Harvard, one of America’s most elite Ivy League universities, now has another cause to greatness: the institution recently played host to a talk by none other than rapper Pusha T.
The president of G.O.O.D Music gave a lecture to Harvard students at Harvard Yard & Yenching Library, where he discussed some of the most seminal moments of his illustrious 20-year career, as well as the dispersal power that large musical platforms mean for artists. Push also brought up the socio-political impact his music has had and his success as an African-American artist.
During question time, he was quizzed about his new role as president of G.O.O.D Music. He answered with, “I feel like it’s my job and my duty as well to help uplift the new creatives coming in.”
The lecture was followed by a 45-minute Q&A session where the audience members picked his brains on topics including the glorification of the drug dealer lifestyle as well as his views on contemporary rap.
Even one of the professors at Harvard managed to slip in a sneaky Pusha T reference, drawing laughs from the audience, saying, “I philosophise about glocks and keys / N*ggas call me young black Socrates,” from his song Momma I’m So Sorry.
The Harvard Business School appearance comes in the middle of Pusha’s Darkest Before Dawn World Tour, which visited Australia in January.
There’s a strong, growing relationship between hip-hop and universities, and we’ve seen a massive surge of rappers talking directly with students over the past year: Killer Mike spoke about race relations at MIT last year, while more recently, Joey Badass gave a lecture at New York University during Black History Month, and Stormzy spoke to Oxford University in March. Furthermore, Chance The Rapper spoke about police brutality, streaming and Kanye West at Harvard back in May last year, and J. Cole made an appearance as far back as 2013 as a part of a conversation named “The Next Move: A Conversation with J. Cole.”
Read our review of Darkest Before Dawn here.
Source: hotnewhiphop.com