Kendrick Lamar's Debut Inspires 'Good Kid, Mad Cities' English Composition Class

Are you ready to be schooled on Kendrick Lamar?

Georgia Regents University in Augusta, Georgia, is looking to create dialog among students about black America through Kendrick Lamar's debut album good kid, m.A.A.d city.

In addition to Lamar's album, the class uses James Joyce, James Baldwin and Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as the 1991 movie Boyz N The Hood to examine works of literature that involve young people growing up in Dublin, New York, Chicago, and Compton/Los Angeles, according to HipHopDX.

As stated in the course goals, the class aims to help students "become a better writer, a better reader, a better analyzer, a better person, and a better appreciator of the language of the street: Hip Hop."

Class instructor Adam Diehl spoke to the site about the creation of the course and why he believes it's important to cover the album in his lectures.

"I was given the opportunity to create my own theme for the class," Diehl explained. "I decided to center the class on good kid, m.A.A.d city because I think Kendrick Lamar is the James Joyce of Hip Hop--i.e. in the complexity of his storytelling, in his knowledge of the canon, and in his continuing focus on the city of his upbringing-Compton. The course is a freshman composition course, so I am teaching these works (i.e. [James Joyce's] A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Gwendolyn Brooks' Selected Poems, James Baldwin's Going to Meet the Man, Boyz N The Hood, and good kid, m.A.A.d city) in the context of writing a research paper about one of the issues involved in the texts (e.g. gang warfare, police brutality, racism, incarceration rates, human trafficking, etc.). The class will hopefully produce much discussion about the issues that Joyce/Baldwin/Brooks/Singleton/Lamar raise, and hopefully the content of the class will inspire students to find an outlet to bring some sanity to our own mad city––Augusta."

The "Good Kid, Mad Cities" class started Tuesday (August 19), with the final examination slated for Dec. 11.

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