While kids may fall asleep in class, they’ll rarely fall asleep in a hip-hop concert.
Frank Satterwhite’s strategy for reaching out to underprivileged youth begins with just this idea.
This past weekend, Satterwhite held his Hip Hop Leadership Camp in Tom Bradley Hall, where he uses hip-hop as a vehicle to encourage “at-risk” youth to succeed.
“Our mission is to use hip-hop to get kids introduced to the opportunities they can reach with a mastery of technology,” said Chey Belle, the event’s spokesperson. “We also want to use these tools to encourage kids from impoverished areas to pursue further education.”
Noting the inability much of conventional education has to engage “at-risk” students, Satterwhite decided to reach out with a different language than that of the typical classroom. The camp relies on the students’ own interest in hip-hop music to provide a foundation for understanding the practical uses of technological and marketing skills.
“These kids are completely immersed in hip-hop ““ it’s everything they do and buy. They probably won’t listen to you if you just lecture at them, but hip-hop can be more effective,” Belle said.
The weekend of hands-on education focused on teaching the abilities necessary to produce and market a hip-hop record label in the modern world of business and technology. This learning took the form of competition and exercises in these skills; the students simulated two record labels vying for funding. Students, ranging in ages from fifteen to eighteen, learned how to promote music on the Internet through sites such as MySpace, and how to make a professional speech ““ both skills that are valuable in any industry.
The competition culminated Friday night when rapper, actor and comedian Nick Cannon evaluated the two models and decided who got the check.
“We got to experience real situations and promote ourselves. At first it was scary to be around such a powerful person, but he laughed and made everyone comfortable. There are so many things to know about to make yourself successful,” said participant Kevin Hayes of Richmond, California.
Whether or not the participants find their place in a business or performing career in hip-hop, the experience of working with computers can be applied to a more general goal. For some participants, hip-hop may just be a vehicle to empowerment through technology.
“We want to open doors, or at least expose these kids to a way of thinking that will help them be successful,” Belle said.
While the practical knowledge is important, the camp also focused on ethical issues within the hip-hop community. A Saturday afternoon town-hall discussion, between students in the program and a panel of hip-hop luminaries such as DJ Premier, QD3, and Spinderella, allowed students to ask tough questions of industry tastemakers.
“We want to discuss language issues in hip-hop, in terms of how we present our community and the power of language to shape how a community develops,” said Belle.
Questions from students were directly answered by the panelists with no advance preparation, or as DJ Premier put it, “freestyle.” And with topics ranging from misogyny in hip-hop to the glorification of violence and other criminal pursuits, the historical understanding of the panelists became valuable. As students wondered about the presence of negative themes in the music that they love, the panelists contributed explanations on how and why such themes became prevalent.
Orienting these concerns in hip-hop’s development, QD3 discussed the entrance of such negative themes into hip-hop’s lyrics. Artists like 2Pac and KRS-One he feels, touched on the darker sides of hip-hop as a way of presenting the realities of their lives and their communities.
But QD3 now feels that the negative elements in the music are motivated by something different, and less meaningful.
“Back then, these artists were the first to express their struggle. The world needed to know these stories. The problem is that people now want to show gangster and not to show a struggle,” QD3 said.
The panel’s representative of international hip-hop, the British artist Fusion, contributed his reflections to the students’ questions about the state and power of hip-hop. Looking back to the times in which hip-hop guided his personal struggle, he remembers the power of this movement to transform, rather than spread, negativity.
“The movement reached me in London, and it first sent messages of peace, unity, and love. The graffiti, break dancing, cutting records and rhyming was all part of moving forward, providing hope and belief to get out of the predicament,” Fusion said.
As Satterwhite’s hip-hop leadership camp has shown, this fundamental spirit of the movement can be realized in many forms ““ from break dancing to marketing strategies, and from rhyming to technological skills. And while preserving this spirit, the camp’s musical philanthropy strives to give youth the ability to express it in another, more technological, way.