words: Justin Monroe photo: John Francis Peters
Not since D.M.C. was in the place to be, going to St. John’s University, has it been cool to boast about higher learning in rap. Sure, there are rappers with college credits and some with degrees, but few discuss it, and even fewer glorify it. “People in hip hop hate to see people who are institutionally validated,” says 23-year-old Chicago rapper Jabari Miles Evans. “They’re like, ‘That’s mainstream.’” Known by the rap name Naledge, Evans refuses to downplay his academic achievements. The “Doogie Howser MC” didn’t just graduate in 2004 with a double major in Communications and Sociology, he did so at the University of Pennsylvania, a prestigious Ivy League institution founded by the kite-flying homie Benjamin Franklin.
Naledge is one of the artists reviving Rawkus Records, the indie hip hop imprint that helped launch Mos Def and Talib Kweli (as Black Star), Company Flow and Pharoahe Monch in the late ’90s. Signed to a solo deal with Rawkus/Hustle Period in early 2006, he’s currently finishing his debut, Naledge Is Power, and promoting Kidz in the Hall, his group with fellow Penn alum and DJ/producer Michael “Double-O” Aguilar. Rawkus released their album, School Was My Hustle, in October. Like Pete Rock & CL Smooth, they marry jazzy, funky, soulful boom bap to raw rhymes that are both entertaining and enlightening (Pete happens to be a fan). For his part, Evans brings an uncommon perspective to the genre. He grew up in a house on the Southside, raised by two parents with doctorate degrees. After college, he moved to Los Angeles and worked corporate jobs before deciding to pursue his musical dream. Still, on the Kidz song “Cruise Control,” he comfortably declares that he has “the heart of the street and the eyes of the ghetto” to go with his brains. “The segregation in Chicago is so blatant,” he explains. “Black Chicago is a city within a city, so you got middle class kids like me being exposed to gang violence, being exposed to drug dealing. At the same time, I’m going to meetings on Sundays for youth achievement groups, and I’m going to the YMCA after school to play basketball.” Advantaged enough to avoid neighborhood pitfalls and achieve institutional validation, Evans is determined to use every opportunity he’s been given, from school to a co-signing by super producer Just Blaze, to address the ills of his community.
Though most folks still don’t associate rap with a former valedictorian and Ivy League graduate, Naledge believes he’ll change that. “It’s a new day,” he emphatically proclaims. “I grew up on hip hop the same way someone in Bed-Stuy grew up on hip hop. Can’t nobody fucking tell me I haven’t fucking earned my stripes.” If you feel otherwise, we suggest you do the knowledge.
