May 18, 2026 Edit
9th Wonder and Jada Douthit/Instagram screenshot @9thwonder
*Grammy-winning producer 9th Wonder graduated from North Carolina Central University on May 9 – then stood proudly at Winston-Salem State University one week later to watch his daughter Jada collect her diploma.
The hip-hop legend, born Patrick Denard Douthit, spoke with HBCU Gameday outside Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum during the WSSU commencement ceremony. The back-to-back milestones were almost too much to process. “I never would have thought that me and my child would graduate a week apart,” he said.
Jada Douthit gave her father plenty of reasons to beam. She graduated magna cum laude with a mathematics major and a data science minor, while also competing as a basketball player and serving as a founding member of WSSU’s Phi Epsilon Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She recently dropped an album, handling the production side of the project while a collaborating artist took on vocal duties. “I guess the apple don’t fall too far from the tree,” 9th Wonder stated.
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For a man who has lectured at Duke, Harvard, Penn, and NC Central, returning to finish his own degree remained an unresolved personal goal. “Before 9th Wonder came along, before the beats came along, I was a HBCU kid first,” he said.
What made Jada’s achievement even more remarkable was a detail her father did not take lightly. She was born with 90 percent hearing loss and later received cochlear implants, yet built a life centered on academics, athletics, and sound.
“Who can write this stuff, man?” 9th Wonder said.
Source: 9th Wonder and Daughter Graduate One Week Apart in Full-Circle HBCU Moment
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