Local Hip Hop Artist Inspires Youth By Combining Entertainment With Education

Today’s generation of youth is more apt to know lyrics written by Lil Wayne than poems by Maya Angelou. They can sing along to a Chris Brown hook but are not able to pick key themes out of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. They recognize the name Tommy the Clown, creator of the Krump dancing movement, but have never heard of Debbie Allen. Older generations call them lost souls, ignorant of their history and identity, left to the trappings of corporate greed and unreachable to those who don’t own a MySpace or Facebook page. All too often it is parents, educators, ministers and care providers that are the makeup of these older generations — the very same people charged with leading these young people into adulthood. However, it would seem that they do not know how to reach this new generation through the maze of internet networking sites, text messages and web podcasts that make up basic communication for today’s youth.

These young people are often left to feel as though no one but their peers understand them and quite often they’re right. This is an age where a student can find any piece of information on the Internet very quickly, but their teacher doesn’t know what the Soulja Boy dance is. It is an age where half the brain stays in cyberspace and the real world moves at a snail’s pace. It is also an age where, according to US Today, 51% of 18-25 year olds’ number one goal is to become famous.

Shyan Selah, Founder and CEO of the Seattle entertainment company Brave New World, Inc., is aware of this. He also knows that there are way too many parents and educators who may not be.

“There is a generational gap between educators and the kids,” says Selah. “Traditional ways are failing, especially in inner-city areas. We want to bridge that gap.”

In addition to owning his own company, Selah is also the Spokesperson and COO of the Jimi Hendrix Foundation and a hip hop/soul artist with his freshman album, Brave New World, currently in stores. He has a goal of using his talents and contacts in the entertainment industry to reach and educate young people where others may have had trouble. In addition to embarking on what Brave New World has called the “Stay in sChOOL” tour to promote his music throughout Washington State, Selah has also partnered his company with the Maxine Mimms Academies for Suspended and Expelled Youth as well as the Southwest Boys and Girls Club in White Center.

“The reason why I deal with the youth is because they deserve a fair chance to get answers about life. Answers that go deeper than the conventional methods.” says Selah.

“Those answers have to come from someone who has extensive experience in the dominant areas of influence in their lives, such as entertainment, especially Hip Hop culture,” he adds.

The golden method for Selah is not fighting the youth culture of today, but embracing it. According to Selah, mass marketing, television, movies and music are how children learn about their society nowadays and people cannot be afraid of using those things to connect to their kids.

“You have too many people in the position of leading our youth that don’t have real experience in dealing with what’s going on in their world so the kids have a form of distrust with authority figures all together,” he asserts.

Dr. Maxine Mimms of the Mimms Academies agrees and states that Hip Hop culture has taken over the top roles of educating youth.

“Hip Hop is the new professor,” she says. “But it confesses, not professes.”

Like Selah, Dr. Mimms says this is why the youth gravitate to Hip Hop music rather than school. To them, it just seems more real.

“As teachers we profess what’s right and we act like we don’t cuss, screw, etc.” says Dr. Mimms who adds that Hip Hop is the exact opposite of professing what should be and instead tells it like it is.

“This music is dirty and filthy and it’s confession,” she says.

Dr. Mimms said she was introduced to the power of hip hop in education back in 2004 when Selah first brought his company to the then brand new Maxine Mimms Academy in Tacoma. For six months Selah and his employees volunteered their time to keep students who had been suspended and expelled learning during their time off from school with one important modification: he used the entertainment business (and his own life) as an educational model. They placed students in to groups of seven or eight — one student would be picked to be a superstar going on tour, another the tour manger, two others would be sponsors vying for top placement, etc. The students had to calculate, negotiate, plan ahead and problem solve how to take care of the star and make everything else run smoothly. Selah would then touch on social science by having the students look at changes they could make in their own communities with their “star” influence. They took a tour of nice establishments in Bellevue and the run down neighborhoods in the Hilltop and discussed how they could make a difference.

“We taught them that there were levels to obtain success other than being a rapper,” says Selah. “We incorporate the business model into our program and yet still provide the star quality so that there’s some resonance developed between the moderator or the teacher and the student.”

And when Selah goes to the kids, he knows to embody that star quality to make them respond even faster.

Educators he’s worked with say it’s not just what he says or sings, but he also looks the part. As a former athlete who maintains a football player’s build, drives a Hummer and dresses in high-end urban fashion, the Federal Way native has the ultimate kitchen pass when it comes to being accepted by the students he talks to. His street credentials are major and, according to Emily Slagle, Executive Director for the Southwest Boys and Girls Club, very necessary when dealing with her kids.

“Shyan is able to reach these kids in a way that I can’t. I’m not an African American hip hop star with a record deal,” says the petite Slagle, who’s Caucasian.

Slagle requested Selah and Brave New World join with the Boys & Girls Club after a certain amount of gang activity in the White Center neighborhood affected some club members. Selah and his staff have agreed to volunteer time at the club, including providing entertainment once a month during their Friday Teen Late Nights. The company has already hosted two teen nights at the SW Boys & Girls Club facility and Selah is currently planning a project for the students to learn about what it takes to produce, market, sell and distribute an album.

“I think including Shyan, who’s lived and felt a lot of what these kids have felt, into the club is important,” says Slagle. “In an age where kids want to be rappers, I like Brave New World’s idea of showing them the whole transition from writing a song to getting an album in stores.”

Despite the fact that the Mimms Academies are educational based and the Boys and Girls Club leans more to providing a recreational after-school venue for kids, Selah says his approach in youth outreach remains the same.

“For us it’s the same movement. It’s not much different at all,” says Selah.

“Our goal is to impact our community with real substance. Something they can take home right away, a living example of that what they’re influence by,” he continued. “It’s two fold: we get to teach them about the industry of influence and at the same time to renew their hope and desire for success.”

Of course some may have misgivings about using an art form that has seen as much controversy as hip hop has through the years to teach impressionable minds. Dr. Mimms herself was not immune to the occasional vulgar expressions found in rap.

“Shyan came in and introduced a new genre,” says Dr. Mimms. “Blues was as offensive to my parents as hip hop was offensive to me. But I love opera and I realized all rap is a new form of opera. Rap songs are new urban operas. What I have an obligation to do is incorporate it into what I know. As long as it has a message, positive or not, it is my job to find a space for it.”

That space is now in a new curriculum she is developing directly from Selah’s Brave New World album.

“Shyan’s lyrics bring the children to their moment,” says Dr. Mimms. “[As teachers] we are the facilitators to remind you of your past and bring you to the future. Music can hold you into the now. Shyan is able to instruct through his music.”

“It’s a perfect combination,” says Selah. “It’s today’s hip hop entrepreneur meets the old regime. It’s exactly what they need to see.”