Harvard student Obasi Shaw graduates with top honours after submitting a rap album as his thesis.
Obasi Shaw went down in history as the first student from Harvard to submit a rap album as his final year thesis.
Shaw took the often mundane thesis model of essay writing, collection of poems or a piece of prose to new dimensions when he did something as extraordinary as create a 10-track rap album that focuses on black identity in America.
Inspired by Geoffrey Chauser’s seminal 14th century piece, The Canterbury Tales, each song is told from a different character’s perspective.
Titled Liminal Minds, it was awarded the second highest grade in the department- summa cum laude minus.
It’s a rap.
It was actually Shaw’s mother who sparked the inspiration after noting the brilliance of her son’s rap performances at open mic nights on campus.
In his first track, Declaration of Independence, he writes: “Behold, what we hold is three-fold—Body and spirit to be thrones for free souls. Self is the evidence, please close the freak shows, And depose the evils, our peoples are equals”.
Shaw also utilizes the writings of James Baldwin to speak about slavery and police violence. (A topic ever relevant in today’s times.)
Declaration of Independence is praised by Harvard English lecturer and Shaw’s thesis advisor Josh Bell for its fluidity both as an academic piece and an artistic creation.
The album is available online for free.
It shows that swimming against the stream results in upmost flavour.
After graduation 20-year-old Obasi Shaw will work as a software engineer at Google, who knows, maybe he’ll do a world tour.
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