Drake and the Weeknd are Canadian powerhouses that have made their presence globally known. The music icons will be sharing a new stage together at X University — set to be renamed Ryerson University by Jan. 31, 2022 — for a class titled “Deconstructing Drake and the Weeknd” in their hometown of Toronto.

The course will be taught by Hip-Hop expert, podcaster and writer Dalton Higgins who serves as a music professor in residence at the school, NOW Toronto reports.

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“I was pushing Hip Hop Pedagogy in high schools, writing chapters and lesson plans for various hip hop textbooks,” Higgins said in an Instagram post. “But the real fun & deep learning has only really just begun as I’ll be teaching a course about two Toronto-born music titans; Drake & The Weeknd in early 2022.”

He continued: “It’s time to get our Canadian rap & R&B icons recognized & canonized academically or otherwise. And it is CRITICAL for scholars, historians, to examine the Toronto music scene that birthed Drake/Weeknd and helped create the conditions for them to become mega successful.”

The Toronto artists have continued to surpass and shatter their records proving to be subjects that are worth being studied.

Drake recently broke streaming records with his album “Certified Lover Boy” for most music streams in 24 hours, Billboard Media previously reported. And The Weeknd is putting on for his city by breaking records as well. His hit “Blinding Lights” became the fastest single to reach two billion views this past February, according to Forbes Magazine.

“What is it that made these particular artists stand out from the pack of thousands of cross-genre musicians from here from a marketing perspective?” Higgins said in an interview with NOW Toronto. “Are they doing things a little differently? What’s their business acumen and entrepreneurial zest like? Did race, gender, class, faith play into any of this? Drake and the Weeknd are both real human beings, which means that, like most humans, they are going to do and say intriguing and confounding things, so we’ll peel back the layers on some of that [too]. My expectation is that students will ask tough questions about their music, race, class, subject matter, music production, lyrics.”

Drake and The Weeknd will now join the ranks of music legends who have been studied in academia including Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Outkast and more.

Ryerson University

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