The first Hip Hop undergrad degree is a deep dive into the genre’s technological history

thefader.com:

Since celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023 and with more than its share of inclusion across academia, there has still never been a full performance degree program focused entirely on Hip Hop.

At the Peabody Institute, the oldest conservatory in the country and a division of Johns Hopkins University, students can now officially earn a Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop.

The first of its kind anywhere in the U.S., the performance-focused undergraduate degree program has producer, pianist, and professor Wendel Patrick to thank for its creation and development.

Serving as the program’s department head, Patrick says he’d started thinking about the possibilities of a degree program back in 2020, but the idea saw its earliest beginnings in 2016 when he was first invited to teach at Peabody. “A student had reached out to a faculty member asking if hip hop could be represented, and this faculty member was aware of my work,” he explained. “And so I said, ‘well, what do you want me to teach?’ And they said, ‘whatever you want.’” This led to the creation of Hip Hop Music Production: History and Practice, a hip hop history course from the lens of the producer.