Rice University may be known as one of the leading private universities in the South, but it's not known for being trill. Or it wasn't. This past spring, one of the greatest Southern rappers of all time doubled as a professor of Religious Studies, lecturing on the parallels between hip-hop and different faiths. Bun B, a Baptist, partnered up with Dr. Anthony B. Pinn, UGK fan and head of Rice's H.E.R.E. community-outreach program, to teach "Religious Studies 331: Religion and Hip-Hop Culture." The course grew out of Bun's guest lecture to one of Pinn's classes a couple of years ago, and the rapper responsible for "Gimme That Pussy" and "Pocket Full of Stones" (among many others) proved remarkably astute. "We're not talking about hip-hop and religion being the same," Bun said. "We're showing instances where hip-hop and religion have the same goals and ideology in common within the context of the culture."
(An earlier version of this item misspelled Dr. Anthony B. Pinn's last name. The Houston Press regrets the error.)