With universities wrapping up another year and graduates looking towards the future, perhaps no one had a more memorable final chapter scholastically than Obasi Shaw.
The Ivy League student will be graduating with honors after submitting a 10-track rap album as his final thesis. He's the first-ever student to do so in Harvard's illustrious history.
Titled Liminal Minds, Shaw spent a year writing the project. Each song is told from the perspective of a different character, supposedly inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. It focuses on black identity in America and was awarded summa cum laude minus, which is the second highest grade in the department.
This is not the first moment of recognition that Harvard has bestowed upon the hip-hop genre. Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp A Butterfly, as well as Nas’ Illmatic, were both added to the Harvard Library in an "acknowledgement of their cultural significance."
You can listen to the album here and view Harvard's Instagram post about Shaw below.