9TH WONDER CLASS TO LAUNCH HIP-HOP
INSTITUTE AT NCCU
DURHAM, NC - Patrick Douthit, the Grammy Award-winning hip-hip producer known as 9th
Wonder, will teach a class on “Hip-Hop in Context” at N.C. Central University this fall, which will
also launch the university’s Hip-Hop Institute that will be based in the Department of History.
Douthit served as an adjunct professor at NCCU from 2006-2009.
Patrick Douthit, P.K.A., 9th Wonder, is a native of Winston-Salem, N.C., and has served as an
assistant professor and the Nasir Jones Fellow in the W.E.B. Dubois Institute at Harvard University.
Additionally, he is an adjunct professor at Duke University. He has lectured at universities across
the country, including University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University.
Douthit is the CEO of JAMLA Records, and has been the subject of two feature documentaries,
“The Wonder Year” and “The Hip-Hop Fellow,” both produced by Kenneth Price. The later film,
“The Hip-Hop Fellow,” premiered recently at the 2014 Full Frame Film Festival. Douthit has
worked with some of the music industry’s most successful artists, including Jay-Z, Destiny’s Child,
Mary J. Blige, Ludacris, Drake and Chris Brown. He also serves as director of Creative Outreach
and Business Development for Lifted Research Group (LRG).
Jim Harper, chairman of the NCCU history department, said the department is proud to house the
Hip-Hop Institute and that they’ll first build a curriculum for a concentration crossing the history,
mass communication and music departments, and perhaps business and technology, also.
“It’s funny how things come full circle,” 9th Wonder said. He, Harper, and NCCU Men’s Basketball
Coach LeVelle Moton were all in history class together in the mid-1990s at NCCU. “If the Hip-Hop
Institute was going to start anywhere, it needed to start at NCCU.”
NCCU Chancellor Debra Saunders-White said that the institute is a way to engage students where
they are. “You cannot deny the impact of hip-hop culture,” she said, “and it’s our responsibility
at NCCU to engage students. I hope the institute will be another way to graduate more students,
and I’m looking forward to developing the curriculum. Hip-hop is not a fad, and the university
is making a major investment. If demand grows, it’ll move from a concentration to a full-fledged
major.”
9th Wonder’s class this fall will be a large introduction class with more than 100 students. Future
classes will be smaller seminars. He will continue producing, as making beats is his foundation,
he said. He has a recording studio in Raleigh.
“We’re not just instructors, we’re children of hip-hop, around to make sure it’s taught the right
way,” 9th said.
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