With more accolades than one can count, mogul Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs has accomplished another milestone–his life story have become the basis of the Sean Combs & Urban Culture class at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute. Also in NY, a private liberal arts school in New York has created a new topic-Miley Cyrus.
Combs has had a profound effect on global culture of the last twenty years. Through the success of his Bad Boy Records label, which distributed genre-defining artists like the Notorious B.I.G., Combs helped forever alter and change the sound and visuals of hip hop and R&B. Combs drew on Russell Simmons’ early business success to redefine the image of the hip-hop entrepreneur as aggressive, brash and full of self-assured swagger. He also helped redefine the concept of celebrity branded entertainment and he mainstreamed innovative marketing techniques (like street teams) in the music industry.
Per the course description:
No single personality dominated the landscape of urban mainstream popular culture in the 1990s (and since) more than producer, rapper and entrepreneur Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs. By 2014, hip-hop and black culture have become globally mainstream; the immense popularity that hip-hop enjoys today is directly rooted in the profound cultural changes that Combs and his peers instigated. Combs emerged from his humble professional beginnings in the early 1990s as an A&R man at Andre Harrell’s Uptown Records to fashion himself as a profoundly versatile and wildly successful performer, actor, reality-TV star, producer, songwriter, fashion and restaurant entrepreneur and philanthropist. His current net worth estimated at $650 million makes him the richest man in hip-hop and one of the wealthiest artists in the history of popular music. He is a multiple Grammy-winner and won an Oscar in 2012 for his work as a film producer.
This class will investigate the social and cultural and political changes of the 1990s and how Sean Combs was catapulted to success by those changes. Through critical readings, viewings and listening assignments, the brilliance, strategy and serial entrepreneurship of Sean Combs will be interpreted, discussed and dissected.
The artist formerly known as Diddy, isn’t the only one breaking into textbooks–a private liberal arts school in New York has found a new topic to teach this summer-Miley Cyrus.
According to Complex, “The Sociology of Miley Cyrus: Race, Class, Gender, and Media” will be taught at Skidmore College. A description of the class reads, “From Disney tween to twerking machine, Miley Cyrus has grown up in the public eye, trying on and discarding very different identities onscreen and off. She provides rich examples for analyzing aspects of inter sectional identities and media representation.”
The summer session will offer an in depth look into Miley’s transition from child star to pop starlet.
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