Lupe Fiasco to hitch Johns Hopkins College’s Peabody Institute school 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 is going to launch the first-ever Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop program, fittingly bringing the primary undergraduate hip-hop diploma to the primary conservatory in america.
Led by composer, producer, beatmaker, pianist, and professor Wendel Patrick, inaugural school will embrace Grammy Award-winning rapper, songwriter, and report 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) applications 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 power of Peabody’s MET program, which has grown from 50 college students 5 years in the past to greater than 150 at the moment.
The Hip Hop curriculum will middle on the talents of rapping, beatboxing, turntablism, and producing, alongside courses on the cultural historical past and evolution of hip-hop model, method, and expertise.
Hip Hop college students will hone their skills and efficiency abilities with non-public instruction from world-class skilled practitioners beneath the one-on-one studio educating mannequin that has lengthy been on the core of the Conservatory’s creative coaching.
College students will even have alternatives to collaborate and interact 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 abilities to achieve a quickly altering, more and more entrepreneurial arts panorama.
“With Wendel Patrick’s considerate management, a burgeoning curiosity in applications on the intersection of music and expertise, and Peabody’s dedication to increasing the definition of Twenty first-century creative coaching, this is a vital alternative to direct Peabody’s strengths towards an important American cultural motion that has been a driving creative drive for greater than half a century,” mentioned Peabody Institute Dean Fred Bronstein. “Peabody has been a frontrunner on the intersection of artwork and training for over 150 years, and we couldn’t be extra excited to foster and assist the abilities of future generations of hip-hop artists in collaboration with those that are pushing the artwork type 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 beneath the title Kevin Present, is understood internationally as a music producer of exceptional imaginative and prescient, talent, and expertise.
His 5 albums—’Sound’, ‘Forthcoming’, ‘JDWP’, ‘Passage’, and ‘Journey’—had been all produced with Patrick taking part in each instrument electronically.
The co-founder of the Baltimore Increase 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 tutorial yr.
He majored in music and political science at Emory College and earned his Grasp of Music in piano efficiency at Northwestern College.
Patrick gained the 2015 Baker Artist Awards’ Mary Sawyers Baker prize and is at present the host of Artworks on Maryland Public Tv.
“I’m thrilled to work with my colleagues at one of many high conservatories within the nation to advance the coaching of younger rappers, turntablists, producers, and beatboxers. College students on this rigorous but collaborative program can count on to share concepts, carry out with others, and develop their abilities by non-public research with skilled practitioners on the chopping fringe of music,” mentioned Patrick. “I’ve seen the rising demand for a level program since my first hip-hop class, and Peabody’s numerous repertoire and curriculum present alternatives for college students to understand, discover, and interact with a variety of kinds, methods, important views, and creative traditions—from new media the place efficiency meets expertise 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 rapidly 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 persistently used his platform to sort out points starting from systemic racism to political corruption and social justice.
His deep ardour for philosophy, expertise, and training 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 undertaking TextFX, an AI-driven instrument designed to assist artists, songwriters, and creators discover the artistic potential of language.
He continues to report and carry out, along with his most up-to-date studio album, ‘Samurai‘, being launched in 2024 to important acclaim.
Fiasco is at present 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 celebrated Peabody Conservatory doing what I like most, rap,” mentioned Fiasco. “I sit up for advancing the research and apply of rap and hip-hop into the higher echelons of upper training inside a program that can encompass the core efficiency coaching with coursework within the cultural historical past and sociopolitical atmosphere that gave rise to hip-hop and the style’s reputation and affect.”
Based in 1857 as the primary conservatory in america, the Peabody Institute has remained a frontrunner on the intersection of arts and training by specializing in excellence and innovation, increasing how music and dance are taught at the moment.
Patrick and Fiasco are amongst a distinguished school of world-class performers and lecturers offering rigorous, customized, supportive instruction and steering to assist college students excel artistically and professionally.
The Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop program is accepting functions by January 24, 2025.
Please go to peabody.jhu.edu/hip-hop for extra info.