AllHipHop News is reporting that The Hip-Hop Association, a US organization aimed at promoting Hip-Hop culture, is releasing a Hip Hop text book called The Hip-Hop Education Guidebook: Volume One.

The text is an attempt to teach history and culture by focusing on the development of Hip-Hop music and culture as a product of the African Diaspora in America.

According to The Hip-Hop Assocation, the book is an attempt to teach vital educational topics in a relevant way to today’s youth. Rather than teaching universal human themes using archaic languages from archaic texts, the movement hopes to teach the same ideas by using sources that students can relate to.

As New York University Professor, David Kirkland puts it “you can learn just as much about language and literature from reading Tupac as you can from Shakespeare. The themes and conflicts present in Shakespeare are all present in Hip-Hop.”

The Hip-Hop Education Guidebook: Volume One is part of a general movement to re-engage students and to make them active participants in today’s culture.