20-year-old Obasi Shaw may be headed to Seattle to pursue a career in software engineering, but he's also got a passion for hip hop that has taken him places. Shaw just made history at Harvard University by submitting the school's first ever rap recording thesis; one which earned one of the department's highest distinctions, summa cum laude minus.
Liminal Minds is a 10-track album that explores the lasting effects of slavery in a manner that was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th Century classic, The Canterbury Tales. The project is noted for blending Middle English poetry with Shaw's style of rap lyricism, as he transitions from song to song narrating from the perspective of a different character. “Rap is a genre in which I can say everything I want to say,” Shaw says. “I’ve been writing in different capacities, but I never felt that I found my art form until I started rapping.” ⠀
Harvard has gone lengths to recognize the artistic, academic, and social significance of hip hop music and culture in recent times. Earlier this year the university entered Nas' Illmatic, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory, Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly into its prestigious Harvard Library.
Source: hotnewhiphop.com
