Beginning this fall, Rapsody’s critically acclaimed Eve LP will be the focus of college courses at Ohio State University, and her alma mater, the University of North Carolina.
“One of the highest honors is to create art for the culture and have it taught in our educational institutions,” the Grammy-nominated rapper wrote on Instagram on Tuesday (April 14).
The OSU course will offer a track-by-track examination of the album with readings and media clips accompanying each song. OSU professor Simone Drake is expected to teach the course titled,“Toni Morrison’s Houses of Women and Rapsody’s Eve.”
UNC’s “Black Womanist Criticism and Rapsody’s Eve” will be led by Tyler Bunzey and explores the “critical and womanist stance” of the album. “This course reads Rapsody’s album as emerging from a greater tradition of womanist discourse dating back to the 19th century. The purpose of this course is to explore that history,” states a class description from the university.
The course will also offer a critical look into “hip-hop’s historical development to engage with albums from femme-identified hip-hoppers throughout the genre’s history.”
Released last August, Rapsody’s 16-track Eve album features song titles dedicated to black women, including Sourjourner Truth, Myrlie Evers, Michelle Obama, Nina Simone and Afeni Shakur.
“This album is coming out in a time where we’re really talking about what it means to be a black woman in America, and black women are really riding to the forefront in a lot things that we do,” Rapsody told NPR last year. “People are looking more to us and appreciating us more. Our voices are being heard, whether it’s a part of the political arena or in hip-hop.”