photo by B Fresh

How did you get into making music, and how did arts education (or lack thereof) affect you and your music?

I always had a love for music, particularly early-to-mid-90s R&B, Boyz II Men, Prince, stuff like that. Wasn’t a great singer when I was young, so I started writing songs and poetry. Discovered hip hop, which was a legitimate venue to publicly read poetry for an audience (these were the days before I really knew that slam and spoken-word existed), so I started rapping. Music to me is very much about sharing and community – I never wanted to be some genius writing poems in my basement that no one ever read. The final push over the edge for me was being randomly assigned a roommate in college who was a hip hop producer. Weird how life works out like that.

I’m lucky enough to have a “formal” arts education on top of hours and hours of informal hip hop and slam education (trial and error, listening, revising, building with community, etc.), at least a bare minimum. Learned how to read music and play saxophone in school, even took some music theory classes. Also got a standard academic introduction to poetry. Now, I have a lot of problems with how poetry is viewed/taught/learned about in high schools and universities, but I also understand that traditional thought isn’t necessarily bad – I learned a lot about poetry in school that really helped make my decidedly non-academic writing (raps, slam poems) a lot better. I’ve always had a foot in both worlds, so to speak.

The biggest thing, however, is that being an arts educator in the public school system has taught me a lot about art. I never had poetry or hip hop workshops growing up, but I’ve been teaching them for years now, and I’m always learning. When you’re forced to educate others, you really have to examine your beliefs, philosophies and artistic strategies. I never know exactly how much impact I’m having on the students, but I know for damn sure it’s making me a stronger artist.

Maybe I shouldn’t say that; I DO know that the workshops have a major impact on a lot of students, and I’ve seen kids who have no interest in school suddenly become much better students simply because they want that First Wave scholarship or the privilege to attend the afterschool spoken-word club or whatever. Whenever you can make school a less oppressive, soul-sucking place, you’re doing something positive. Arts education is absolutely instrumental in that, and a whole lot of people have no idea how much damage it would do if all these programs lost funding. We’re really talking domino-effect stuff. And unfortunately, in troubled economic times, the arts are often first on the chopping block. But I’m hoping that through the work we do, we can prove our worth.

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This post is part of our 60-hour blogathon in support of music development and literacy within the Twin Cities. We appreciate you visiting the site – but before you go, we ask that you consider clicking the Donors Choose banner below and giving what you can to help enrich the lives of a number of local children through music and reading. Thank you. – Culture Bully