ENTERTAINMENT Finding Their Place in History

The 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop— which music historians date to the Bronx backto-school party hosted by DJ Cool Herc on August 11, 1973—was widely celebrated this summer. In Newark, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) joined in the celebrations by presenting hip hop pioneers like Kurtis Blow on its stages—and by launching its tenth season of Hip Hop Arts and Culture classes for Greater Newark children and teens, offering a new generation the skills to make their own music, while sharing a bit of the history of the genre.

NJPAC’s Hip Hop Arts and Culture program, which offers all-day Saturday classes during the school year and a five-week camp during the summer, introduces students to all the elements of hip hop: DJing, emceeing (or rapping), beatboxing, breaking (dance) and graffiti.

Each hip hop class at the Arts Center begins with a “community cypher”—a gathering of the class to welcome and center students for the work ahea—and Derick “D.” Cross, the program’s lead teaching artist, uses that moment to introduce students to pioneering hip hop artists like Run DMC or the New Jersey-born Sugarhill Gang, the first crew to turn a hip hop recording into a Top 40 hit.

“And most of our young people have no idea who they even were,” he says.

“They have heard of Queen Latifah—but as far as they know, she’s an actress.”

The hip hop arts trainings at NJPAC offer students a sense of the music’s history, both through this classwork and through the chance to make music with legends of the genre in person as they visit the Arts Center. This summer, Blow offered a masterclass (which culminated in him performing his earliest hit, 1979’s “The Breaks” with students joining to sing along); and a handful of students were selected to perform as an opening act for Sugar Hill Gang at NJPAC’s outdoor summer concert series, Horizon Sounds of the City. Debbie D., one the genre’s earliest female emcees, was embedded in the summer hip hop program as a “Pioneer in Residence.”

Like all NJPAC arts training offerings, the focus of these classes is on giving students skills in order to empower them to tell their own stories through rap, dance and every other element of hip hop.

“We give them the subject matter, show them some how-tos, but we always want to make sure that their voices are honored and heard and at the forefront,” says Cross.

So when students demonstrate their skills for visiting hip hop legends—or their own families at each semester-ending performances—they don’t perform only hip hop classics, but their own beats, raps, spoken word poetry, and dances they choreograph themselves.

“We tell them: Take the information and do what you need to do to make it your own,” says Cross.

Registration for the Spring Hip Hop Arts and Culture Saturday class at NJPAC is now open for students ages 9 to 18; tuition scholarships are available.