Here’s something bound to fix students’ attention spans: Drake and The Weeknd will be the subjects of their very own media course at Toronto’s X University (a.k.a. the soon-to-be-rebranded Ryerson).
Dubbed “Deconstructing Drake and The Weeknd,” the course will be taught by well-known author, podcaster, and publicist Dalton Higgins. He’s also a prof-in-residence at The Creative School, the faculty in which this course exists.
“On the U.S. college and university scene there are all kinds of courses being taught about rock, folk, pop artists, like Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen, so why shouldn’t there be a course about Drake and The Weeknd right here in Toronto?” Higgins says in a statement.
“I also think it’s an opportune time to get Canadian rap and R&B icons recognized and canonized academically, and that it’s a great time for music scholars and historians to examine the Toronto music scene that birthed Drake and The Weeknd and that helped create the conditions for them to become mega successful.”
The course will explore the music scene that birthed the two Toronto megastars, as well as the conditions that helped create their success. It will also examine the representation and infrastructure problems in the Canadian music scene, which forced both Drake and The Weekend to take their talents to the U.S. in an effort to ‘make it.’
“When you have two Black artists born and bred in Toronto who perform rap, R&B and pop, and who are arguably well on their way to becoming billionaires at some point in time, there is apparently a lot to learn,” says Higgins. “Remember, they both blew up despite being products of a local Canadian music scene that does very little to foster the growth of its Black music practitioners.”
Stans students can sign up for “RTA 950: Deconstructing Drake and The Weeknd” for the 2022 winter term.
