Hip-Hop and the City: Shad and Kofi Hope bridge hip-hop and urban studies in U of T course
Shadrach Kabango and Kofi Hope grew up immersed in hip-hop culture in the late 1990s, making music in basements, freestyling and participating in cyphers.
Today, Shad, as he is best known, is a Juno-award winning artist and rapper, while Hope is 鈥 and they鈥檝e teamed up to share their knowledge via a new course at the University of Toronto called .
The graduate-level course is being offered by U of T鈥檚 鈥 a multidisciplinary hub at U of T for urban research, education and engagement 鈥 in collaboration with the Faculty of Music.
The course uses hip-hop music and culture as a lens to explore historical urban issues. It also examines how these issues shape cultural expression and how culture, in turn, shapes cities 鈥 all while providing a platform for students to develop innovative solutions to today鈥檚 urban challenges.
鈥淲e鈥檙e focused on giving folks the foundation,鈥 says Hope about the course.
鈥淪o, what鈥檚 the origin of the culture? Where did it come from? How did it start to disseminate across the U.S.? And touching on how it went global. But there鈥檚 many parts of that story.鈥
Shad and Hope encourage students to bring their full selves to the class.
鈥淭he class will be a mix of music students and students from other disciplines 鈥 so this opportunity for mutual learning,鈥 says Shad, who hosted Netflix's Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary series Hip-Hop Evolution. 鈥淚f people participate fully, I think it鈥檚 going to be really rich and special.鈥
Hope says there鈥檚 always something new to learn about the global phenomenon that is hip-hop.
鈥淚鈥檓 hoping to learn about sub-communities and sub-genres of the culture that I'm not familiar with,鈥 says Hope, an urbanist-in-residence at the School of Cities. 鈥淲e can really help to build a greater understanding of this thing that now is beyond just being South Bronx culture.鈥