Hip Hop On L.O.C.K. May 2013 Newsletter
BMLDI and HHOL Team up to Present “Emanon”
In the spring of 2013, Hip-Hop On L.O.C.K. teamed up with The Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh and the Black Male Development Institute (BMLDI) to create a program that would not only engage the young men from BMLDI but that would challenge them to use their creative talents to come together to create a project that would inspire others.
Over the 10-week process, the youth have been engaging in workshops that have provided them with a foundation to build music on such as Math of Music and Writing Workshop and have had a full-blown photoshoot with a professional photographer and will create a music video for one of their tracks. The program concludes with a graduation celebration where the young men will debut their music video and perform some of their music live.
“Leadership development is a critical element in addressing the economic, educational, social and emotional needs of young African American males. At BMLDI we strive to help black boys discover and nurture the leader inside themselves, then challenge them to commit to putting that leadership into action,” said Sabrina Saunders, Co-Director BMLDI, Urban League Greater Pittsburgh.
The group, Emanon, no name spelled backwards, developed their cd project “Supremacy” to include inspirational tracks such as Boyz II Men.
HHOL Announces Partnership with The Pgh Cultural Trust
Hip-Hop On L.O.C.K. is proud to announce that it is parterning with The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Education and Community Engagement Department in the summer of 2013.
This partnership is a huge opportunity for youth ages 12-14 that are not currently involved with one of HHOL’s current partners to enroll in it’s intensive programming. The program will take place downtown at The Trust’s facilities and will run daily from 11-4 pm on June 24-July5 with no class on July 4th. For more information, or to enroll a student, visit The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s website.
HHOL Hosts Fab Fridays
On Friday, April 26th HHOL hosted Winchester Thurston middle school students as part of their Fab Fridays program. The students engaged with DJ Hank D to learn about Djing and then created their own group called “Ya Momz Kids” and a track called “Go So Far” that can be heard here.
Shout Outs to Propel Montour Youth
We would like to send a huge shout out to the students in grades K-8 at Propel Montour as they work on creating their own music from conception to completion. The students have learned to build their own beats and then wrote and recorded their own songs on top of those beats.
The 8th grade students will have the opportunity to create their own music video using the tracks they created during the beginning of their 12 week session.
The students at Propel Montour have been extremely dedicated to the class and have taken their creativity to a place that most students don’t. Each class each chose their own positive topic to write about incluing anti-bullying, studying and good sportmanship and created amazing tracks around these topics.
Please stay tuned to be able to view the music video that will be presented as a part of the school’s Celebration of Learning (COL) at the end of the school year.
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