Skip to main content
Browse by:
GROUP

Hip-Hop in the Gardens featuring Phonte, Rapsody & 9th Wonder

Event Image
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
9:00 pm - 10:30 pm
Duke Performances
Duke Performances

**CONCERT ACCESS FOR DUKE FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS ONLY**As part of Duke¿s First-Year Orientation, Duke Performances and Duke Gardens are pleased to present an NC hip-hop triple bill for Duke first-year students: Phonte, Rapsody, and 9th Wonder. Duke Professor of Black Popular Culture Mark Anthony Neal will host the evening.Greensboro-based MC Phonte debuted with the alternative rap trio Little Brother, a collaboration with Rapper Big Pooh and producer 9th Wonder. He established the GRAMMY-nominated R&B duo The Foreign Exchange, and launched his solo rap career with the album Charity Starts at Home.Rapsody, a founding member of the NC hip-hop crew Kooley High, signed to 9th Wonder's JAMLA Records in 2008. She was featured on Kendrick Lamar¿s To Pimp a Butterfly, a cameo noted as "twenty-seven bars of genius" (Getintothis UK). Her debut album Beauty and the Beast features the passionate honesty, "cut-throat bars," and "leaning, gritty flow" (DJ Booth) that characterize her work.Phonte and Rapsody will be backed by legendary producer and Durham native 9th Wonder. 9th's work on Little Brother's The Listening attracted Jay Z, who invited him to produce "Threat" on The Black Album. He has worked with artists such as Mary J. Blige (with whom he won a GRAMMY), Drake, and Erykah Badu. 9th Wonder says, "Hip-Hop is the voice of at least two generations. At one time it was the positive voice ¿ Chuck D was the black history teacher I never had ¿ it can be that again."