Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Hip Hop artist performs at South Dakota Shakespeare Festival

The 2023 Shakespeare Festival featured Devon Glover known internationally as "The Sonnet Man."

Glover sets the works of Shakespeare to hip-hop music. He samples the writer’s words and interprets them in his rap songs.

Glover is a teacher in Brooklyn. He has been using music to help teach students for over a decade. His first audience was the math class he taught. From there Glover discovered how Shakespeare’s works had verse that he could apply to hip-hop.

Since then, “The Sonnet Man” has performed hip-hop versions of Shakespeare’s works at multiple festivals including the Soul Rebellion Hip Hop Festival in Negril, Jamaica. He took the stage at South Dakota’s festival in Vermillion on June 15.

Glover said the way he modernizes the language of Shakespeare makes it more digestible to students as they study the different things his work contributes to the writing world.

Zadya Abbott (she/her/hers) is a senior at the University of South Dakota studying Media and Journalism with a minor in Women and Gender Sexuality Studies. She is native to the southeastern corner of South Dakota. Zadya regards the journalism profession as one of noble service meant to objectively provide the public with information of interest.