Key Takeaways:
- The Spring 2026 at Princeton University course “Miss-Education: The Women of Hip Hop” highlights female rappers as foundational to the genre.
- Students will explore Hip Hop feminism through performance, scholarship and a public showcase.
- The course is led by Hip Hop educators and artists and is open to all students.
Hip Hop is thriving in the academic world and in the Ivy League. On Monday (Jan. 26), Princeton University announced a women’s Hip Hop course for the Spring 2026 semester.
The course, called “Miss-Education: The Women of Hip Hop,” is being described as a “multimedia course, lab and performance workshop at Princeton University that centers the history of women in Hip Hop — not as a footnote, but as foundational.”
The names dropped for study are a who’s who of elite female rappers. They include MC Sha Rock, Roxanne Shanté, Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, Bahamadia, Lil Kim and Cardi B, among others, which reveal a wide range of eras and styles.
The trio of educators who will be instructors for the course are formidable. Chesney Snow is a Hip Hop educator and Princeton faculty member, Eternia is a well-regarded Canadian Hip Hop artist, and Dr. Francesca D’Amico-Cuthbert is a Hip Hop Historian and multi-disciplinary artist and researcher.
The course was created in partnership with Princeton and its Lewis Center for the Arts, which teaches and promotes the arts on campus. Also involved is the Hip Hop Education Center, which commented, “We’re thrilled to see this initiative launch and honored to be partners in bringing it to life” on the social media announcement.
Besides guest speakers, students will be positioned “as both critical investigators and creative practitioners,” per its official description. Inspired by the Lyricist Lounge Show’s theatrical hybrid, students will also create skits that explore Hip Hop feminism. The semester’s work will culminate in an “original creative and scholarly work” that will be shown at the Lewis Center for the Arts on April 30.
Class will be in session on Thursdays, from 1:30 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. The course is open to all students from all disciplines with no prerequisites, so getting one of the limited spots might be a challenge — but nothing in Hip Hop is supposed to come easy.