Art: “NEGROSCHOLARshit”: The Art of Getting Your PhD in GTFO

Fahamu Pecou doesn’t knock politely. He kicks down the mahogany-paneled door of academia, lights a cigar with your tenure letter, and poses shirtless under The Journal of Contemporary Culture header like a cover model from GQ: Grad Qualms Edition. His 2011-ish piece “NEGROSCHOLARshit” isn’t just art — it’s a full-body side-eye to a culture that treats Black intellect like it’s only real when it’s wearing elbow patches and quoting Baldwin… preferably in a British accent.

Let’s talk visuals. A ripped, melanated scholar (read: pecs and Pecou) smirks under a mortarboard while clutching academic texts like they’re gym equipment. He’s got white shades, a cigar, and swagger so thick it needs a bibliography. Spray-painted across the bottom in punk-rock defiance? NEGROSCHOLARshit. Say it again. Slowly. Savor the sting.

This isn’t graffiti — it’s a reckoning. A deliberate defacement of the Ivy Tower’s velvet ropes. A refutation of every panel discussion that wants “diverse voices” but clutches its pearls when the voice doesn’t come in a soothing NPR whisper.

Pecou, an Atlanta-based artist and philosopher disguised as a hypebeast, has long treated the canvas like a boxing ring. He jabs at respectability politics. He swings at fetishization. And he body-slams the idea that scholarship has to look, sound, or behave a certain way to be valid. A graduate of the “yes, AND” school of Black expression, Pecou plays both the griot and the trickster. He’s been known to wear a kufi with Jordans. He uses paint the way Baldwin used prose — as a tool of resurrection, resistance, and high-voltage satire.

But don’t let the humor fool you. NEGROSCHOLARshit hits because it’s true. The academy still struggles to make room for Black knowledge that doesn’t conform to its own image of enlightenment — knowledge that’s loud, embodied, brash, vulnerable, and complex. This piece is about the exhaustion of code-switching. It’s about the insult of being “the only one in the room.” It’s about reclaiming the podium without needing to apologize for the beat in your chest or the bass in your voice.

The real kicker? He’s holding books — the very symbols of that sought-after legitimacy — like he just ripped them off the shelf after they refused to cite him. This is erudition with attitude. A dissertation wrapped in defiance.

So here’s the question:

What if the most brilliant scholar in the room is the one the institution keeps trying to shush?

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