Sophia Serghi (College of William and Mary), Williamsburg, Virginia
Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon
Sponsored by the Columbia Housing Project: Boys & Girls Club of Portland.
October 21-24, 2009
The project involved teenagers, ages 12-18. They were either raised in Inner-city Portland or were teenage immigrants from Togo, recently settled in Portland. All of them had previous experience with Rap which was used to acknowledge their heritage or experiences living in project housing. The teenagers met for three days in a row, for 4-5 hour sessions culminating in a final event which was open to the Lewis and Clark College community and greater Portland.
This project served to introduce teenagers to different styles of Rap Music and to encourage them to use Rap as a creative outlet. Each day the students were given a presentation consisting of the Rap styles they would work to emulate. They worked in a Computer Lab using Software such as, Garage Band to create original instrumental backgrounds. The students’ Rap performances were done either free-style, or prepared with pen and paper. By the last day, each teenager presented up to 6 new original compositions they had created over the three day workshop. Participants were fully engaged in this project, and, as it progressed, they bonded with one another through stories of hardship. Some friendly competition evolved as they tried to out-perform one another. They were delighted to perform for the public and were heard to say, “They're here just to see us?” “ We're going to perform in front of a real audience?” The performance was well received which was evident from the quantity and depth of questions that were asked following the presentation.
