Cardi B is, in actual fact, the drama in one of the best ways, and this upcoming fall semester, HBCU college students will discover her cultural affect of their lecture corridor. In partnership with Warner Music, Howard College has launched its “The Cardi B: Am I The Drama? The Artwork, Manufacturing, Advertising and marketing and Cultural Affect” course.
In an unique assertion to theGrio, Prof. Jasmine Younger, director of the Warner Music Blavatnik Heart for Music Enterprise at Howard College, opened up in regards to the course, its affect, and what college students can count on to be taught.
“The thought for the Cardi B class got here to me from a spot of goal and duty—to not simply speak about actual Music Business Training and Hip Hop, however to activate it. I noticed a chance to empower my friends, mobilize tradition in actual time, and construct one thing that displays the dwelling, respiratory power of the {industry},” Prof. Jasmine Younger instructed theGrio. “College students deserve a proactive, immersive studying atmosphere the place the teachings are present, culturally related, and rooted in actual technique—not simply textbooks.
She continued: “That’s why this groundbreaking course issues proper now. At Howard College, we’re pushing Hip Hop training to the following stage—bridging artistry, enterprise, and cultural affect by means of the lens of some of the influential artists of our time. Cardi B is the prototype for Music Enterprise Success.”
The three-credit course will provide an interdisciplinary expertise that bridges music, enterprise, advertising and marketing, media, gender research, manufacturing, and cultural principle, whereas putting the “Bodak Yellow” star on the middle. The course will particularly concentrate on the rollout of Cardi B’s extremely anticipated second studio album, which got here out in November 2025.” Nevertheless, on the time the Bronx rapper was making headlines for extra than simply her music as followers speculated about her being pregnant, relationship and court docket case on the time.
Now, college students minoring in Hip Hop research will get a hands-on alternative to be taught her enterprise playbook, in a course that Younger describes as “tradition assembly curriculum in a tangible manner.” The Fall 2026 course might be co-taught by two professors: Dr. Msia Kibona Clark, Affiliate Professor of African Research and Director & School Coordinator of the Hip Hop Research minor, and Prof. Pat Parks, Theatre Arts Administration Space Coordinator on the Chadwick A. Boseman Faculty of Advantageous Arts. Collectively, the 2 teachers say they may dive right into a full ecosystem of stay efficiency and cultural manufacturing whereas utilizing a hip hop feminist lens to look at how Cardi B’s work illuminates the complicated methods Black ladies navigate energy, pleasure, and public scrutiny in a world hip hop panorama.
“Cardi B’s profession permits us to critically interact respectability politics, misogynoir, and the policing of Black womanhood, whereas additionally recognizing the types of company, technique, and resistance embedded in her success,” Dr. Clark shared with theGrio. “By situating Cardi B inside broader histories of Black feminism and hip hop tradition, this course challenges college students to rethink what empowerment, authenticity, and visibility appear to be in up to date fashionable tradition.”
“College students don’t simply examine an artist—they analyze and construct the equipment behind the work: narrative improvement, choreography, lighting design, staging, hair, make-up, visible storytelling, and manufacturing management. By scholarship, tradecraft, and hands-on coaching, they achieve the talents to suppose critically and execute professionally, producing work that blends creative imaginative and prescient, technical design, and enterprise technique on the highest stage,” Prof. Prat added.
Past it’s fashionable subject material, the college’s choice to spend money on a course centering a Black feminine rapper is especially notable. Although Syracuse College had a category dedicated to Lil Kim’s life in 2004, and Princeton College introduced it“Miss-Training: The Ladies of Hip Hop” course, the existence of programs like this validates not solely ladies’s affect within the male-dominated style, but in addition, as Younger famous, “validates hip hop as each a scholarly self-discipline and a dwelling, respiratory international economic system.”
“This isn’t your conventional textbook curriculum; that is real-time, culture-driven, industry-informed training that meets college students the place the music is going on.”
Registration for “The Cardi B: Am I The Drama? The Artwork, Manufacturing, Advertising and marketing, and Cultural Affect” course is now open to Howard College college students for the autumn 2026 semester.
