Students connect what they are learning to various genres through listening and responding exercises.

All be poppin up in that Urban Industrial. 

The joy in this music is bound to make you smile,

but not everyone can feel it cause of that segregated radio dial

That’s the value of music education

Drumming as a weapon to subvert injustice

Coming together to share what makes us us

Turning to the ancestors to create and improve

C’mon now, jam with me it’s time to groove

From capture to accomplishment, journey  of liberation

Underground communication, drums signals banned

Music traditions passed down with hope in the pain had

For hip hop, in a school space 

Student learning

Cultural Competence - Critical consciousness

Is likely to be successful

For students of color

The students who struggle 

To experience school based excellence

Student learning represents more

Than the narrow notions of of how they perform

On a standardized test

You best forget your fear, it’s all too clear

Been 50 years, hip-hop is here

It’s a part of our classrooms and

In our institutions

It’s living rent-free

In the ears of our students

But what’s my litmus

Of what change I aim to create

Without making you salivate 

You see, in the end 

I’m important but it’s not about me 

It’s about my culture 

And for the fam, family

I represent a generation

Of different peoples in one nation

Daughter of immigrants you hear me

Where we center the collective the we

How do we create beyond performance

Beyond what we show onstage to parents

What barriers exist for who’s in the audience 

Inside or outside the equity fence

I’m seeking liberation

Not just here but in every original nation

Empower students to fight the powers that be

The ones that often silence our humanities

I think about the people I amplify

Beyond where it’s at, not just you and I

Redefine what we consider is dignified

So I can see them with my black eyes

I ask us to challenge the status quo

Not just what you know but what you don’t know 

Encourage each other to create more flow

So we can lift up what makes us whole

Black Pride, Protest, Changing with the times,

Uplifting, Changing, Constantly Empowering,

New thing called “Hop Hop”, shouting “Freedom to our Song”

Schools don’t address, the focus is on tests. 

They say “students, behave. Learn to obey. 

Listen, sit, comply, do so  quietly.”

Draconian rules used as draconian tools, let’s bring democratic faces to undemocratic spaces. 

In hip hop we’ll stand, to fight the power and, transform the world around us, together we band.   

Forbidden drums of freedom,

Now or in the future, we will see them,

Subversion, liberation, justice, emancipation

Teaching with restriction

Living in a system that is set up for conviction

“Prison preparatory plantations”

This is not the way we want to run our nation - or is it?

The business

The limits

Compliance

No alliance

Draconian rules and regulations

How we gonna stop frustrations?

Music ed can start our democracy

But we have to choose it first you see.

–Strive for liberation when the drum was banned.

–Powerful weapon for promoting liberation

Resistance through music 

Forming a new religion

From liberty to chains

Music was there to

Communicate your pain.