Leveraging education as entertainment (or vice versa) is a potent tool for relaying information.  For an example of this leverage, I turn to rap music.  I am hard-pressed to imagine another genre of modern entertainment that places more emphasis on practical knowledge (knowledge of self, knowledge of one's environment, etc).  This article focuses on one specific instance of educating entertainment: EDUTAINMENT, a 1990 rap album by Boogie Down Productions (BDP).  I chose this album because BDP's frontman, KRS-One, is a living legend of edutainment.  In the consciousness-promoting realm of hip hop culture, few artists (if any) can match KRS-One's dedication and ability to wield his art as a powerful and uplifting influence.  Here, I'd like to examine what makes this unique mash-up of education and entertainment work.

#1 - It's real.

KRS's personal history provides rich examples of the topics he discusses.  Drawing from this real-life experience, his stories depict realistic outcomes even when the plot's details are blatantly fictional.  His characters grapple with decisions that directly determine whether or not they survive. 

In "Love's Gonna Getcha", he assumes the role of a junior high kid who starts working for the local drug dealer.  Each verse describes the context of a different decision made by the boy that leads to his downfall.  In verse 1, it is a desperate financial situation that precipitates entry into drug sales.  Verse 2 depicts the anger and surprise that fuel a violent reaction to betrayal.  In verse 3, it is the desperate tension of a showdown in the middle of a residential neighborhood.  At the end of each verse, the narrator confronts his seeming lack of control with the same words: "Now tell me what the f*** am I supposed to do?"  The organization of the story opposes this statement of helplessness.  Each verse revolves around specific decisions that the boy makes.  As his choices continue to make a bad situation worse, the boy is revealed to have more control than he thinks.  At any step in the plot, he could have changed his mind and determined a different fate.  Through this story, KRS doesn't just tell kids that they should question their environment's effect on their perception.  Instead, he vividly illustrates how their environment can hijack their perception.

#2 - It's relevant.

On the opening track (Exhibit A) of the album, KRS identifies his medium and purpose as a rapper.  Defining rap music as "the LAST voice of black people", he notes that this voice has been embraced by mainstream (and historically racist) America.  Because of its position as the interface between black people and American society as a whole, KRS envisions rap as "a revolutionary tool in changing the structure of racist America".  From this perspective, rap is the most relevant and useful place to discuss the identity of black Americans.  It's also the most practical place for such a discussion; while black people did start it, everybody hears it.

After establishing the relevant scope and importance of this rap medium, KRS focuses on topics that affect the day-to-day life of his audience.  "Blackman in Effect" bemoans that the Board of Education's "only reality is talking about Tom, Dick, and Harry".  In response to public education's Euro-centric bias, he literally raps an alternative history of the civilized world, one that more accurately recognizes the staggering influence of African civilizations like Ancient Egypt.  On a lighter note, "Beef" is a public service announcement on the negative consequences of eating meat.  For each topic he addresses, KRS highlights the important factors that collectively create an environment and what degree of control an individual can exercise over those factors.

#3 - It rocks.

A unique part of BDP's catalogue, EDUTAINMENT is proof that education's potency lives in its entertainment.  Its heftier lyrical content "wasn't for the dance crew" because it was designed to "make you think and get through" (see "Original Lyrics").  Despite its more intellectual lyricism, this album is still deeply rooted in a visceral, rhythmic experience.  In more informal terms, this sh** may be smart, but it still bumps.  Notice how the production of the album mimics a live show.  The beat for "House Nigga", for example, features a male crowd shouting in unison.  This raw energy is pervasive throughout the album, and resurfaces frequently in introductions or interludes built around samples of KRS's live appearances.

On a later album, KRS crystallizes this empowering element of hip hop as "a form of movement" that one can't just observe, but must "get up and do" ("Hip Hop Lives").  Providing the motivation and means of intelligent action is perhaps the most enduring aspect of this mentally and physically engaging medium.  KRS-One doesn't just entertain us with raps.  He defines rap.  He clarifies rap.  He manifests it.  And because it's EDUTAINMENT, he invites all of us to do the same.