体育买球官网 University announced award-winning hip-hop artist and activist Che “Rhymefest” Kweku as the keynote speaker for its Winter Convocation. Rhymefest will deliver Breaking Down Walls & Building Bridges, a reflection on using positions of leverage to address issues of police brutality, systematic biases and lack of services, at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, in the Degenstein Center Theater in the Charles B. Degenstein Campus Center.

At Winter Convocation, 体育买球官网 traditionally welcomes students back to campus for the spring semester and celebrates the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One of hip-hop’s most respected artists, Rhymefest is a writer, artist, activist and teacher known for shattering negative stereotypes about hip-hop and establishing himself as a positive role model for underprivileged youth. As co-founder, president and CEO of the Chicago nonprofit organization Art of Culture, he mentors, teaches writing classes and exposes youth to various career options in music and business.

Rhymefest won two Grammy awards, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award and was the subject of the powerful documentary, In My Father’s House. He was recognized for his hip-hop pedagogy by New York University’s Hip Hop Education Center and in 2016, he was selected as one of Chicago Magazine’s Chicagoans of the Year. He was the first hip-hop artist to be named a prestigious Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College and in 2023, he was named a fellow with the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.