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My name is Terrell Porter. Currently, I'm a paraprofessional at an elementary school in Indianapolis, IN. Prior to entering into education, I was a hip hop artist (professionally known as Jaecyn Bayne, pronounced Jason Bane).
I was contemplating on how to bring the two areas, hip hop and education, together, for the sake of reaching our children without them constantly feeling lectured or just taught textbook information. My students are familiar with my previous career and are always asking questions about my experiences. Being a parent as well, I see how engaged children are with music, especially hip hop music. Society gives hip hop a bad rap (no pun intended), but will still utilize hip hop to sell products to our children everyday. I figure, if we can use hip hop to sell products to our kids, we can use hip hop to teach our kids.
I'm currently heading a hip hop club for 5th and 6th grade students at my school, teaching them about the origins and the elements of hip hop. While compiling lesson plans for the club, I ran across the dilemma of there not being much, if any, hip hop music specifically crafted for children. Yes, there may be clean versions of songs, but these songs still don't speak to the day-to-day environment of children. So I decided I wanted to make that come to life...
My idea is that I would like to produce a 10-12 song album of songs speaking directly to the minds of our children. These songs will focus on the things that are important to them as children (recess, test taking, bullying, the start of a new school year, etc.) and will sonically sound like real hip hop music.
Funding will be used to purchase production, recording time, mixing, mastering, ordering physical copies of the project and/or USB drives to load the project onto. There are about 750 students at my elementary school, so making the project physically available for everyone may not be possible, but hopefully we can all come together to make this happen!
Since my transition from single hip hop artist to step-father of 4 and educator, I've been uncontrollably drawn to figuring out how to reach children in a way that will stay with them and means something to them. I can remember being a kid, growing up with hip hop almost as a sibling, and being pushed away from it. Now, as an adult, I see that someone along the way should have embraced hip hop because it was what I was interested in. Now that I'm in a position to do so, I'd like to be that person for as many of my students as I can.
To any and all supporters, I am indefinitely grateful and thankful for assisting me in making this idea come to fruition. I'm sure each and every student that gets their hands on this project will thank you as well.
I was contemplating on how to bring the two areas, hip hop and education, together, for the sake of reaching our children without them constantly feeling lectured or just taught textbook information. My students are familiar with my previous career and are always asking questions about my experiences. Being a parent as well, I see how engaged children are with music, especially hip hop music. Society gives hip hop a bad rap (no pun intended), but will still utilize hip hop to sell products to our children everyday. I figure, if we can use hip hop to sell products to our kids, we can use hip hop to teach our kids.
I'm currently heading a hip hop club for 5th and 6th grade students at my school, teaching them about the origins and the elements of hip hop. While compiling lesson plans for the club, I ran across the dilemma of there not being much, if any, hip hop music specifically crafted for children. Yes, there may be clean versions of songs, but these songs still don't speak to the day-to-day environment of children. So I decided I wanted to make that come to life...
My idea is that I would like to produce a 10-12 song album of songs speaking directly to the minds of our children. These songs will focus on the things that are important to them as children (recess, test taking, bullying, the start of a new school year, etc.) and will sonically sound like real hip hop music.
Funding will be used to purchase production, recording time, mixing, mastering, ordering physical copies of the project and/or USB drives to load the project onto. There are about 750 students at my elementary school, so making the project physically available for everyone may not be possible, but hopefully we can all come together to make this happen!
Since my transition from single hip hop artist to step-father of 4 and educator, I've been uncontrollably drawn to figuring out how to reach children in a way that will stay with them and means something to them. I can remember being a kid, growing up with hip hop almost as a sibling, and being pushed away from it. Now, as an adult, I see that someone along the way should have embraced hip hop because it was what I was interested in. Now that I'm in a position to do so, I'd like to be that person for as many of my students as I can.
To any and all supporters, I am indefinitely grateful and thankful for assisting me in making this idea come to fruition. I'm sure each and every student that gets their hands on this project will thank you as well.