Communities coming together through Hip Hop
“You know why they call a project a project, because it’s a project
An experiment, we’re in it, only as objects
And the object for us to explore our prospects
So on some Doctor Spock sh*t we started our Trek”
–Jay Z Do U Wanna Ride
Where I was born and raised, this was definitely the case. I learned as a teenager that I could organize my community to explore our prospects and start our Trek. Every year the Betty Shabazz Tenants’ Association would ask me to organize the kids from the housing development to perform at the block party. Block parties meant everything to the black community. They were the gathering of expression, unity, and pride. Your entire family — -both biological and not, had a part to play in the block party. Mine was getting the kids ready to perform the latest hip hop songs for the tenants and people from neighboring projects. I would hold routine rehearsals, and look for the most creative kids to help with costumes and music choices. Together we worked our hardest to bring a powerful hip hop production to the annual block party. At the conclusion of every summer, the music died down. The joy, laughter, and energy that the block party ignited faded. One summer in particular, I remember Kiana, (I called her my teddy bear, as an oxymoron to her street persona because she constantly fought girls from neighboring projects and spent most of her days sitting in “the square” –the name given to the geographical set up of the common gathering area of our project buildings) asking me, “Nikki, now that the summer is over, what are we gonna do?”
Kiana’s question resonated with me and showed me that it was in fact hip hop that sparked the young girls’ interest. It was what we did with hip hop that would influence and shape their lives in some ways! I was driven and inspired by Kiana to create a space for young girls in my community to do hip hop dance all year, not just in the summer months for the block party. We found rehearsal space at a neighborhood public school which quickly launched our Fully Focused Dance hip hop program.
I’ve always paralleled my hip hop dances with popular movies, Broadway show themes, or noteworthy performances from the BET or MTV awards. This was important to me because messages, stories, and shows in the arts rarely told our story, the one about why they called the projects a project, like Jay Z said. Through each dance, Kiana and other dancers learned to express the unrepresented narratives of their lives. Hip hop dance led kids from my neighborhood, Gates Avenue, to performing in arenas such as MSG, Radio City Music Hall and the Barclays Center. Kids from Bed-Stuy never saw themselves in these spaces. Hip hop drove their determination to coauthor their narratives. One example is the Brooklyn Nets Primetime show at the Barclays. We used the popular play, Annie and Jay Z’s Hard Knock Life to perform the story of growing up Black, in the projects, in Brooklyn. This was an opportunity for kids from the projects to represent their borough. People saw and heard them in ways they never did before.
For too long, hip hop has been misunderstood and misrepresented in the media and White America. It’s my culture, my history and my future! As an educator, I have always used hip hop as a mechanism for teaching and learning. After spending almost 14 years in MS 35 teaching hip hop to many generations of kids, with the help of a young woman who danced under my guidance for 14 years, we opened Fully Focused Studio in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn the summer of 2019. Fully Focused Studio’s vision is to serve as the community studio where the joy of the Black Lives and block parties live on; where hip hop dance communicates the struggle and redefines the narrative as we continue on our Trek.
Nekia Wise, an educator who was born and raised in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn has been an educator in the New York City Department of Education for 19 years and is currently the assistant principal of PS 59 The Beekman Hill International School.
This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Challenge, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please CLICK HERE to read yesterday’s blog post by Alison Collins, Parisa Mehran, Sherri Spelic (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog circle).
