Amazing..... no more standards at harvard.

[Team Sergeant]

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-stud...bum-as-thesis/

[Requiem]

<eye roll>

Let's throw Chaucer's name in there to make it legit. (Because throwing O's in there certainly didn't. )

S.

[P36]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by DJ Urbanovsky

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.

[Box]

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

[tonyz]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

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 !

[Hand]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

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]

I can burp the alphabet. I should be a PhD candidate.

[Box]

Originally Posted by Hand

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]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

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?

[DJ Urbanovsky]

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?

Originally Posted by Peregrino

It's Rap. If it were music, I'd be willing to concede your points.

[Box]

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.

[exsquid]

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

[ic2d]

Originally Posted by DJ Urbanovsky

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.

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.