9th Wonder

9th Wonder is a super producer, CEO, DJ, and lecturer from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He began his career as the main producer for the group Little Brother, and has also worked with Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Destiny’s Child, Mary J Blige, Jean Grae, Wale, Murs, Drake, Buckshot, Chris Brown, Rapsody, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Big Boi of Outkast, Ludacris, Mac Miller, and David Banner to name a few.

9th Wonder entered the world academia in 2007 at North Carolina Central University, where he was an Artist of Residence, lecturing a class titled Hip- Hop History. His role as a music professor continued to expand in 2010 when it was announced that he would co-teach a class titled “Sampling Soul” with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal at Duke University. Shortly after, he was accepted to Harvard University where he lectured and researched the Hip Hop Archive in the W.E.B. Dubois Institute, under the direction of Dr. Marcy Morgan and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 9th Wonder has also served as Artist of Residence while also guest lecturing. In the Fall of 2021, 9th Wonder joined the faculty of Roc Nation’s Music, Sports & Entertainment School at Brooklyn’s Long Island University.

With over 15 years of academia under his belt, 9th wonder has owned the responsibility of preserving Hip-Hop music and culture. In 2010, 9th Wonder was selected to join the Executive Committee for Hip-Hop and Rap at the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., where he has an exhibit on the Musical Crossroads floor. In 2016, 9th Wonder signed a partnership with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation imprint, establishing Jamla Records as one of the premier independent labels today. In 2017, 9th Wonder produced the song “Duckworth” on “Damn”, the 4th studio album of Compton MC, Kendrick Lamar, which went on to win the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. In October of 2019, 9th Wonder was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

Presently, 9th Wonder continues to produce, teach, inspire, and push the culture of hip-hop forward in the community, industry, and the world of academia.