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Nas already owns the distinction of being one of Hip-Hop’s sharpest lyricists. Now, the Queensbridge native has been honored by one of the nation’s top educational institutions with a scholarship program bearing his name.

The “Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship” was announced by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University and the school’s Hip-Hop Archive project last week. The university is no stranger to Hip-Hop music and culture, after working extensively with producer 9th Wonder and scholar Mark Anthony Neal in the past. This new venture expands upon the Institute’s earlier work.

From the press release:

The Fellowship will provide selected scholars and artists with an opportunity to show that “education is real power,” as it builds upon the achievements of those who demonstrate exceptional capacity for productive scholarship and exceptional creative ability in the arts, in connection with Hiphop.

Nas responded to the news via a statement provided by Island Def Jam Music Group.

“In my rollercoaster of a life, I’ve endured good and bad for sure, and I’ve truly been blessed to have achieved so much through art in my short life thus far,” said Nas. “But I am immensely over-the-top excited about the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship at Harvard.”

Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Institute for African and African American Research praised the veteran rapper as a “visionary” artist.

To learn more about the fellowship and the Hip-Hop Archive, follow this link.

Photo: Def Jam