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Taking Hip Hop to Another Level
RnB/Hip Hop | Thursday 18th July 2013 | Funmi
The Nasir Jones Hip Hop Fellowship at Harvard University
11 albums, 25 million sold records and 22 years later, Hip hop legend Nas is graced with the pleasure of having a fellowship named in his honour. As if that isn’t enough, the fellowship has been established by Harvard University (ranked one of the top universities in the world) in conjunction with The Hip Hop Archive.
With an aim to heightened Hip Hop, the fellowship will allow students to excel as it funds and supports aspiring artists who show a great degree of creativity in arts as well as a thirst for education and empowerment. The powerful mission statement provided by The Hip Hop Archive states that the fellowship aims: to seek projects from scholars and artists that build on the rich and complex hip-hop tradition; to respect that tradition through historically grounded and contextualized critical insights; and most importantly, to represent one’s creative and/or intellectually rigorous contribution to hip-hop and the discourse through personal and academic projects. Personal projects of fellows may include manuscript projects, performance pieces, album work, curriculum planning, primary archival research, and exhibition preparation, among others.
There is no doubt that this is a well-deserved achievement for Nas. He has paved his way through the game and created his reputation right from the start with his debut legendary album ‘Illmatic’, which still remains one of the greatest Hip Hop albums. The Def Jam recording artist has stuck to the same flow as his wordplay touches on political issues, life on the streets and deep insights into society’s wider problems. His inspiring lyrical deliverances have and continue to impress the masses.
The launch of this fellowship leads to high expectations for the future of Hip Hop.
Feo @Feoblack
