A twenty-year-old student makes Harvard University history by becoming the first student to submit a rap album for his senior thesis.
Obasi Shaw‘s 10-track album “Liminal Minds” combines elements of Middle English poetry with issues of racial identity in America, race and religion.
Shaw says it was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and his own hobby of writing rap music and spoken word poetry.
Shaw could have submitted a book of poetry, a novella or a short story, but after rapping for a few months only, he decided on the idea of writing a rap album for his thesis which came from his mother.
It took him a year to write.
Although he received an A-, Shaw says he will stick to rapping as only a hobby.
He’ll be starting an internship as a software engineer at Google later this year.
Last year Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly and Nas’ Illmatic were both added to the Harvard Library to signify their cultural significance.
Check out Obasi Shaw’s thesis album “Liminal Minds” below!
