Hip-Hop is a community survival strategy created as a response to attacks upon the creativity, health and wellbeing of NYC Public school children and families. We chose hip-hop exactly for this reason. It was a survival strategy created by young people for young people. We have built our program around the idea that hip-hop today is really rooted in three principles; remixing, sampling and the central role of technology in art making and education.

This was done intentionally for a few reasons. First, our non-traditional (community based) classrooms allow us to create learning communities of young people ages 14–23. This means a class can literally have a middle school student and a college senior both learning from a master teacher and in a position to learn from each other. Breaking down the artificial barriers that are reinforced by school is critical to building community. Your age, your address, or how much money your parents make has no relevance in our classroom. A willingness to learn, teach and share determines if you are in community with us. This approach is especially important when engaging boys of color, when it comes to breaking down who their community is, and where it is. The place they come from is not the only community they are a part of. Hip-hop opens their entire city up to them, and for that matter the entire world.

Our pedagogy is rooted in a practice called “the dynamic classroom”. A students skill level, determines who they learn with and what kind of access to opportunity they have in the WLB Academy. We make a multi year investment in the education of our apprentices from the first day they enroll in our program. We celebrate their brilliance and interest in the things we teach. We also make room for each student to bring their individual knowledge and interest to the classroom, as an expert in their interests and experience. The idea that our students are apprentices being taught by master artists who make a living as artists and also teach is an important fact. The master artists instantaneously have a level of credibility with the students that many traditional classroom teachers don’t have. The teaching and learning process is not adversarial. It is collaborative from the very first day.

All apprentice students on their first day receive a copy of their handbook. One of the most important things about the handbook is it functions as a kind of contract with students about what they can expect to learn, to receive, be encouraged to do, and at what rates they can be compensated for their performances. For our younger students we ask them to memorize our apprentice oath. It is posted in all our sites for our high school and college aged students to see and be reminded of why our program exists. The apprentice oath represents how and what we want our students to think about themselves and their responsibilities as keepers and teachers of culture.

Apprentice Oath:

The Hot 16 (Apprentice Oath)

I’m an artist, I’m a leader

I’m a scientist, I’m a reader

I’m a self-confident over-achiever

I’m a believer

Cause I’m Words Beats & Life

I can complete any task

I strive to be the best in my class

I’m the link between the future and the past

What I build will last

Cause of Words Beats & Life

I’ll make the most of opportunity

I promise work for my community

And use hip-hop to build peace and unity

Success isn’t new to me

Cause I’m Words Beats & Life

This world needs more positivity

I take on this responsibility

And promise to use my abilities

I’m full of possibilities

Cause I’m Words Beats & Life

(By Bomani Armah)

A young person who works to live this oath is a person on a journal to Self Mastery. For WBL Self Mastery is a combination of two ideas. The first idea is “knowledge of self”, which is the 5th element of hip-hop culture after DJ’ing, Graffiti, MC’ing and B-Boying/B-Girling. The second concept is “mastery and future”, which is a youth development principle. We remixed these ideas to create Self Mastery. That is the journey we ask every apprentice student to take with our master teachers. It is a journey of life long learning working to discovering the connections and relationships between multiple forms of knowledge. We ask young people questions to learn their answers. You might be surprised how infrequently young people are asked questions for which the right answer is whatever they say. You might also be surprised how infrequently those questions come from men that look like them in a classroom.

Beginning level apprentices learn in classes with lots of direction and support from the master artists in terms of instruction. The beginning apprentice is really focused on skillset mastery. Intermediate students still receive instruction, but to a much more limited degree. Their primary focus is project based learning using their techniques and methods they received instruction in to create their own art. That artwork and its progression are tracked in the form of a digital portfolio maintained by Academy interns.

Intermediate students qualify for performances for pay too as a way for us to promote employability and entrepreneurship. Our approach is not education just for it’s own sake. It’s education for community, art production, and the ability to provide for yourself with your skills and talent. Intermediate apprentices are also assigned a college material coach to take them through a three-six month long college prep, application and enrollment process in our effort to promote the pursuit of a post secondary education.

Advanced apprentice students also qualify for paid performances; they have access to open studio time to create works of art using our supplies and equipment without supervision. They also engage local working artists, arts managers and activists during our various speaker series, alternative spring break and alternative winter break. Their engagement with WBL is centered more on independent learning and art making and marketing. We are working now to create a new curriculum that centers more on theoretical aspects of each of the art forms we teach, encouraging students to create using techniques of their own, that they have observed and that they have been taught.

Our approach is as much about art as it is driven by the art we create. “In 5 seconds” is a poem we commissioned that reflects the way we think about our students. It’s critical to us that our apprentice students understand we love them. That we believe in them. That we have high expectations of them rooted in what we have seen them do, what we have taught them and most importantly what they have taught us.

In 5 seconds a teacher will begin to speak

This is for the kids who

wither away in classroom boxes and

cicada themselves out windows when the teacher begins

leaving empty shells behind

whose voices whine “What’s geometry for?”

“I’m never gonna use it”

Colossal kids who shrink under spotlight

expecting to hear, “FREEZE! Stop!”

but instead, they hear, “Go. Move…Now’s your time”

always loosen up first / deep breath everybody

inhale to uprock / pause to think

exhale to emcee / stare & don’t blink

Don’t ever let them tell you that you need

laser cartridges or high priced anything

all you need is your voice — your hands — comfortable shoes

an empty space — a landscape — And The Will

but you want geometry, so…

…are all beats quadrilateral?

Depending on the location of the center of rotation

can you tell the diameter of this Cameo record?

Is there any symmetry to this picture?

What is the radius of a 5th graders windmill?

How much area will 3 cans of spray paint cover?

Yes, the metaphors are three-dimensional, cuz

we’ve been rockin’ this since Converse

We are WBL

helping teens discover their mutant powers since 2002

- like making canvas chromatically explode

- Freezing entire crowds in awe

- or reaching thru milk crate portals bringing historic singers

back to life just to play with musicians of today

It aint easy, though

some days the floor will feel indifferent

trains will break down like cracked albums

and friends will morph into shadows

But then what??

There’s a long hard walk back to your seat unless you

Show and Prove — who got the props?

Ante Up & Ace that contest!

Grab that diploma.

Don’t just get a job — Create One

THAT’S what we’re giving

That extra Bop in your step as you stride into any office

cipher

art gallery or

across any stage

to speak with conviction and with rhythm

to find layers and colors still unseen

this is our mission — we are WBL

& we don’t want you to just rock a crowd…

We expect you to rock the entire world.

(By: Black Picasso)

It is our responsibility as culture keepers and educators to not just encourage our students but also to build the scaffolding to make their dreams and aspirations attainable. I have always understood it to be our responsibility to open doors, knock down walls and build bridges members of our community can cross. This includes adult artists in our community who also need support and who are willing to work in collaboration with us.