigorous but collaborative program can anticipate to share concepts, carry out with others, and develop their expertise by way of personal examine with skilled practitioners on the slicing fringe of music,” mentioned Patrick. “I’ve seen the rising demand for a level program since my first hip-hop class, and Peabody’s various repertoire and curriculum present alternatives for college kids to understand, discover, and have interaction with a variety of types, strategies, essential views, and inventive traditions—from new media the place efficiency meets know-how to established kinds which have traditionally been excluded from the conservatory setting.”
Lupe Fiasco, born Wasalu Muhammad Jaco, earned a number of Grammy nominations for his critically acclaimed debut album, ‘Meals & Liquor’, which shortly established him as one in all hip-hop’s most distinct voices.
Recognized for his intricate lyricism, complicated storytelling, and socially aware themes, Fiasco has constantly used his platform to deal with points starting from systemic racism to political corruption and social justice.
His deep ardour for philosophy, know-how, and schooling has made him a sought-after voice past the world of music, and he has hung out as a visiting scholar at Yale College.
He has additionally collaborated with Google on the groundbreaking venture TextFX, an AI-driven device designed to assist artists, songwriters, and creators discover the inventive potential of language.
He continues to file and carry out, along with his most up-to-date studio album, ‘Samurai‘, being launched in 2024 to essential acclaim.
Fiasco is presently a visiting scholar and professor at MIT in addition to a Henry Crown Fellow on the Aspen Institute.
“I’m honored to be becoming a member of the school of the distinguished Peabody Conservatory doing what I like most, rap,” mentioned Fiasco. “I stay up for advancing the examine and observe of rap and hip-hop into the higher echelons of upper schooling inside a program that can encompass the core efficiency coaching with coursework within the cultural historical past and sociopolitical surroundings that gave rise to hip-hop and the style’s reputation and affect.”
Based in 1857 as the primary conservatory in the US, the Peabody Institute has remained a pacesetter on the intersection of arts and schooling by specializing in excellence and innovation, increasing how music and dance are taught as we speak.
Patrick and Fiasco are amongst a distinguished college of world-class performers and lecturers offering rigorous, personalised, supportive instruction and steering to assist college students excel artistically and professionally.
The Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop program is accepting functions by way of January 24, 2025.
Please go to peabody.jhu.edu/hip-hop for extra info.
