Cover Illustration by Richard Soben
Funders & Partners
Editor’s Note
Academy Director’s Note
Meet Our Academy Admin Team
Meet Our Teaching Artists Now Introducing at Words Beats & Life: Elementary Programming
Graffiti
WBL Academy Director Note
Hello Readers,
We are excited to put this edition of the Words Beats & Life (WBL) Lit Mag in your hands, as it represents a new era of the WBL Academy. For the first time in the Academy’s history, youth ranging from grades 3 through early college are all taking hip-hop arts classes during the academic year, both in person and online.
In these pages, you will find poetry, visual art, and student profiles, but that content is just the tip of the iceberg of what Academy students are participating in on weekday afternoons. With classes in beat production, emceeing, African drumming, step, and more, our young people are given free access to a variety of hip-hop arts-based instruction from some of the most talented teaching artists in the District.
At WBL, a primary goal of the Academy is to prepare students to enter the creative economy as expert practitioners of their chosen craft. But before they are able to take the city, and the larger world, by storm, they first have to believe in the possibility of their work occupying the public sphere. This magazine is a first step in them being able to ground themselves in that possibility.
We hope you enjoy what our young creatives have created!
Donney Rose Academy Director Words Beats & Life Inc.
Meet Our Teachers
Edgar Diaz Beat Production / Ages 12 - 22
Ricky Taylor Graffiti / Ages 8 - 11
Alex Axiz Benetiz After-School Site Manager
Megan Truman ‘Like a Boss’ / Ages 12 - 22
Aria Mcintosh DJing / Ages 12 - 22
Asad Walker Comic Creation / Ages 12 - 22
Kristen Arant African Drumming / Ages 8 - 11
Raquel Brown Poetry / Ages 12 - 22
Andy Perez Chess / Ages 12 - 22
Emerald Holman STEP / Ages 8 - 11
Max Gibbons Street Art / Ages 12 - 22
Flex Mathews Emceeing / Ages 12 - 22
Kymone Freeman Chess / Ages 8 - 11
Art
WBL SLAM TEAM
Slam Team Fall ‘23
Mekdi / Life Is a Game
If life is a game, Existence has no meaning. Working hard and succeeding are myths. Humans are the parts; We have no power, purpose, or value. The idea of finding happiness and living becomes a joke. While the gods are the players, We are controlled and toyed with. No way of saving ourselves from what we call fate and destiny. Our world becomes their playground, Tossed aside like unwanted toys we are. Our struggle and pain are one’s loss or win. We continue to try hard, To convince ourselves that there is hope. That this life is ours. That we have a choice.
But the sudden loss of power, liveliness, and love reminds us that this life may as well be a game..
Slam
Team Fall ‘23
Mekdi & Saniya / Superpowers
We are warriors Fighting in the front line. We face demons from all directions. We fight them from the past, as they creep onto us. They are glued to our backs, hindering us from focusing on what is in front of us. For a brief moment, we are blind.
Focusing on what is behind us and the battles we have lost, We miss seeing the victories that are right in front of us. But our swords coated with lead and our shields that came from the sacrifice of the one thing that provides our breath helped us push forward. Because not only are we fighting for our survival, we are fighting for anyone that needs us. We have something they don’t. We have a superpower, The ability to bring anything that we feel, believe, and do, to life. So we keep our eyes wide open, To stop and fight against the demons that face us Because we are warriors and we have a superpower. And it is our voices, Our minds, Poetry.
Slam Team Fall ‘23
Natalia / They Called Me Frida
When I first learned how to shave I wielded the razor like a magic wand Hoping I could wave it and turn into Cinderella
With that blonde-haired, blue-eyed, picture-perfect figure. I had straight hair, Silky smooth like Europe Except for when it’s humid Then the culture comes out. So They called me Frida Because I had frizzy hair And was raised with Mexican bangs. Classic Dora haircut. I had a single eyebrow. Dark Brown hair, brown eyes, brown blood. When I learned how to shave I held the blade like I was waiting for my fairy godmother, For the carriage ride and the prince that never came,
But I learned from TV that when it’s my people cleaning floors
Nothing needs to change...
So they called me Frida, Saw the brown in my blood as clearly as the hair on my body, As if they saw the syllables of Spanish floating around my head
From the echo of my name on snarled lips. I used the razor to erase the things that made my letters different from English.
When I learned how to shave
I remember watching the razor fade from magic
As soon as midnight hit, And the hair grew back, I saw how easy it is to cut away parts of an identity. When we learned about the Alamo we skipped over the Mexicans, When we talked about Texas it was never Tejas, And when they said my name, it was never right; Their fairytale didn’t include me
Because now, I know when they called me ‘Frida’ It was thrown with sharp tongues, Cold blood and daggers, But it turned into a winged thing And soared.
Go on, call me Frida
For the dark hair above my eyes, Above my lips, My legs, My arms;
Call me Frida for the language we share And culture she told me was okay to embrace
Because Frida was an artist, a woman, a revolutionary, But most of all, she was beautiful. So, it doesn’t hurt anymore
Because you called me Frida, and she knew how to fly.
Slam Team Fall ‘23
Natalia / I Went to a Party and a Girl Asked Me if I’d Like to Dance
I went to a party and a girl asked me if I’d like to dance. I said ‘yes but I don’t how’ And without missing a beat she grabbed my hand And before I knew it we were dancing. I guess my body knew the rhythm my mind was too scared to try And her hips speak the same language as mine.
I guess our swaying and spinning
Must be a conversation That makes her real good at talking.
She makes a crowded room with leaky ceilings And squeaky floors seem like the louvre Because I am staring at a Mona Lisa I ask her why I’ve never seen her here before. She asks me why I was never looking. I haven’t seen her since And miss having a body mine can talk to. Why waste a night on a waist that might not move the way hers did But I remember, When we were a tangle of shadows, Just a blur amidst strobe lighting, And, how, for one night, I became a dancer.
Slam Team Fall ‘23
Ash N. / Poem for David
loud basement music bangs between the floorboards & i’m writing a poem for a person i don’t really know. beware the hypocrisy of winter, that white glassy face edging away from focus like ice crystallizing over a puddle of gravel. in the driveway skinny animals scavenge, and i want to damn this whole season to hell, how dare you expect cheer and charity from me as the world avalanches into despair! never mind the mittened hands searching for another’s pinky fingers, the comfortable silence of snow. never mind the glitter of sunrise over frosted lawns, the red evenings, the long dark sleeps. damn it all to hell, to that infinitely blazing fire, melt the frozen sludge, release me from the clutches of this slow season. then, in the morning, as i’m waking from another unease-cloud of dreams, there’s a bird by the window, brown, drab, truly unremarkable. but she’s starting up into the sky like a promise, and i’m just barely awake, one eye blurring in the murky daylight, and she’s gone, gone, gone. i yawn. the entire world has slowed to a whale’s pulse. the memory of hatred, cold and shuddering rage, begins to slough off of me like a snowplow clears the salt from the road.
