Between the recently released Netflix documentary, “Jeen-Yuhs”, the incessant media coverage (guilty as charged), and Ye’s continued personal reporting, you probably thought you had access to all necessary knowledge on the rapper. I’m afraid to say that in that case, you would be wrong dear reader, as that kind of intel comes at a collegiate level cost. That’s right, our favorite College Dropout is now the focus of a new course launching this year at a university in Montreal.
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The class called Kanye vs. Ye: Genius By Design, was created by Yassin Alsalman at Concordia University. The course will focus on the rapper’s career, from his humble Southside, Chicago beginnings as a producer, to musical mastermind.
“This class isn’t only about Kanye”, the professor captioned a recent Instagram post about the class. “It’s about community, creativity, responsibility, accountability, fame and mental health, dreams and nightmares – and more importantly, self-actualisation.”
On his YouTube channel, ‘The Iraqafella Show”, Alsaman discusses one pillar of the course’s content at length, something he describes as “Kanyetive Dissonance”, a concept tweaked from the psychological term, “cognitive dissonance”, described as the perception of contradictory information. BIG Gemini vibes. The class will also dive into Ye’s “art, design, music, celebrity, and cultural impact in the age of information”.
Alsaman is not only a Concordia University professor, he’s actually a rapper himself. Taking the stage name Narcy, his latest single “Iraqafella” was released this past Friday. As a lover of music and hip hop culture specifically, Alsaman has previously taught courses on the work of other artists including, A Tribe Called Quest, and the legendary Lauryn Hill.
When Dazed reporters asked Alsaman why Kanye is a worthwhile subject for scholarly discourse, he had this to say:
“Hip hop is an incredible, undeniable force and culture. It should, and will, have its own departments in universities across the world when all’s said and done. It is the ultimate culture – it has saved so many of us and also speaks directly to every generation of youth after the other. Kanye is one example – and I’ve been teaching for seven years now. We dissected so many records and everytime we do that, I realize how rich the culture and the artistry is. We got a lot of work ahead of us.”
If you want in on the course, good luck. Even as a Concordia student, the class has only 200 available seats. I guess the unlucky among us will just have to continue settling for tabloid teachings.
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