Words Beats & (My) Life part VII: The Hustle

For the last two years the Creative Core has operated as a workforce development initiative in the Words Beats & Life Academy. The Core was created as a way to engage our most advanced arts students in paid performance opportunities in the District and beyond. Moving into this the third year of the Creative Core, we are expanding who can join the Core, to include non-artists interested in working in creative businesses.

According to the office of planning, the creative sector is the second largest employment sector in Washington D.C. after the federal government. We believe it is critical that young people throughout the District all have a pathway to those employment opportunities. To that end a year ago we hired a Creative Core Coordinator whose job it has been to book performances for our students. The year prior to her hire, our students had 9 performances over the course of a year. In our most recent fiscal year she scheduled 52 performances, and participated in the creation of 15 murals around the District. Through this work we engaged a number of young people who want to work in the creative sector but who are not artists. This expander purpose of the Core allows us to engage those young people as well.

We have 30 creative businesses, throughout the District, that have agreed to receive a WBL Creative Core Intern in 2017/18. These interns will be young people that have completed our three month long workforce development training to prepare them to work in a creative business as part of a paid internship. In 2015 we began employing students from the Words Beats & Life Academy to perform through the District of Columbia as part of special events and festival. We only began doing this in 2015 because our focus for the previous 13 years had been training and preparing student for employment. We made an investment in staffing to hire a Creative Core coordinator to handle contract negotiations, event logistics and student payment. This decision was a true game changer.

In 2016 we continued this program to employ students and added master artist instructors from the Words Beats & Life Academy to perform through the District of Columbia. We submitted a pilot program to train and place Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), court involved youth at 30 creative businesses throughout the District as a gateway into the creative economy, the second largest employment sector in Washington D.C. This was a game changer because it was the result of a policy recommendation we developed in the consortium, to create gateway employment in the creative sector for the most difficult to employ youth in the District of Columbia, the court involved.

Again in 2017 we expect to employ students and instructors from the Words Beats & Life Academy to perform through the District of Columbia. Train and place Department of youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) involved youth, and DC Public Schools students (students enrolled in the WBL Academy) at creative businesses throughout the District. We expect to have secured letters of agreement from hip-hop based non-profits throughout the United States and around the world to accept the placement of university students as a paid intern. This will allow us to announce the launch of our national and international internship placement program with Columbia College in Chicago.

In 2018 we expect that we will still be employing students and instructors from the Words Beats & Life Academy to perform through the District of Columbia. Train and place Department of youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) involved youth, and DC Public Schools students (DCPS) at creative businesses throughout the District. Place national/international Creative Core internship for Columbia College hip-hop studies minor students as a cap stone project. Interns will be placed at entities (including organizations, businesses, and projects) that will fall into four general categories:

(1) Research

(2) Advocacy and/or Social Justice

(3) Arts Education

(4) Arts Presenting and/or Producing

Internship Program

The following represents a proposed collaboration with Columbia College, Chicago. As part of the inaugural year of the launch of the Hip-Hop Minor initiative, we propose a partnership with WBL to create a national internship program with hip-hop related organizations, businesses and projects throughout Chicago and the United States in year one, and globally in year two.

These internships would include five components:

1. Arts Administration

2. Presenting/Producing

3. Research/Teaching

4. Financial Planning

5. Marketing

These five components were chosen because they represent an overall picture of what each type of organization needs in order to be sustainable. They also represent what a working artist, teaching artist, or anyone working independently in the creative sector needs experience in to be successful.

We believe that the participation in this kind of work would uniquely qualify Columbia College, Chicago, students to apply for positions in middle management in small arts, especially hip-hop, organizations, work as an independent artist, or pursue further education in the arts as an artist or an administrator. The overwhelming majority of people participating in hip-hop studies minor would likely be black and brown students.