Kyla Young, an African-American studies major, decided to make her capstone something that would impact the community.
“I could’ve done a paper, if I wanted too,” said Young, who is also a political science major. “(But) I approached Dr. (Boikai) Twe, and I was like, ‘Listen, I’ve learned all this stuff in black studies; that it’s about taking action, it’s about taking the knowledge that we’ve gained and using it to better our community. So, I think it would be stupid to sit and write a paper. You know this stuff (and) I know this stuff. Why not share it with people who don’t know it, as my personal project—a community project.’”
Young will be receiving a grade for the event that’s entitled “Reverb: Using Hip-hop to Spark a Revolution.” It will be held on Wednesday, June 3 in Building 1, Rm 001 from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
The event will feature socially conscious poetry and local hip-hop aficionado Danny Rodriguez, who will be discussing the history of hip-hop and how it’s been instrumental in motivating the community, according to Young. Dr. Twe will be overseeing the event, as well.
Young said the motivating factor for doing this event stemmed from the “Hip-Hop Collaboration Workshop” that was held at Sinclair this past April, as well as the hip-hop summit held at that Dayton Convention Center that featured hip-hop artist Common as a speaker.
“The whole motivation behind it, is we saw what impact the Common event had and our discussion forum, here on campus, (too),” Young said. “So (I thought), ‘Okay, what’s the next step? How do we get these people that are interested in hip-hop? We know people love hip-hop and love the culture and they notice there’s a problem. How do we (turn) that interest and awareness into action? And, how do we make it so we can better our community?”
The purpose of the event is to start a youth movement that uses hip-hop and other forms of the written word to help heal the community, Young said.
“What we are talking about is how we can take socially conscious pieces and rebuild a community of scholarly activists in the area,” Young said.