View Full Version : Amazing..... no more standards at harvard.
Team Sergeant
05-23-2017, 22:38
berkeley, harvard, yale, three schools I'd never send my kids to even if it was free.
Harvard Student Graduates With Honors After Submitting Rap Album as Thesis
By Nahema Marchal
6:25 am, May 23, 2017
A Harvard undergraduate student will be graduating with honors this year after submitting a 10-track rap album for his senior thesis in the English department, the first to do so in the prestigious school’s history.
Obasi Shaw, a 20-year old from a small town in Georgia, Alabama started rapping at a summer Bible camp in Tennessee for fun, according to the Harvard Gazette.
But it wasn’t until his mother suggested he use the lyrics he had written and performed at open mic nights on campus for his thesis that he started taking the idea seriously.
The 10 track album, entitled ‘‘Liminal Minds” (a play of words on “Criminal Minds” ), offers a broad sweep of African American history by drawing on the works of James Baldwin, Barack Obama and dealing with topics ranging from police brutality to slavery. It also highlights Shaw’s own experience of growing up black in America.
Each song is told from a different character’s perspective, a format inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s collection of stories written in the 14th century, The Canterbury Tales.
cont:
https://heatst.com/life/harvard-student-graduates-with-honors-after-submitting-rap-album-as-thesis/
<eye roll>
Let's throw Chaucer's name in there to make it legit. (Because throwing O's in there certainly didn't. :p )
S.
I thought so to, but from the article apparently they have allowed similar things in the past for undergrads as there is no requirement for a thesis in the undergrad program.
DJ Urbanovsky
05-24-2017, 08:47
I don't see the problem, as long as the album is worthy of his graduating with honors (read, it should be superlative), and it adheres to the spirit of the assignment. Even if you are talented, writing and performing meaningful music is a far more complicated task than writing an actual thesis. With a thesis, you need all of the usual language, grammar, and research skills. With music, add to that a necessary and fundamental understanding of time, syncopation, how all of the instrumentation should interact with one another, and then you have to write and perform the actual pieces themselves. And once all of that is done, you need to get the compositions to stick to the tape. And if you're doing it all yourself, then you also need to understand your recording hardware/software, in addition to the engineering, production, and mastering work. Sometimes you get lucky, and everything just seems to come together on its own, but usually it is a tremendous amount work.
Peregrino
05-24-2017, 14:56
I don't see the problem, as long as the album is worthy of his graduating with honors (read, it should be superlative), and it adheres to the spirit of the assignment. Even if you are talented, writing and performing meaningful music is a far more complicated task than writing an actual thesis. With a thesis, you need all of the usual language, grammar, and research skills. With music, add to that a necessary and fundamental understanding of time, syncopation, how all of the instrumentation should interact with one another, and then you have to write and perform the actual pieces themselves. And once all of that is done, you need to get the compositions to stick to the tape. And if you're doing it all yourself, then you also need to understand your recording hardware/software, in addition to the engineering, production, and mastering work. Sometimes you get lucky, and everything just seems to come together on its own, but usually it is a tremendous amount work.
It's Rap. If it were music, I'd be willing to concede your points.
Run-DMC wrote a song about this kid over 30 years ago....
My Rap-Thesis
Walk through college doors
And roam all over Harvard's floors
I stepped on stage, drank kool-aid
All the people gave an applause that paid
And out of speakers I did speak
I wore my sneakers but I'm not a sneak
My Rap-Thesis cuts the sand of a foreign land
With mic in hand, I cold took command
My Rap-Thesis and me both askin' P
We make a good team my Rap-Thesis and me
We get around together, rhyme forever
And we won't be mad when worn in bad weather
My Rap-Thesis
My Rap-Thesis
My Rap-Thesis
It reminds me of another big hit by Run-DMC back in the day.....
A whole lot of superstars, on this stage here tonight
But I want y'all to know one thing-this is… MY HOUSE
And when I say who's house, y'all know what time it is.
Who's house?
Harvard’s house!
I'm in the house y'all
I'm in the house y'all
And this is how Harvard will turn it out y'all
I'm in the house y'all
I'm in the house y'all
Run-DMC wrote a song about this kid over 30 years ago....
My Rap-Thesis
Walk through college doors
And roam all over Harvard's floors
I stepped on stage, drank kool-aid
All the people gave an applause that paid
And out of speakers I did speak
I wore my sneakers but I'm not a sneak
My Rap-Thesis cuts the sand of a foreign land
With mic in hand, I cold took command
My Rap-Thesis and me both askin' P
We make a good team my Rap-Thesis and me
We get around together, rhyme forever
And we won't be mad when worn in bad weather
My Rap-Thesis
My Rap-Thesis
My Rap-Thesis
It reminds me of another big hit by Run-DMC back in the day.....
A whole lot of superstars, on this stage here tonight
But I want y'all to know one thing-this is… MY HOUSE
And when I say who's house, y'all know what time it is.
Who's house?
Harvard’s house!
I'm in the house y'all
I'm in the house y'all
And this is how Harvard will turn it out y'all
I'm in the house y'all
I'm in the house y'all
Lol, I'm now beginning to understand the taboo on cultural appropriation...reading that hurt my head !!! Lol, I'm in the house y'all !
Run-DMC wrote a song about this kid over 30 years ago....
You sir, are quite masterful. I recognized this song from my youth but it didn't read the same way it sounded in my head.
Well played.
mark46th
05-25-2017, 08:26
I can burp the alphabet. I should be a PhD candidate.
You sir, are quite masterful. I recognized this song from my youth but it didn't read the same way it sounded in my head.
Well played.
use your imagination.....
My - a - didas
My - rap - thesis
"Run's House" is a little harder to pull off, but for fuck sake, I dont have a degree in rap...
...I am not even in an undergraduate rap-studies program.
cut me some slack
bblhead672
05-25-2017, 09:39
use your imagination.....
My - a - didas
My - rap - thesis
"Run's House" is a little harder to pull off, but for fuck sake, I dont have a degree in rap...
...I am not even in an undergraduate rap-studies program.
cut me some slack
Perhaps if you started drinking earlier in the day? :D
DJ Urbanovsky
05-25-2017, 13:15
Rap is no different than any other genre of music. You have your brilliant performers and you have your hacks. Personally, there are plenty of genres and sub-genres of music that I'm not into, but that doesn't mean that I'm not capable of recognizing brilliance in those genres when I hear it. Granted, I haven't heard Harvard kid's thesis album, so maybe it is complete garbage. I don't know. But what if it isn't?
It's Rap. If it were music, I'd be willing to concede your points.
I did some on-line research and it appears that no, rap is NOT music.
Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards has declared that rap is for tone deaf people.
Keith Richards commenting on music is simply, well...
...its fact.
If Keith Richards comments on it and says it isn't music, then I am afraid it is settled. Climate change scientists would kill to have as much "statement as fact" credibility as Keith Richards.
"Rap — so many words, so little said. What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there. All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they're happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can't tell one note from another."
Just to be fair, debate.org ran a poll and found out that rap is overwhelmingly NOT considered to be real music. Cheap sounding background beats, sampling other musicians, and talking sh*t does not music make
...if that isn't enough, there is also a post on facebook that says it is so:
xxxx://xxx.facebook.com/rap-isnt-music-its-annoying-people-complaining-to-a-fake-drum-beat-121169561245120/
Everything else from this point forward will be put in the same category as climate deniers.
That being said, Run DMC is still the MAD notes !!!
Respectfully submitted for review and discussion on this 25th day of May in the year of our Lord, 2017.
I am no fan of rap music. However, despite my agreement with Keith Richards' sentiment, this was submitted for an English degree and not a music degree. I don't see the problem and agree with DJ's points.
x/S
Even if you are talented, writing and performing meaningful music is a far more complicated task than writing an actual thesis.
This is the only comment I have a problem with. Then again, I just finished up my master's thesis so any suggestion that it was easier than creating a rap album might make me a bit, shall we say, hostile ;)
(It's also probably disingenuous of me to compare thesis requirements for an MS in engineering to a BA in English.)
Nevertheless, the level of complexity or difficulty is irrelevant. The final product either meets standards or it doesn't. I could argue that a 600 lb bench press requires far more effort and dedication than a research paper and a rap album combined. Still doesn't make it a thesis.
...and then I read the "creative thesis" guidelines (http://english.fas.harvard.edu/undergraduate/honors/).
I still disagree that a rap album, especially one without a central focus of examination, constitutes a thesis. Call it a senior research project, a capstone assignment, whatever, and the "controversy" goes away.
You'd think the English Dept. of a prestigious university would be more concerned with language semantics than creative expression.
Team Sergeant
05-25-2017, 22:10
Rap is no different than any other genre of music. You have your brilliant performers and you have your hacks. Personally, there are plenty of genres and sub-genres of music that I'm not into, but that doesn't mean that I'm not capable of recognizing brilliance in those genres when I hear it. Granted, I haven't heard Harvard kid's thesis album, so maybe it is complete garbage. I don't know. But what if it isn't?
Rap is not an art form but rather whining/ranting put to music.
So how brilliant is the art of walking on an American flag on the floor of an "art" museum?
https://artisticactivism.org/2012/04/dread-scott-2/
Sorry, some would say crapping in a toilet can be art, I disagree, crapping in a toilet is as artful as rap music.
And the "art activist" is nothing other than a political tool, but even he is too stupid to realize it.
Peregrino
05-25-2017, 22:34
I am no fan of rap music. However, despite my agreement with Keith Richards' sentiment, this was submitted for an English degree and not a music degree. I don't see the problem and agree with DJ's points.
x/S
Not only is Rap NOT music, it isn't (Modern Standard) English either. That Harvard would judge it worthy for the purposes of conferring an English degree proves to me the depraved, degraded state of "higher education" (especially liberal arts) and confirms the appropriateness of this thread's title.
Today's Universities are finishing schools for the "elites" nothing more (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-colleges-fold-to-students-anti-intellectual-hysterics/). Resist them by not giving them your money.
bblhead672
05-26-2017, 07:16
Add "C" to beginning of the word rap and you have apt description of what it is.
DJ Urbanovsky
06-11-2017, 14:53
Maybe if the guitarist who said that were Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Steve Howe, Frank Zappa, Tony Iommi, or Alex Lifeson, I would give that statement some credence. But it's Keith Richards we're talking about. As a player, I think he's pedestrian at best compared to the guys I just mentioned. For a guitarist who touts himself as a non-flashy rhythm focused player to say that "rap is for tone deaf people" is, in my opinion, completely asinine, especially when one considers that the basis for rap music is meter/rhythm. And that individual percussion pieces are actually tuned to pitch. But that's just me. I've never understood the allure of the Stones. There were much better and far more groundbreaking bands born of that era.
I did some on-line research and it appears that no, rap is NOT music.
Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards has declared that rap is for tone deaf people.
Keith Richards commenting on music is simply, well...
...its fact.
If Keith Richards comments on it and says it isn't music, then I am afraid it is settled. Climate change scientists would kill to have as much "statement as fact" credibility as Keith Richards.
"Rap — so many words, so little said. What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there. All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they're happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can't tell one note from another."
Just to be fair, debate.org ran a poll and found out that rap is overwhelmingly NOT considered to be real music. Cheap sounding background beats, sampling other musicians, and talking sh*t does not music make
...if that isn't enough, there is also a post on facebook that says it is so:
xxxx://xxx.facebook.com/rap-isnt-music-its-annoying-people-complaining-to-a-fake-drum-beat-121169561245120/
Everything else from this point forward will be put in the same category as climate deniers.
That being said, Run DMC is still the MAD notes !!!
Respectfully submitted for review and discussion on this 25th day of May in the year of our Lord, 2017.
DJ Urbanovsky
06-11-2017, 14:59
As for rap being "annoying people complaining to a fake drum beat," I have two words that immediately render that argument invalid, and those two words are Death Grips. Meet their drummer, Zach Hill, one of the most impressive drummers still alive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Hill
DJ Urbanovsky
06-11-2017, 15:01
I concur.
Today's Universities are finishing schools for the "elites" nothing more (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-colleges-fold-to-students-anti-intellectual-hysterics/). Resist them by not giving them your money.
DJ Urbanovsky
06-11-2017, 15:17
Just because I don't agree with it, wouldn't do it myself, or find it to be highly offensive does not mean that it isn't art. Art should make the viewer feel something. The fact that I'm not into the Stones and I find their music to be trivial, boring pop bubblegum doesn't make them not artists who are very good at what they do. Art takes all shapes and sizes. And guess what? They made me feel something. It just happens that the feeling that the Stones engender in me is ambivalence.
I have very strong feelings about our flag and how it should be treated and displayed. That said, I pose this question: Which is more disrespectful, an artist trying to make statement by forcing the viewer to physically step on our flag, or politicians in the beltway who metaphorically step on our flag, day in an day out, with every breath that they can muster?
Rap is not an art form but rather whining/ranting put to music.
So how brilliant is the art of walking on an American flag on the floor of an "art" museum?
https://artisticactivism.org/2012/04/dread-scott-2/
Sorry, some would say crapping in a toilet can be art, I disagree, crapping in a toilet is as artful as rap music.
And the "art activist" is nothing other than a political tool, but even he is too stupid to realize it.
Team Sergeant
06-11-2017, 15:21
More liberal progressive art........ (Trigger warning, a nekid human, can't tell what gender)
https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=db3_1497200349
If this is where art is going I want nothing to do with it.
DJ Urbanovsky
06-11-2017, 15:31
You know what I think? I think that, while everyone here may not agree with each other or win other people over to our individual ways of thinking, it's a Sunday afternoon, and we're having a meaningful discussion about what constitutes art and music. And that is a thing that is both worthwhile and awesome, if you ask me.
:D
I've always considered art to be in the eye of the beholder.
I like looking at Jackson Pollock paintings, mainly because I'm trying(and failing) to understand how it's so much better than what my kids sprayed across a bit of paper.
The latest thing to catch my eye is sand mandala art. Tibetan Buddhist monks who make sand art grain of coloured sand by grain of coloured sand. Then they sweep it up and throw it in the closest moving body of water as a symbol of impermanence.
Prince(Rogers Nelson) was nothing short of a genius writing, producing, and performing across the entire spectrum. Although everything about Prince was sex rather than political statement. I reckon his work would be worthy of a degree.
I've heard the odd rap song that I genuinely enjoy, but it's the rare exception rather than the rule.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=obI2G5qj7VI
I'm a fan of this song, largely because it's from a great buddy cop film and the song my offsider and I would listen to while driving our soft skin vehicle in Afghan.
The lyrics are a bit black power revolution-y. But I perceive it as calling BS on the whole thing as well. But mostly it's memories of my Mate and I riding and sharing a laugh on the job.
But my personal tastes lean elsewhere.
I think part of the problem in the controversy is the subjective nature of it all.
I tend to put very little weight in a small number of subjective opinions, unless those opinions originate with those I know or respect.
One advantage few music lovers ever seem to discuss is the huge number of hidden musical treasures around the world, or in your own town's dive bar music scene.
I remember being absolutely mesmerised by a truly hypnotic song on the TV in a foreign hotel room. Simply beautiful.
And then the next day at a meal/function with foreign counterparts, one of the leaders got up and started singing, like a tortured cat.
Hard to find beauty in that, but there was certainly plenty of humour to go around!
Lately, I've been listening to Gordon Lightfoot, Sundown:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s8rR7E6NfY4
I feel like we could use a contemporary Vet who can write, sing, and play acoustic guitar right now.
rsdengler
06-12-2017, 04:50
More liberal progressive art........ (Trigger warning, a nekid human, can't tell what gender)
https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=db3_1497200349
If this is where art is going I want nothing to do with it.
That "triggered" my gag reflex......;) LOL, looks like "Jabba the Hut" with TP on his head...liberal progressive art....looks like someone needs to "flush" that down the toilet. I am a Claude Monet fan...:munchin
Which is more disrespectful, an artist trying to make statement by forcing the viewer to physically step on our flag, or politicians in the beltway who metaphorically step on our flag, day in an day out, with every breath that they can muster?
I would say the second. They sell our collective souls for personal advancement and financial gain.