The Life We Chose | An Interview with Queena Bergen
Poet and software developer from N.J., Queena Bergen joins Words Beats & Life Inc.'s inaugural fellowship, Towards 2040. In collaboration with our mentors, Bergen will design a virtual reality software, an experience where poets and artists can virtually perform their work and interact with other creatives.
Planting the Roots of Success | An Interview with Holly Bass
Radical Visual Artist Holly Bass is challenging her community to support young creatives by expressing the importance of mentorship. Bass unapologetically chooses to empower and raise awareness for communal growth.
Words Beats & (My) Life Part VIII
In the end, all this work brings me back to where I started, working to build community among people that the larger society seeks to divide along class, race and economic standing, working through hip-hop to build bridges and community.
Words Beats & (My) Life part VII: The Hustle
For the last two years the Creative Core has operated as a workforce development initiative in the Words Beats & Life Academy. The Core was created as a way to engage our most advanced arts students in paid performance opportunities in the District and beyond.
Words Beats & (My) Life part VI: The Embassy of Hip-Hop
Over the last five years we have been able to share our learning to engage young people in Africa (Senegal, Uganda and South Africa), Asia (Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and South Korea), Europe (Brussels, England, France), and South America (Brazil).
Words Beats & (My) Life Part V: The Cipher
The concept of a cipher in hip-hop comes from the Arabic word, Sifrs, which is the number zero. It’s a circle in which competition usually takes place between either dancers or MC’s. We have worked to redefine this concept…
Words Beats & (my) Life Part IV
It is important to know that community much like success can not just happen in a vacuum.
Words Beats & (My) Life cont’d Part III
Hip-Hop is a community survival strategy created as a response to attacks upon the creativity, health and wellbeing of NYC Public school children and families.
Words Beats & (My) Life cont’d Part II
The people that were my mentors were all keepers of culture.
Words Beats & (My) Life
After 17 years of leading what began as a university student groups project…