10 College Students Who Became Successful Musicians and What You Can Learn From Them

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Although one of his biggest influences, Kanye West, famously dropped out of college, Jermaine Cole followed his dreams of rapping and producing while attending St. John’s University in New York. Majoring in communications and graduating magna cum laude, the North Carolina native was able to set up shop in the concrete jungle where Jay-Z would sign him to Roc Nation and help launch his platinum-selling music career. 

Dwayne Carter was 13 when he started recording with Cash Money Records, and he gained national fame by the time he turned 18. Needless to say, Wayne’s high school experience was far from ordinary. Weezy took the unusual path of re-focusing on his education while his music career was on an upswing, receiving his GED and enrolling at the University of Houston in 2005 to study political science. His prolific musical talents and fame soon made it impossible for him to spend enough time on campus in Texas, so he continued taking classes online via the University of Phoenix. With or without a diploma, Wayne demonstrated a notable enthusiasm for intellectual pursuits at a time when his lyrics were becoming popular.  

Sean Combs only attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. for two years, but his business studies led him to a fortuitous internship opportunity at Uptown Records in New York. Becoming the label’s talent director left him with no time to resume school. Even when Uptown fired Combs in 1993, the producer (then known as Puff Daddy) knew it was time to focus on entrepreneurship, founding Bad Boy Records and changing the complexion of hip-hop with his extraordinary business acumen. 

In 1995, bespectacled Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo cemented his reputation as the nerdiest rock star on MTV’s playlist by getting accepted into Harvard University and taking a break from the band to enroll that fall. While Cuomo did focus on his studies, he ultimately decided to go on tour with the band to support its cult classic second album Pinkerton, which featured several songs he wrote on campus. Cuomo returned to Harvard on and off for over a decade and finally graduated in 2006, proving that it’s possible to get an Ivy League diploma and platinum plaques at the same time. 

College is where many musical careers begin, often because it’s where artists meet like-minded friends who end up being important collaborators. Phonte Coleman met record producer 9th Wonder and rapper Big Pooh while the three were attending North Carolina Central University. The union would lead to Coleman’s long, illustrious career as a solo artist and the frontman of The Foreign Exchange. In 2014, Coleman and 9th Wonder were honored by NCCU among the school’s distinguished alumni. 

College radio stations are great places for musically inclined students to surround themselves with records, get a taste of broadcasting, and demo their tracks. For Carlton “Chuck D” Ridenhour, attending Adelphi University on Long Island and working at the campus station led to the formation of one of the greatest hip-hop groups of all time. Chuck co-hosted a show with classmate William “Flavor Flav” Drayton, and some of the songs they made to promote WBAU caught the ear of Rick Rubin who helped them develop Chuck’s political and intellectual leanings into a fiercely innovative musical project. 

Queen guitarist Brian May was studying for a Ph.D. in physics and mathematics at Imperial College London when the 1974 single “Killer Queen” launched the band to international superstardom. May co-authored two research papers but soon abandoned his studies in favor of making music. In 2006, he re-registered with Imperial College and submitted his thesis the following year, receiving his degree just three decades after initially enrolling. 

Chris Bridges studied music management at Georgia State University and landed an internship at Atlanta’s influential radio station Hot 97.5. There he became the popular on-air personality "Chris Lova Lova" and eventually began promoting his music under the name Ludacris, launching his rap career in the process. Luda’s education came in handy when he founded his own record label DTP Entertainment (or Disturbing tha Peace). The release of his wildly popular independent album Incognegro sold so many copies that it charted on the Billboard Hot 100 before being re-released by Def Jam as Back for the First Time.

Before becoming a musical hero to nerds all over the world, Alfred Yankovic was the valedictorian of his high school class. Upon receiving a bachelor’s degree in architecture from California Polytechnic State University, Yankovic realized he wasn’t interested in being an architect. He decided to follow his music passions which resulted in Weird Al becoming the most successful song parody artist of all time, selling over 12 million albums worldwide. 

Donald Glover left his native Stone Mountain, Georgia to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he received a degree in dramatic writing in 2006. Within months, it was comedy that became his ticket to fame, first writing for 30 Rock and then starring in Community. In 2013, he turned his attention to music and as Childish Gambino (his hip-hop alter ego), he dropped the gold certified album Because the Internet. But that dramatic writing degree did come in handy as he released a 72-page screenplay and short film to accompany Because the Internet. Not to mention, he wrote and created the highly anticipated FX series Atlanta.