Around Augusta, Georgia, the only thing that can be heard blasting from Patrick Frits’ car is Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city. But, for the junior sociology and criminal justice major, listening to the album isn’t just recreational — it’s scholastic.
The 2012 album is the focus of Frits’ English composition class at Georgia Regents University. The research-based course requires students to write a major paper in response to selected texts.
This fall, students are juxtaposing Lamar’s music with literary works from James Joyce, James Baldwin and Gwendolyn Brooks and the 1991 film, Boys n the Hood.
Frits said he finds the course’s integration of modern work refreshing.
He also said the intimacy of the album — particularly its account of abject conditions in Compton, Calif. — has bonded him and his classmates.
