Georgetown Professor’s “Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z” Course Receives Praise, Criticism

Georgetown professor and author Michael Eric Dyson is teaching a course studying, from a sociological view, the lyrics and life story of rags-to-riches rap success story Jay-Z.

While this isn’t the first time a hip hop artist has become the subject of a collegiate course, “Sociology of Hip Hop: Jay-Z” is drawing mixed reactions, particularly among others in acedemia and mainstream media. In her reporting, Nyia Hawkins of the Associated Press states, “Critics argue that Jay-Z’s lyrics and life story are unworthy of intellectual study at a Jesuit institution that cost students $40 thousand per year.”

Sociologist Chris Marsh says courses like this communicate to students in a way they understand, telling the Associated Press, “You can criticize Jay-Z all you want to, but he is an outstanding example of the rags to riches story.”

Mark Anthony Neal, well-known professor at the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University brings up valid criticism of the criticism via his Facebook page, stating, “The thing that’s maddening about the coverage of Michael Eric Dyson’s Jay Z course is 1) commentators keep acting like this is the first hip-hop course ever taught 2) seem to express shock that there’s a midterm & final; WTF, it’s a course at a top-tier research institution by a nationally known scholar. Were having these discussions 15 years ago.”

Dyson himself tells the AP, “I want them to see first of all that young black guys that grow up in poverty can have some interesting things to say about America. Number two, that their rhetorical and creative genius rivals the best of what we know in western culture, whether it’s Homer or Melville, whether it’s Toni Morrison or Langston Hughes, whether it’s Scorcese or Francis Ford Coppola.”

What do you think? Are Jay-Z’s life and lyrics worthy of study at an institution of higher education?