
PRICEFILMS/THE HIP-HOP FELLOW
Hip-hop has made its way into the academy and is increasingly becoming accepted as a legitimate field of inquiry, with many top universities around the country offering classes in hip-hop studies,  exploring not only hip-hop as a musical genre but also the history and role of hip-hop culture in societyâcreating a bridge that connects the past to the present.
As Duke University professor Mark Anthony Neal explains, âWhat hip-hop studies shows is that working-class kids, kids coming out of abject poverty, are thinking critically about the world that they live in.â
Itâs in that context that Patrick Douthit, better known as 9th Wonder, has been working to preserve 40 years of hip-hop history by teaching students to critically consider how this rich and complex culture is translated into the universal language of music. And 9th Wonderâs classesâboth at Duke and Harvard Universityâare filled to capacity with students who are eager to immerse themselves in the hip-hop tradition.
9th Wonder is a Grammy Award-winning producer who has worked with some of the most prolific artists in the music industry, including Jay Z, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, Ludacris, Lecrae, Drake, Murs, Destinyâs Child, Chris Brown and Erykah Badu. Heâs also a skilled turntablist and acclaimed rapper who currently raps under the name â9thmatic.â He was previously part of the Durham, N.C.-based group Little Brother, rapping alongside Phonte and Big Pooh from 2001 to 2010.
In recent years, 9th Wonder has added the titles of hip-hop scholar and college professor to his list of credentials. After 9th Wonder was appointed artist in residence at North Carolina Central University in 2007, where he taught a âHistory of Hip-Hopâ course, a chance encounter with Neal led to their first collaborative effort, teaching a âSampling Soulâ class at Duke in 2010.
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In 2012, 9th Wonder was awarded a yearlong fellowship to assemble a hip-hop archive at Harvard, where he also taught âThe Standards of Hip-Hopâ and conducted research for his thesis, exploring hip-hopâs culture, history and place in academia. His year as a Harvard fellow is chronicled in director Kenneth Priceâs new feature-length documentary film, The Hip-Hop Fellow, which will premiere Saturday, April 5, at the 2014 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham. Itâs a follow-up to Priceâs 2012 9th Wonder documentary, The Wonder Year.
9th Wonder says that his love of education and passion for teaching come from his mother, who has been an educator for 41 years. He credits Ernest Wadeâs Project Ensure programâwhich he was involved with while growing up in Winston-Salem, N.C.âwith helping to mold him into a serious student, and recounts how wearing Project Ensure T-shirts imprinted with the phrase âMy mind is a lethal weaponâ reinforced the value of education for him.
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At one time a history major at North Carolina Central, he had planned to follow in his motherâs footsteps and become a teacher. It was at NCCU, though, where he first met Phonte and Big Pooh, and the trio formed Little Brother. He left college to pursue music full time, and by 2002 Little Brother was signed by an independent label. The breakthrough in 9th Wonderâs career came after Jay Zâs studio engineer Young Guru came across Little Brotherâs debut album, The Listening. 9th Wonder would later experience enormous mainstream success after working on Destinyâs Childâs 2004 Destiny Fulfilled album.
Even as he gained recognition in the music industry, 9th Wonderâs love for teaching never waned. He eagerly accepted invitations to speak to elementary school students about hip-hop, and when presented with the opportunity to teach college courses, 9th Wonder didnât hesitate to take up an adjunct-lecturer position at Central. The rest, as they say, is history for this onetime history major.
The Hip-Hop Fellow chronicles 9th Wonderâs work on the Harvard hip-hop archive and examines what makes an album part of the hip-hop canon. As The Rootâs editor-in-chief, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., describes, the film also illustrates how, when artists take a sample and âembed it in a new composition,â theyâve effectively created âliteratureâ in the hip-hop form.
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In 9th Wonderâs words: âWe take something that may be scraps and turn them into jewels.â
âNobody from hip-hop,â 9th Wonder explains in the film, âis supposed to go to Harvard without a degree.â But what we learn is that hip-hop isnât only the music and the movement. Itâs an education.
Gloria Ayee is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of political science at Duke University, where she is pursuing a graduate certificate in African and African-American studies, and a graduate fellow at Dukeâs Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Social Sciences. She is also creator of the blog Dreaming in Color. Follow her on Twitter.
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