Lauren Rettig January 5th, 2025 - 2:51 PM
NME reports that Lupe Fiasco will be teaching a course on rap at Johns Hopkins’ Peabody Institute. On New Year’s Day (January 1), the veteran rapper took to social media to announce that he will be conducting a course for Johns Hopkins’ new four-year hip-hop degree program in the fall this year.
He wrote: “I’ll be joining the faculty at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Fall 2025 as a Distinguished Visiting Professor, teaching Rap as part of the groundbreaking new 4-year Hip Hop Degree Program led by the visionary Professor [Wendel Patrick].”
Lupe Fiasco continued: “I’m honored to contribute to this legacy doing what I love most, Rap.”
He also confirmed that he will at the same time continue to teach as a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and pursue his Yale fellowship.
Applications for Johns Hopkins’ new four-year hip-hop degree program closed on January 3, but more information about the program can be found here.
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Per the course’s official site, the degree program will be led by accomplished composer, producer, pianist and professor Wendel Patrick. It will consist of one-on-one turntable majors with a private instructor, rap majors with Lupe Fiasco and will include performances among students.
Apart from private lessons, students and applicants will also learn about the cultural history and influences of hip-hop.
Lupe Fiasco – named Wasalu Mohammad Jaco offstage – has been steadily releasing music since popping out in 2006 with Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor. In 2024, Fiasco dropped singles “Cake,” “Shrink,” “P4P” and “Pound For Pound.” With such an extensive discography, it’s no wonder that the world-renowned rapper is taking his career in an educational direction.
Lupe Fiasco isn’t the only acclaimed musician to be taking on the role of professor this year. Brian Eno is similarly teaching a course on songwriting for the School of Song’s January 2025 program. The course, titled Songwriting with Brian Eno, will take place over the course of a month. The course will see Eno conduct four lectures via Zoom, lead hour-long Q&A sessions with students, song-share sessions and even a live in-class writing exercise with the musician himself. Topics being covered during the course include The Role of Surrender, Avant Gardening, Oblique Strategies and more.
The program will cost USD $160, and registration closed on January 4 – the day before the classes began. Information on the course can be found here.
