Birmingham’s answer to High School High

Birmingham will become home to the first ever Hip Hop studies course. The first ever course of it’s kind in the UK will be launched in September 2010 at Bournville College.

Developed by broadcaster and theologian Robert Beckford, the access to Higher Education Diploma in Hip Hop studies is a one-year course designed to prepare adults for university.

High School High was a film produced in 1996 which featured Method Man and Redman as they completed their studies while smoking some of the finest homegrown (weed). Although Bournville College will not be encouraging people to smoke weed, it is hoped the enrolled students will have an understanding of the ethics, culture and theology of Hip Hop.

No other college has attempted a course like this in the UK before and the students will learn things never taught to them before, according to Beckford.

“Using themes found in Sociology, Cultural studies, Theology and Ethnomusicology, students will embark on an interdisciplinary study of Hip Hop,” said Beckford.

“We will explore how in the late 70s a group of Caribbean immigrants, Hispanics and African-Americans in the South Bronx created the most important social movement of late modernity.”

As Beckford has highlighted, learning takes place in a number of underlying studies. This isn’t a course that is going to teach you how to be the next 50 Cents or Birmingham’s Dizzie Rascal – but what it will be, is a course to break down barriers and get people in to college and hopefully uni.

Brian O’Sullivan, curriculum leader for access to higher education courses at Bournville College, added:

“We’re very excited about this initiative, which has excellent potential to attract new students to the College.”

Beckford, who is a former Bournville College tutor, believes that students will be fully prepared for further education courses once they receive their diplomas in Hip Hop studies.

He added: “By the end of the course, successful candidates will be equipped with the critical intellectual skills required for successful under-graduate study in the social sciences and humanities.”

To find out more about the course, call Bournville College on 0121 483 1111.