Rappers Invade Classrooms Nationwide

The lyrics of Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, Goodie Mob and The Geto Boyz are being trumpeted along side John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot and others. Students on the verge of dropping out at Los Angeles’ Crenshaw High School are being encouraged to stay in school with classes that allow them to dissect the lyrics […]

The lyrics of Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, Goodie Mob

and The Geto Boyz are being trumpeted along side John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald,

T.S. Eliot and others.

Students on the verge of dropping out at Los

Angeles’ Crenshaw High School are being encouraged to stay in school with classes

that allow them to dissect the lyrics of the rappers.

The classes are part of a growing national trend

in the educational system that is including rap in teachers curriculum.

Two English teachers have designed a curriculum

for high school teachers, which analyzes rappers lyrics side-by-side classic

literature.

Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade of UCAL & Ernest Morrell

of MSU courses compare “Kubla Khan,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, with

Nas’ “If I Ruled the World,” “Immigrants in Our Own Land,”

by poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, with “The World is a Ghetto,” by The

Geto Boys and T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

with “The Message,” by Grandmaster Flash.

The University of Connecticut, Penn State University,

The University Of California, Berkeley, Stanford and Michigan State University

have all offered classes on hip-hop lyrics.