Starting in fall 2025 and currently accepting applications, the Peabody Conservatory offers a new Bachelor of Music in Hip Hop—the first hip-hop performance degree in the country— combining our Music Engineering and Technology programs’ resources and strengths with Peabody’s long history of performance-training excellence. Award-winning composer, producer, beatmaker, pianist, and professor Wendel Patrick designed the program around a traditional conservatory’s one-on-one studio model, so turntable majors study with turntablists and rap majors with chart-topping emcees, while moving through Peabody’s Breakthrough Curriculum coursework that develops necessary business and career skills. Additionally, students will learn about the cultural history and sociopolitical environment in which hip-hop was born; developments in style, technique, and technology; and the genre’s rise in popularity and influence.
