Issue date: 5/8/09 Section: Features

Media Credit: Jordan Bryan [Click to enlarge]

In the world of hip hop, street and college credibility have never gone hand in hand. Only recently has the genre seen any sort of college influence with Kanye West labeling himself a drop-out, Asher Roth devoting a song to loving it and Lil' Wayne attempting to finish a degree plan at the University of Houston.

For brothers Tony and Charles Iyoho, members of the hip hop group Rhyme University, obtaining a college education was not an option, it was mandatory.

"Education is huge in my family," Charles Iyoho said. "My dad has a Ph.D., my mom has her masters, my little sister is about to get a law degree, my brother has Ph.D. and my other sister has her masters in business."

Not to be left out, Charles Iyoho received his masters in mass communication from the University of Houston in 2007.

Fittingly, Rhyme University started while Iyoho was an undergraduate at the University of Missouri where his brother was working on his masters in mechanical engineering. There they entered into freestyle competitions held by a student-run radio station.

"I don't want to say we were better than everybody, but my brother and I used to just kill it," Iyoho said. "People were telling us we need to do something with it."

Rhyme U began performing around the Columbia area, and eventually signed with an independent hip hop label based out of Missouri called Indyground Entertainment.

Though the duo gained local success as a hip hop group, Rhyme U quickly set out to change the stigma of artists within the genre.

"A lot of times, I think hip hop gets a bad rap and there are stereotypical images that come along with it," Iyoho said. "One of my aims is to destroy those images. We are trying to bring a different perspective to the game."

The different perspective Iyoho speaks of is as a son of two Nigerian immigrants. His parents are native to Uyo, Nigeria and lived there for about 30 years before his father received a full scholarship from a university in Wales. The Iyoho family eventually moved to the United States in 1975.

As a kid, Iyoho moved around, going to schools all over the U.S. and attending high school off the coast of Africa at the American British Academy in Oman. There he made friends and connections that would help him in spreading Rhyme University's music around the eastern hemisphere.

Continued...

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