Students Get Schooled on Hip-Hop at Minn. College

DJ Freddy Fresh slaps a vinyl record on the turntable, cues it up and tells a student, "Remember, the top of the note was there, right? Grab it."

In this Sept. 24, 2009 photo, DJ Freddy Fresh, right, spins records for students, from left, Toyosi...

In this Sept. 24, 2009 photo, DJ Freddy Fresh, right, spins records for students, from left, Toyosi Duroshola, Tyrome Jones and Adrian Thomas during a hip hop class at McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minn. Fresh is one of the instructors at the new hip hop program at McNally Smith College of Music which includes classes such as Deejay Techniques and The Language of Rap and Spoken Word III. (AP Photo/Dawn Villella)

(AP)

The student places his hand on the disc. Freddy Fresh sets the tonearm down on a record rotating on a second turntable. He starts the first record spinning as a percolating beat fills the classroom, then twiddles some knobs.

"Bing, bing, boom. There it is," Freddy Fresh says while showing the student the precise beat where to stop the platter. "Let's hear it. Scratch a little so we can hear the top of it."

The student "scratches" the record, moving his left hand back and forth, then lets the disc go.

"Perfect," Freddy Fresh declares.

A professional DJ since 1992, Freddy Fresh (real name Fredrick Schmid) is among the new teachers brought in by McNally Smith College of Music for a hip-hop studies program that school officials say is the first in the nation.

The private downtown St. Paul college — where rapper-actor Ice Cube already funds a scholarship for music technology studies — began the hip-hop program in September and hopes the first students, after completing a recorded project and a live performance, get their diploma certificates at commencement next summer.

Even though hip-hop is only 30 years old, McNally Smith officials say the urban culture of rap has become a dominating commercial force and deserves serious study. Students say they enjoy the chance to learn from established rappers and DJs.

"What I like the most about it is there are actual artists teaching us, as opposed to just some guy coming in a suit and tie and being like, 'This is what hip-hop is,'" said student Tim Wagner, 19, who came to McNally Smith to learn studio production and polish his MC skills.

"They know what they're talking about because they've done it."

College classes on the language of hip-hop or how to work turntables are not new. Berklee College of Music in Boston held its annual Business of Hip-Hop Symposium in October and has had visits from pioneering hip-hop DJ Grandmaster Flash and rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently hosted a semester-long fall lecture series on hip-hop. Marcyliena Morgan, a professor at Harvard University, founded The Hiphop Archive in 2002.