It’s no rumor… Singer Shakira is resting her hips for a while and letting her brain get a workout at the University of California Los Angeles.
Shocking, right? UCLA has had its share of celebrity students in the past, but none, I’m sure, that can shake it quite like the Colombian star. According to her reps, Shakira is attending classes at the California college and studying the history of western civilization.
The singer says one of the reasons she signed up for the class is so she could “learn from the best.” The prestigious professor Robert Cleve, who has his doctorate in the subject, is teaching Shakira’s class.
Joining the singer in the classroom (albeit not in a university setting) is rapper Master P.
The veteran entertainer went back to middle school this week to teach students about the importance of education and money management.
The gangsta rapper visited Monroe Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina on a whim. Local newspapers report that a math teacher at the school sent the rapper an email requesting that he visit the school the next time he was in town. The teacher says she was inspired by Master P’s personal story and wanted him to share it with her students. (For those of you who don’t know, Master P grew up in public housing in New Orleans, but went on to start his own record label. He even played professional basketball for a while, including two exhibition games for the former Charlotte Hornets.)
The teacher says she never expected the star to show up at the school.
“I thought it was a long shot,” she said. “Sometimes they (celebrities) say they want to help kids, but it’s a publicity stunt.”
Not in the case of Master P. Sources say not only did the rapper speak with hundreds of students; he also put in a plug for teachers’ efforts to improve test performance at the school.
“If the principal tells me y’all have a good year,” he said, “I’m going to bring Romeo (his actor-rapper son) back to do a concert.”
Not a bad result from a single email.