Image: Twitter / Colleen Wright

Watch Kendrick Lamar Rap To Students At US High School

By Tom Williams

Rapper Kendrick Lamar has become king of the kids after visiting a US high school and rapping for staff and students. The visit took place after Lamar discovered a blog by one of the school’s teachers, who has been using his music to help teach English.

As The New York Times reports, New Jersey’s High Tech High School English teacher Brian Mooney has used Lamar’s latest album, To Pimp A Butterfly, to help teach the intricacies of Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye, and has blogged about it along the way.

Mr Mooney’s blog, which has been shared on Facebook over 10,000 times, was discovered by Lamar, who became guest lecturer in Mooney’s class on Monday. Aside from dropping some lines, the rapper also listened to students’ raps and poems, and even bobbed his head to Mr Mooney’s rhymes.

“When I talk to kids, I’m really listening,” Lamar said. “When I do that, we have a little bit of a bigger connection than me being Kendrick Lamar and you being a student. It’s almost like we’re friends. Because a friend listens.”

Using a literary lens called “hip hop ed”, Mr Mooney has asked his students to discuss the celebration of and oppression of black culture in America, with Lamar’s raps as the backdrop. The popularity of his blog, though, has surprised him.

“I was feeling incredibly grateful and humbled that my work received that much exposure and reached that wide of an audience that Kendrick himself read it,” Mr. Mooney said.

To close his school visit, Lamar took a single song request and settled on a performance of Alright, which can be viewed below (mislabeled as Money Trees).

“It’s truly a blessing to be in front of you all,” Lamar told students. “I will be back. That’s a promise, y’all.”

View video and photos from Lamar’s high school visit, below.

Tom Williams
Tom Williams

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