Please note: applications are currently being accepted for the Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop while approval of the Maryland Higher Education Commission is pending.
Whether you’re a turntablist, rapper, beatboxer, or producer, you thrive on making music that engages a crowd and excites people. And the Peabody Conservatory’s new undergraduate degree program in Hip Hop can help you take your skills to the next level.
The new Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop will combine the resources and strengths of Peabody’s industry leading Music Engineering and Technology programs with the Conservatory’s long history of excellence in performance training. The department is headed by award-winning composer, producer, beatmaker, pianist, and professor Wendel Patrick.
Following the one-on-one studio model of a traditional conservatory education, you will develop your skills in lessons with a private instructor—turntable majors will study with a world-class turntablist; Rap majors with a chart-topping emcee. And you’ll get to perform, with and for your colleagues, in an environment that encourages experimentation and authenticity.
Of course, Hip Hop exists in a context, so in addition to your private lessons, you’ll learn about the cultural history and sociopolitical environment in which Hip Hop was born; developments in style, technique, and technology; and the genre’s rise in popularity and influence.
You’ll also take courses in Peabody’s unique Breakthrough Curriculum, designed to develop the business and career skills you’ll need in the real world. And leveraging our affiliation with Johns Hopkins, you’ll have opportunities to share your ideas and collaborate across disciplines with artists, engineers, and innovators at one of the world’s leading universities.
Additional faculty to be announced
Equally at home performing on stage with his band, behind two turntables, beatboxing, improvising, or playing a Mozart Concerto with orchestra, Wendel Patrick has been referred to as “David Foster Wallace reincarnated as a sound engineer” and as “wildly talented.” XLR8R magazine called him “a hip-hop producer that could easily make any fan of Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, or Madlib flip out.”