Nas To Have Fellowship Program At Harvard University

Nas has been honored by Harvard University with the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship. The Program will show "education is real power, as it builds upon the achievements of those who demonstrate exceptional capacity for productive scholarship and exceptional creative ability in the arts, in connection with hip-hop" and will fund both artists and scholars.

Nas spoke about the program: “In my rollercoaster of a life I’ve endured good and bad for sure, and I’ve truly been blessed to have achieved so much thru art in my short life thus far.” He added, "But I am immensely over-the-top excited about the Nasir Jones HIP-HOP Fellowship at Harvard. From Queens, N.Y., to true cultural academia. My hopes are that greed for knowledge, art, self-determination and expression go a long way.”

Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, talks about the reasons behind why Nas was the choice MC, “Nas is a true visionary, and he consistently shows how boundaries can be pushed and expanded to further the cause of education and knowledge. The work of the Du Bois Institute is enriched by the addition of the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship.”

This is a joint program between the Hip-Hop Archive and the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University.