OutKast College Course to Be Taught at Georgia’s Armstrong State University
If you ever wondered how the South became the leading edge in hip-hop, a new course at Armstrong State University in Savannah, Ga., will provide you with the answers.
According to Savannah Morning News, a course called “OutKast and the Rise of the Hip Hop South” will be offered to students this semester. The class is being taught by Professor Regina Bradley, Ph.D who will teach how OutKast’s “ideas about the South and southerness seep into other Southern writers.”
The course will examine how ‘Kast’s music influenced African-American literature and vice versa. Students will analyze many of the dynamic duo’s classic albums and examine social movements like Black Lives Matter.
“Their final project is doing a paper that’s 12-15 pages...for what I call a ‘nerdy hip-hop review,’” said Bradley. “They’ll take an album of their choice - preferably an OutKast album - and give a discussion of the themes and what they hear.”
The course is a labor of love for Bradley who was a Nasir Jones hip-hop fellow at Harvard University’s Hiphop Archive & Research Institute. She's currently penning a forthcoming book about OutKast, her favorite hip-hop group.
Several hip-hoppers have received the scholarly treatment at various universities, including Jay Z, Nas and the late rapper Tupac Shakur.