Temple University is adding a new course focused on Kendrick Lamar to its curriculum in Fall 2025.
According to NBC10 in Philadelphia, the course is titled “Kendrick Lamar and the Morale of M.A.A.D City” and will be taught by Timothy Welbeck, a professor in the Department of Africology and African American Studies and the Director of the Center for Anti-Racism. Welbeck, who has taught at Temple for 14 years, has long incorporated hip-hop and Black cultural expression into his classes, such as courses on 2Pac, urban Black politics, and the intersection of hip-hop and Black identity.
Though Kendrick joins other icons like Pac, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z as subjects of study at Temple, Welbeck told NBC10 that the Compton rapper’s social and political relevance makes him a uniquely “ripe” figure for academic exploration.
“Kendrick Lamar is one of the defining voices of his generation, and in many ways, both his art and life is reflective of the Black experience in many telling ways,” Welbeck told NBC10. “Being able to discuss his art in the environment that helps lead him into being the man that he is in a lot of ways can tell you him as an individual, but can also talk about the journey’s towards self-actualization particularly as it is related to the Black experience.”
Welbeck said he had been planning this course for almost a year, but he had since used Kendrick’s material in his other classes for a decade, thanks to Temple having “embraced the study of hip-hop in academic spaces.”
He hopes the course will explore Kendrick Lamar and hip-hop as lenses to examine the ongoing evolution of Black expression in America and to shed more light on the Black experience. The course will also aim to help students recognize hip-hop as a powerful form of art and cultural storytelling.
With the course, Welbeck says students will get “a look at various scholarships around the types of urban policies that shift the demographic of Compton and how it helped to shape Kendrick Lamar.” Students will also study three to four of his albums and analyze how hip-hop has evolved through various forms of self-expression.
Guest speakers, including industry professionals who have worked with Kendrick, are also expected to join the class. Enrollment is now open for the Fall 2025 semester, though seats are limited.
