Street..smart

It’s a cold January evening, and nearly a dozen junior high students and parents have braved the icy roads to make it to a classroom at the Oak Park YMCA. Classes at Lansing Public Schools were canceled that day, but class is in session at All of the Above Hip Hop Academy (AOTA).

Electronic beats are pumping from computer speakers in the corner as Tyson Pumphrey, a.k.a Ozay Moore, lays down the ground rules.

“Within these walls, hip hop is not about tearing people down. Hip hop is a beautiful culture, we respect the culture and we respect each other.”

Pumphrey, artistic director of AOTA, uses the history of hip hop to combat the negative themes that young people are hearing everyday in mainstream hip hop. An art form that began as the unifying voice of oppressed black communities in New York has spawned a mainstream music that glorifies violence, misogyny and drug culture. Teaching skills opens the door, but teaching the history gives students a chance to use those skills in positive ways.

Tonight’s students are here to learn about Bboying (break dancing) and style writing. While most of the class breaks off to learn about freezes and back spins, Pumph-rey hands out sketchbooks to the remaining students.

“The original writers called it style writing,” he begins. “Graffiti was a name applied to it later by the news media.”

Pumphrey’s teaching style is fluid and improvised, but rooted in history and experience. Within the first 15 minutes of class, Pumphrey quotes Nietzsche (“One cannot fly into flying”) and draws parallels between graffiti and ancient Egyptian hiero-glyphics (“It’s human nature to see a blank surface and want to draw on it”).

“Hip hop is the dominant cultural voice of this generation,” explains Pumphrey. “We’re leveraging hip-hop culture to invest in kids’ lives and in their communities.”

What’s my name?

Pumphrey, a 33-year-old native of Seattle, built a career for himself as a hip-hop artist on the West Coast, performing under the name Othello both as a solo artist and with his group Lightheaded. He moved to Lansing in 2006; his wife, Rebekah, grew up in Lansing and wanted to be closer to her family.

“I had never lived in the Midwest before. I thought I would give it a shot,” he says.

He found himself facing new challenges as an artist as his family grew.

“When my son was born, one month later, I was on Warped Tour for three months,” he remembers. “Touring was how I made my money. Something had to change.”

So Pumphrey began a transition. He got a full-time job, but continued to write and record music on evenings and weekends. He used vacation days at work to go on tour.

This new approach meant a new moniker, and Othello became Ozay Moore.

“I needed to start fresh, I wasn’t that guy anymore.”

This change also led a refocusing of energy. As his life became more local, he began to look for ways to give back  to the community. In early 2011, he began to dream about using hip hop to strengthen community. Later that year, AOTA was born.

It takes two

Pumphrey is joined in this venture by long time friend and veteran rapper Sharron Solo Brooks, academy manager and emcee instructor. Brooks, 38, is known as Solo to his friends but performs under the name Sareem Poems.

Brooks and Pumphrey’s lives have been intertwined since the two met on the West Coast hip-hop circuit. Raised in Los Angeles, Brooks is a member of the hip-hop group L.A. Symphony, which often shared the stage with Lightheaded. Brooks and Pumphrey became fast friends.

“We were both very enthusiastic about the culture of hip hop,” Brooks says.

In 2007, both artists released solo records on the Hip Hop is Music label, and the two set out on a national tour together in support of the albums. This tour included a stop in Pumphrey’s new hometown, Lansing. During their time in Lansing, Brooks hit it off with Rebekah’s sister, Carla. Not long after, the brothers in music became brothersin-law, and Brooks moved to Lansing in October 2009.

Both Brooks and Pumphrey continue to tour and record music. Pumphrey released the album “Taking L’s” in June 2014. Brooks released “You Still on Earth?” with L.A. Symphony in December 2014 and is working on a solo release entitled “Beautiful Noise,” which is tentatively slated for a release this month. The album, which will be released on iLLECT Recordings, is produced by fellow AOTA instructor Ess Be (Shondell Brandon).

While they have both made the transition from full-time musicians to family men with day jobs, they are quick to tell you that they are not done making relevant art.

“The dream isn’t changing, the approach is changing,” says Brooks.

The rest of AOTA’s roster is a formidable mix of industry veterans and rising talents, including Rafael Downes (formerly Rafael de la Ghetto) and Matthew Duncan (aka Choppy Blades).

Let knowledge drop

While the classes are structured, much of the learning at AOTA happens as a result of these artists´ being together in one place.

“It’s like osmosis,” explains academy alumnus Evan Dunbar. “The exposure you get to people with so much experience is invaluable.”

Dunbar, 18, grew up in south Lansing but lives in East Lansing, where he is a freshman at Michigan State University.

He understands the value of communication. His mother is Lansing City Councilwoman Kathie Dunbar, and this proximity to politics has taught him the importance of clear and effective communication.

Dunbar’s time at AOTA gave him a chance to find his own voice.

A poet, Dunbar had little musical experience when he began working with AOTA.

“I didn’t even know how to count a bar,” he says.

AOTA taught him how to turn his poetry into lines, his lines into verses and his verses into complete songs. There is an emphasis on self-expression and honesty.

“This was a tough year for me,” he says. “My parents got a divorce and I started college. Music gave me a way to deal with these feelings and speak out about them.”

Although Dunbar has “graduated” from the academy, he is still involved as both an unofficial mentor for younger students and a continuing learner.

On Tuesday he released a project he views as a capstone of his experiences at AOTA: a six-song EP entitled Training Day.

Nearly all aspects of this release, including production, recording and album art, were done by AOTA students.

Started from the bottom now we’re here

By investing in the next generation of artists, Pumphrey is using AOTA to bolster Lansing’s hip-hop scene from the bottom up.

“There is such a huge turnover rate here, artists get burned out trying to make something happen here,” he explains. “Great artists come through here but end up moving to another city to pursue better opportunities.”

The academy began with pop-up programs at the Edgewood Village apartment complex in East Lansing and Building Twentyone in Mason before settling into the Oak Park YMCA. From this location, AOTA offers classes for students 13 to 18 years old in the four foundational arts of hip-hop culture: emceeing (rapping), Bboying, beat making (music production) and style writing.

While the art itself is important, the message of AOTA goes deeper. Pumphrey takes a three-pronged approach to teaching hiphop culture: community, education and artistry.

“(Music and art) play a big part in creating momentum in communities,” he said. “Artists can play a part in how youth process and understand the community they live in.”

The program meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and averages three to eight students per class according to Pumphrey.

“We definitely have room to grow,” he says.

Their classroom space features a dozen computer stations that are used in their beat making and emcee classes, and a teaching station with a projector and speakers for showing videos or teacher demonstrations. The Y also financially supports the academy. Students attend for free, and the Y picks up the tab from their scholarship fund.

Young man, are you listening to me?

AOTA’s relationship with the Y began in 2012. Jason Helman, senior program director, was looking for a better way to engage youth in the community.

“We had been looking for a long time for programming that would reach junior high and high school students,” Helman says.

At the time, Brooks was helping to the coordinate the Leader’s Club at the Y, and told Helman about the pop-up programs Pumphrey was running. Helman saw an opportunity to reach out to youth in the area who are underserved by arts programming remembers Helman.

(Pumphrey and I) went out for coffee and hashed out what that might look like," remembers Helman.

While these programs have an immediate benefit in giving youth a positive outlet for their time and energy, Helman has the long game in mind.

“It’s what these kids will have the tools to do five years from now that is the goal,” he says.

As students are learning how to write and perform rap verses, they are also learning vocabulary and how to speak in public. While they are learning about Bboying, they are also learning the importance of community and teamwork. While they are learning about style writing, they are also learning about self-expression and bringing art to a community.

Even in the short time that AOTA has been in residence at the Y, Helman has seen the academy change perceptions of hip hop in the community. As the academy engaged the community through public murals and events, opinions on hip hop have shifted.

“To some, especially adults, there was a negative connotation to (hip hop),” he says. “They’ve begun to see it as an artistic movement in our community.”

In addition to providing space, funding and administrative help, working through the Y also gives a natural rhythm to the academy’s schedule. The academy offers after-school classes in the fall and spring while students are in school, and then changes focus to community outreach in the summer months. In 2014, AOTA participated in Common Ground Music Festival and Lansing Jazzfest and teamed up with the Downtown Neighborhood Association to organize community block parties.

The message

With the tragedies of Michael Brown and Eric Garner still fresh in our cultural memory, Pumphrey sees a chance for hip hop to lead the discussion.

“I think hip hop should always be a platform to comment on and discuss what is happening in our world and our community. When you lose that, you lose what makes the music special.”

Brooks sees hip hop as a way for communities that are underrepresented in the media to get a message out.

“Hip hop started among communities stricken by poverty,” he explains. “Hip hop gave them a voice.”

Brooks sees the discussion surrounding Brown and Garner as an area where hip hop can address a cultural disconnect.

“When I talk to my white OF friends, they evaluate these events on a case-by-case basis. But when I talk to my black friends, they see it as the latest example of an unfair system they have been dealing with their whole lives.”

For him, hip hop is one way to present a different perspective.

“Music is not the answer, but it can be a tool.”

This cultural understanding of hip hop is an important part of Brook’s message because young people are hearing so many superficial messages in mainstream music.

“Due to the success of hip hop, the culture today has been taken over by commercialism. The message of much of the music out there today is get rich as quick as you can and stay as high as you can.”

Pumphrey stresses the importance of using education to confront issues of violence, misogyny and homophobia that are prevalent in mainstream hip hop.

“It’s important that the community stands up and takes responsibility for the messages they are putting out.”

Kickin’ it new school

The power of AOTA’s programming lies in its willingness to engage youth culture, says Erik Skogsberg, assistant secondary coordinator for MSU’s Department of Teacher Education.

“It’s the difference in deficit-based education versus asset-based education,” he ex-plains. “Instead of viewing students as having deficits to be remedied, it values the students’ experiences as assets which can be tapped into.”

Skogsberg, who is also a doctoral student in MSU’s Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education program, is researching educational approaches that directly engage the culture of a community.

“I’m interested in taking what students are doing outside of the classroom and connecting it to the discipline.”

For example, he says, Pumphrey often begins emcee classes with a cypher. In hip hop culture, a cypher is an informal gathering of emcees who take turns rapping over a beat.

“We know that students are engaging in (activities like this) outside of the class,” says Skogsberg. “What if the classroom looked more like their lives?” Skogsberg acknowledges that there are problematic themes in hip hop, especially in mainstream hip hop. Instead of ducking the tough questions, he encourages teachers to use hip hop to confront those issues.

“There are many problematic elements in our society that should be taken up in the classroom,” he says. “It’s important to set up an environment in which we can critique those elements.”

By connecting students to the history of hip hop and providing a space to critique the problems in mainstream hip hop, AOTA empowers students to shape the future of the genre.

“It allows students to start making decisions of what they want hip hop to be,” says Skogsberg.

Can’t stop won’t stop

The vision for AOTA is bigger than an after-school program. It is out to prove that hip hop has a role to play in shaping the future of local communities. Despite its lofty goals, Brooks believes the concept is simple.

“We’re artists giving freely of our time to build a generation of students who pursue art.”

All of the Above Hip Hop

Academy 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday Oak Park YMCA 900 Long Blvd., Lansing (517) 827-9700 alloftheabovehiphop.org