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“I am not a conspiracy theorist, I am a love practitioner” - Yogi Guyadin, aka Y?

For many years now, Hip Hop has been associated with the negative content that surrounds it, becoming a controversy many have questioned. Whether it’s glorifying street life, degrading women, or prompting drug use, the mainstream representations of “Hip Hop” have often been a cause for concern. Now that Hip Hop is being integrated into the education system more and more, some are questioning its appropriateness in the classroom. However, the negative associations with Hip Hop actually have very little to do with the rich and vibrant culture surrounding the musical genre. At its core, Hip Hop is about self-expression, positive energy, respect, and community building. At BEAT, we have witnessed firsthand the transformation and positive impact available to those involved in the education, creative expression, and perpetuation of Hip Hop culture. Take it from a dynamic and multi-talented artist, Yogi Guyadin, better known as Y?, who facilitates and directs the Beat Rhymers program at East Side Community High School. All of BEAT programming is free for the students and aims to foster confidence, creativity, and community - which we believe are the building blocks of leadership. Y? is the head instructor of the Beat Rhymers class, in which students are able to freely create and share spoken word/poetry, rapping or freestyle/MCing, beatmaking, songwriting, and creative writing. Beat Rhymers is one of the many Hip Hop classes available to students in New York City and beyond. These classes and experiences have shaped the way Y? sees and thinks about Hip Hop education. During an interview in anticipation of Beat Rhymers Curriculum, Y? shared some of his thoughts concerning the myths and misconceptions of Hip Hop in classrooms. The interview was conducted by Luiggi Montanero (aka Vida L), a graduate of the Beat Rhymers program at East Side, as well as an Intern for BEAT, and a talented musician in his own right. Read on to catch the inside scoop on classroom liberation via Hip Hop and cypher-based pedagogy!

LM: First of all, thank you for taking the time to speak with me. What do you think is the biggest benefit of having Hip Hop in the classroom?

Y?: It puts people together even if you have no experience in music. It allows us to cypher and it leads you to anything because once you start with [Hip Hop], really it’s the togetherness. It allows everyone to participate, no matter if you have experience or not. Also it’s something where everyone is equal.

LM:  In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception people have about Hip Hop, especially having Hip Hop in the classroom?

Y?: I think people just label it all as ‘Oh, it’s about rap’. I tell people: ‘Hey, jump in the cypher!’ and people tell me ‘Oh, I don’t rap’. And I’m like, ‘I didn’t ask you to rap. I said join in the cypher, you can just snap your fingers, and you don’t have to rap’. I think that’s a big misconception, that if you're participating in something that's labeled Hip Hop, you’ve got to be a rapper, you know? There are so many other ways to participate. And also, in Hip Hop, people think a lot of times it has to be negative. I’ll tell people ‘Hey you wanna write a rhyme?’, they’ll say ‘oh I’ll shoot you up or I’ll bone your chick’, and I ask, ‘Why do you say that?’ and they say ‘You asked me to rap’... because there’s a preconceived image of what [‘rap’] is. I would say that for outsiders, for a person who might not know Hip Hop, they could be scared of it. They can think that it means this one thing when there's other things about it that are positive. Also another misconception is, I think you can have a Hip Hop attitude and not rap.. someone who doesn't really listen to rap music could still have a swagger. So I think Hip Hop is misinterpreted because of mainstream culture. You know it could be good, it could be bad, but its something that’s always changing, too. It doesn't stay the same.

LM:  What is your response to the idea that Hip Hop education brings questionable or provocative material into the classroom?

Y?: Life is questionable and provocative! Life isn't this simple thing. If you're creating a vehicle or a room for expression that allows people to get deep or say something, that’s actually showing that there’s trust in the cypher. Because if there's no trust, you're not going to say anything deep. Young people, old people, we need a way to deal with the real stuff in life. If you're trying to affect the youth, and you're not trying to be real with them, how can you actually make good art? You can't. You actually have to get to a level of substance. So I would say that it is controversial, as it should be. It's just about expressing yourself! If you express yourself, however you express yourself, sometimes it might be with foul language, it's still expressing yourself. We have a first amendment right, freedom of speech, but a lot of it gets censored. If you tell everyone, ‘Write a free-write about the worst day of your life and the best day of your life and share it’... all of a sudden, someone might talk about something that they would never ever talk to someone about. I think that's where transformation happens and it's bigger than Hip Hop.

LM: What about the idea that Hip Hop has no meaning associated with it?

Y?: I kind of agree with that in a strange sense, because Hip Hop is just a word. Before the word ‘Hip Hop’ came, there was cyphering, dancing, art. But I think what it is about Hip Hop, some people have a closed definition. They’ll say ‘It’s gotta be Bboying, MCing, the DJ, the beatbox, and the graffiti writer’. The thing about Hip Hop is, everyone defines it differently. You could be fifteen years old and listen to nothing but trap, and you’ll say ‘Yo, I like Hip Hop’. Then you could be thirty-five years old and listen to nothing but boom bap, you don't even like trap, and you’ll say ‘I love Hip Hop’. You’re talking about two different things. What I think is hard about Hip Hop is, they try to box it, but it keeps changing. 

LM: In what ways do you see Hip Hop changing now?

Y?: Where I think Hip Hop gets a little dated, some people are stuck that it has to be rapping, breakdancing, graffiti, DJ. I think if you’re nasty with Fruity Loops, that should still get credit. What if you're a singer, what if you're a poet? Something that may not be considered as Hip Hop? What if you play guitar? I think now it’s changing, so we’re getting into the new thing that’s happening after Hip Hop. The name Hip Hop has been around since the 70’s. So I think now we're in a cultural shift. Just like how Blues, Jazz, Rock, and Soul helped make Hip Hop. Hip Hop is becoming a part of the next thing. So we’re on to something new I feel. I think the young people showed me that. There's a big change going on.

LM: Is Hip Hop engaging for students in the classroom?

Y?: It's hard to say Hip Hop is engaging. I would have to say a facilitator that has embodied the principles of Hip Hop is engaging. Because Hip Hop isn't going to do s*** for you. You can read a book about Hip hop, it won't matter. But if you're a person who respects the code of a cypher, even if you're a rock and roll person, it makes a difference for young people. Once again, some people call themselves Hip Hop but they don't have these principles. But I believe if you follow the code of the cypher, the code of Indigenous culture, which I felt Hip Hop helped bring back - some of the old things that were forgotten. Embodying these principles is what’s engaging for students.

LM:  More importantly, will students take away lessons from what they learned and use it to make an impact beyond the classroom?

Y?: A seed doesn’t grow into a tree in a day. I feel like some of the things that get used in the classroom through expression and creativity, a person may not realize it until ten years later when they’re facing a life situation. Then they’ll be like, ‘Wow I picked up this skill’! Maybe they learned how to communicate what was on their mind, and it helped them when they had to write something for a magazine. They’ll say, ‘Wow I picked up this skill in the cypher when I was fourteen’. When you learn how to freestyle, you learn that even if you mess up, you just keep going. So I think a lot of the gems and jewels happen that come up later on. So the lives have changed! I’ve been doing it long enough where thankfully people have told me. So if a practitioner or an instructor takes those life skills, I feel like once again it's bigger than Hip Hop, but these are the original principles that I believe were the intentions of the culture. So it’s really about looking into those principles that came from Indigenous cultures and using Hip Hop as a gateway. How can you use Hip Hop to teach you about Jazz or Blues? I know for myself, I didn't play an instrument until I started rapping. So it's also a gateway into other cultures. Which is unique whereas some other cultures, they won’t lead you into something else. But once again, we’re on to the new stuff as well, so that’s a good question. They’ll take away the lessons through culture. They’ll bring it back through years of experience, and it’s going to lead them to things that were in their spirit, that existed way before. So it’s almost like a tool that unlocks, and that can happen in a day, it can happen in a month, or it can happen in a year.

LM:  What is your personal philosophy around teaching Hip Hop?

Y?: I feel we never teach Hip Hop. You can’t teach that to someone. I feel what we do is we use tools to create a platform for the cypher to teach itself. It’s almost like you’re the security and you’re the performer at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, I used to go in class, you were there, I used to try and be like ‘Yo guys, this is the foundation, this is this’. But I realized the best thing is to just let students freestyle. Let students write. Let them pick the beat. Let them do it! Create a platform where the participants are embodying the learning methods themselves. As a facilitator, I use tools to allow the group to express themselves. I give everyone a voice to speak that is equal and facilitate the energy for that to occur. 

If my students want to say ‘Yo Y?, I want to know how to freestyle’, or ‘I want to know how to do eight bars’, that’s cool. But sometimes it’s something not even Hip Hop. They’ll say, ‘I just want to speak these words clearly. I just want to be able to write on topic’. Which to me is so much bigger than that, so I don’t feel like I'm teaching them what to do or teaching them Hip Hop. We’re creating an environment that allows people to share and learn from each other. That’s the big thing. I’m not only a teacher, I'm a student. I create environments that allow me to learn as well as the students. I also know that you have to give people the floor to express themselves, and then you get out of there. And if a student decides to call it Hip Hop, or a teacher, that’s a personal choice. My personal philosophy is to create an environment that facilitates learning. I make sure everyone has an equal voice and no one is greater. The cypher is a circle, not a pyramid.

LM: What parts of the curriculum do students latch on to the most?

Y?: Sharing back when they’re performing, when they’re creating. The parts when they’re actually like, ‘I'm writing. I'm performing. I'm creating’. I also think freestyle. People love improvisation alot, and for some reason, they never get bored of cyphers. They latch on to collaboration as well, whether they like it or not. I really feel when you have a team member and you’re working on a song with somebody, it almost becomes like sports, like that friendly competition. If you're dolo, you can do whatever you want. If I'm doing a verse with you, in all likelihood I'll say ‘oh man, Vida L just smashed his verse, I gotta rewrite’. So I feel like collaboration, they latch onto that. Also I feel like they want to do it on their own outside of class, so it exposes them. After we do Two Bars and Pass, they do it on their own. and they apply it to their own personal life. Students also connect when instead of me giving the music, they pick the music, they decide how many bars we’re doing, they decide the topic. When the students decide what we’re going to do in class, I believe it’s more enjoyable. 

The curriculum is great in that way, because it allows that to always happen, for the facilitator to give the participants that space and creative freedom. Also we as instructors can teach the same curriculum multiple times, and because the material comes from the students, it’s different every time. You can take the same parts of the curriculum in five groups, and you’re going to get five different pieces of art. So it’s also very malleable. It can easily be molded by the energy of the group. Then, they feel like it’s part of them, they don’t feel they’re being told what to do to. They feel like they made it! Like at the final Beat Rhymers show, a lot of kids said that: ‘We got to do what we wanted to do’. The curriculum doesn’t make it restricted, and students always appreciate that.

LM: What is one thing you wish people knew about Hip Hop and its influence in the classroom?

Y?: Hip Hop is a gateway to creating cyphers (sacred circles of expression). Methods of the cypher have been used since the beginning of civilization in Indigenous cultures. By nature it is a space for learning where there is no hierarchy. It allows us to destroy the oppressive nature of the classroom by breaking the “student to teacher” form and allowing youth to lead and teach themselves. Hip Hop is more than just a genre of music, it’s a pedagogy.

LM: What does Hip Hop-based curriculum have to offer that can address the most pressing issues of today’s youth, schools, and communities?

Y?: I feel like it allows you to be present. The other thing that I see is that it brings a level of realness and trust. If you're going to bring a curriculum, that says ‘Everybody’s gotta cypher. Everybody’s gotta share.’ It's going to make a bigger bond. Even choir teachers and math teachers ask me ‘How come all of us are so like family?’ You know why? Because we talk how we talk for real. We speak how we speak for real. We write how we write for real. Nobody is censored. So then when we go into a scene, we’re extra respectful. We’re extra sharp. I would say this Hip Hop curriculum allows for other things to come in - a piano player, a singer, or elements that aren’t even labeled ‘Hip Hop’. People take the class and sometimes they'll say ‘Hey, I thought I needed to rap in this class’. I respond with ‘No, you just need to be willing to engage in authentic expression’ and if you don’t have something that you need to express, respect those who do and respond to the ideas they present. 

So Hip Hop-based curriculum gives people a platform to express their creativity beyond Hip Hop. Look at Beat Rhymers, the shows we do are dramatically different every semester. Some shows we had a whole choir behind us. Some shows we had five or six instrument players with us. Some shows we freestyled. Some shows were for corporations like Spotify. No show is the same because anything is possible. I think if used correctly, the Beat Rhymers Curriculum can be a tool to expand yourself and your students to a higher dimension. If you're limited by another curriculum that isn't so open, you're going to be stuck to something. There's no limits to it! Hip Hop to me is a gateway to help lead us into the future and what's going to be next. I have a final statement, and this means a lot to me. To any teacher or to any person who’s an artist, know that if you're not helping someone else to do what you want to do in life, you’re never going to master your craft. I think that's the main point for anybody who’s using the Beat Rhymers Curriculum in an educational capacity. Use this as a way to master your art. Make sure you're showing somebody with love. So if you don't love this, find someone who does. Bring that person in there and let them work on it. You know the only reason I lasted this long as a facilitator is because I really love all the students I work with. They taught me regardless of my age. Don't be afraid to expose yourself and make mistakes, to all the instructors. Don't be afraid of ‘Oh, I'm not Hip Hop enough. I'm not real enough’. Nah, just be you.

Beat Rhymers Curriculum will be available for purchase Summer 2016 at beatnyc.org. For more BEAT products, visit beatnyc.bigcartel.com/products.

Yogi Guyadin (Y?) is the Program Director for the Beat Rhymers program through Bridging Education & Art Together (BEAT), as well as an active musician and music producer. Read more about Y? at www.beatnyc.org/about/people, or visit his website www.whynotshowlove.com.

Interview conducted by Luiggi Montanero, aka Vida-L, graduate of the Beat Rhymers program at East Side Community High, and current Intern for BEAT. Luiggi is also an MC, and you can hear his music at: soundcloud.com/luiggimontanero

To support the Beat Rhymers program, please visit www.beatnyc.org/donate.