African American Literature Courses on Rap Music

This entry is part of a series about 20 Years of African American Literary Studies at SIUE.

Throughout my career, I included rap songs and lyrics in my African American literature courses. In 2014, I began regularly teaching courses devoted exclusively to rap. I taught courses focusing Rap Genius, the popular annotation site.

 
In 2015, I taught a course entitled “Biggie, Jay-Z, or Nas?” where my students and I tried to answer questions about the top rappers. The course was based on a famous lyric: “I’m from where [guys] pull your card and argue all day about who’s the best MCs: Biggie, Jay Z, or Nas?”

I ran a course, “Hip Hop and Black Consciousness” in 2016 and a class devoted to Jay-Z in 2018.