Stanford University engineering graduate turned rapper headlined the UCA School of Communication’s annual Communication Week events.
Epiphany Morrow, aka Big Piph was chosen to visit UCA for Communication Week as his vast array of experiences made him a perfect fit for the School of Communication students.
Dr. Christine Busser, associate professor of Writing, Rhetoric and Information Design, was one of the people who helped welcome Big Piph to UCA for Communication Week.
“The best way to receive funding for someone as notable as Piph is to ensure the person has broad appeal in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Big Piph is a rapper, global ambassador for hip hop — specializing in conflict transformation, music entrepreneurship, and community building — filmmaker, and organizer,” Busser said.
During Communication Week, Big Piph did a public performance on Monday night to kick off the week’s celebrations and he led a class workshop and a presentation on Tuesday.
Big Piph displayed his rapping skills for students and faculty at the public performance. During the workshop and presentation, he broke down the elements of hip-hop, and shared about his past and what made him turn to rapping during college.
“I think one message that seemed to resonate with students, at least with some of mine, is his point about how many of our fears or insecurities are not reflections of reality, but are in our head. We can often be the ones standing in the way of achieving our own goals. In general, his humility coupled with his message of overcoming were useful for all college students who are constantly being asked to step outside of their comfort zone to learn new things,” Busser said.
In the smaller class workshop, Big Piph focused on challenging students to get to know each other better and create a deeper connection.
Public Relations major Dalton James was part of this workshop and said the exercises they did helped him create stronger connections with his classmates.
“I think for me it was sharing stuff about each other we didn’t know. You don’t really get to know some of the people you go to class with every day outside of maybe what they are doing around campus or class work, so getting to share my own stories and hear other students talking about stuff in their lives was interesting,” James said.
James said that Big Piph had students complete a few group exercises such as having everyone hold their fists together and stare at each other to see who would laugh first or making everyone say “If you really knew me…” followed by a bit of information about that person that everyone might not know.
“I think it accomplished what Big Piph was trying to get across with understanding what others are going through that you might not know,” James said.
Big Piph also spent some time talking about the history of hip-hop and it’s main elements: DJ, emcee-ing, Graffiti and break dancing.
He talked about how he got into hip-hop and briefly touched on his time as an ambassador where he got to travel and teach children about music and hip-hop and how that changed his perspective.
“He served as a fantastic representation of someone who communicates with intention, who deeply understands their ‘why’ when it comes to being a global communicator,” Busser said.
Article by UCA Journalism major, Ashlyn Taylor.