Temple University in Philadelphia is launching an exciting new course in Fall 2025 titled “Kendrick Lamar and the Morale of M.A.A.D City.”
Created and taught by Assistant Professor Timothy Welbeck from the Africology and African American Studies department, the class aims to explore Kendrick Lamar’s life, legacy, and cultural significance through a deeply Afrocentric lens.
Professor Welbeck, whose background includes being both a scholar and practicing civil rights lawyer, has taught related courses like “Hip‑Hop and Black Culture” and is preparing a book titled No City for Young Men: Hip‑Hop and the Narrative of Marginalization. With a strong foundation in Africological thought, Welbeck is particularly suited to unpacking how Kendrick Lamar’s artistry intersects with issues of race, identity, law, and urban experience.
Why Study Kendrick Through an Africological Lens?
Africology, the study of the African diaspora’s cultural, historical, and social dimensions, provides a vital frame through which Lamar’s work can be understood—not only as music, but as narrative expressions of systemic oppression, resilience, and identity reclamation.
Africology, the study of the African diaspora’s cultural, historical, and social dimensions, provides a vital frame through which Lamar’s work can be understood—not only as music, but as narrative expressions of systemic oppression, resilience, and identity reclamation.
Kendrick Lamar’s art consistently engages with the realities of Compton—gang violence, economic deprivation, policing, institutional racism–while interweaving themes of faith, community, and transformation. Songs like “m.A.A.d city” deliver visceral depictions of survival. “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” elevates personal stories to communal testimony, exploring spiritual survival amid trauma By centering these experiences through an Afrocentric view, the course encourages students to see Kendrick’s work not as sensational entertainment, but as scholarly texts rich with cultural, emotional, and political significance.
According to Welbeck, the course aims to offer:
- Critical frameworks for understanding hip‑hop as a sophisticated form of Black knowledge production.
- Analytical tools for unpacking how personal narratives intersect with larger systemic structures.
- Engagement with lived experience, encouraging students to critically examine their own social contexts through Lamar’s lens.
- Professional insight, via guest lectures, into the music industry’s inner workings and Lamar’s collaborative practices.
By the end, students are expected not only to deepen understanding of Kendrick’s artistry, but also to gain broader insights into race, urban policy, and cultural storytelling. His role in the academy is not unprecedented: courses on Lamar have appeared at universities like Georgia Regents, Lehigh, and Concordia, but Temple’s new course is among the most expansive—combining Africology, law, policy, and music.
Temple’s initiative reflects a larger trend: artists like Tupac, Jay‑Z, Beyoncé, and Erykah Badu have inspired academic courses. As Welbeck notes, hip‑hop is an evolving intellectual landscape—a means of storytelling, political critique, and healing. This course amplifies hip‑hop’s validity as a scholarly object, challenging higher education to recognize the intellectual labor in contemporary Black cultural expression.
Temple University’s “Kendrick Lamar and the Morale of M.A.A.D City” marks a significant advancement in both hip‑hop scholarship and Africological studies. With an Afrocentric, policy‑informed approach, Professor Timothy Welbeck is situating Lamar at the nexus of culture, critique, and community. For students, the course offers more than music appreciation—it provides a rigorous analytical journey through race, place, policy, and poetic expression. This course doesn’t just study Kendrick Lamar—it studies us, our cities, our stories, and our collective resilience. With this initiative, Temple demonstrates how art and academia can co-create spaces for understanding, healing, and transformation—just as Kendrick’s music has done for millions around the world.
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