Drake's Career Becomes Case Study in Concordia University's New Fall 2026 Course

Summary

Concordia University in Montreal will offer a Fall 2026 course titled "Drake: Media, Myth & Manhood"

The syllabus examines Drake's discography, the OVO brand, and the relationship between artists and the music industry

Rapper and Professor Yassin "Narcy" Alsalman will lead the class at his alma mater

Drake is about to become university coursework. Concordia University in Montreal will offer “Drake: Media, Myth & Manhood” during its Fall 2026 semester, a course dedicated to the Toronto rapper’s catalog, cultural mythology, and the industry systems his career sits within.

Housed under the broader “Hip-Hop: Past, Present & Future” curriculum (course code FFAR 256), the syllabus is helmed by rapper and Professor Yassin “Narcy” Alsalman, a Concordia alumnus returning to his alma mater. Alsalman has previously taught university-level courses on Kanye West, positioning him to translate individual rap discographies into structured academic study. The course itself will move across Drizzy’s catalog and thematic territory, the rise and infrastructure of the OVO label, the relationship between art and capitalism, and the industry systems artists have to navigate.

A publicly shared sample week from the syllabus, dated November 12, 2026 and titled “US vs. THEM: Artist vs. Corporation,” offers a look at how the class will engage those themes in practice. The framing text posits that politics and art cannot be separated when the politics are rotten, and outlines discussions of record label control over what breaks through, the mechanics of stream farms, and lawsuits from legendary artists against the industry. The week’s listening assignment is Drake’s ICEMAN, while its reading list pulls from Liz Kelly’s Mood Machine, a Rolling Stone interview with longtime Drake collaborator 40, and Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us.

The course arrives at a moment when hip-hop’s presence in university curricula has become less novel than accepted, with institutions increasingly treating individual rap catalogs as subjects worthy of dedicated study rather than niche electives. OVO, which Drake founded alongside Noah “40” Shebib and Oliver El-Khatib in 2012, gives the syllabus a case study that extends beyond the artist himself into questions of brand-building, geographic identity, and the transition of a rap collective into a broader cultural institution. Alsalman’s dual identity as a working rapper and academic positions him to bridge those registers, moving between industry critique and cultural celebration without collapsing either.

Drake: Media, Myth & Manhood begins during Concordia University’s Fall 2026 semester, starting in September.

I'm teaching a class about Drake and OVO this fall (September) at my alma mater Concordia University under the class Title "Hip-Hop: Past, Present and Future". We have things to discuss, forrrreeeaaaaaalllll yeah. @DrakeDirect @DrakeAligned @apox6ix @Whats_the_dirt pic.twitter.com/ndYHAnP5jH

— FRENCH CANADIAN MONTANA (@TheNarcicyst) June 16, 2026