From Compton to the classroom, Kendrick Lamar has inspired a new college course at Temple University in Philadelphia this fall. The genius of the West Coast MC's lyrics will be explored on a scholarly level thanks to Timothy Welbeck, Assistant Professor of Africology and African American Studies in Temple's College of Liberal Arts and Director for the Center for Anti-Racism. He connects with XXL in a new interview to discuss how a whole college class on Kendrick Lamar came together.

Welbeck, who's taught many courses at Temple over the last 14 years, including one on Tupac Shakur, spent a year turning the idea into a course ready for study. Now students can get an A in analyzing Kendrick Lamar's lyrics and life in the aptly titled course "Kendrick Lamar and the Morale of M.A.A.D City," a great play on words based on two of his albums.