#dj workshop

By Lauren Segel, Executive Director & Founder of Give a Beat

One of the main reasons I started Give a Beat was to spread the values of the electronic dance music community - love, mutual respect, compassion, forgiveness and acceptance - to communities that are facing the devastating effects of mass incarceration. Our DJ workshops for youth are designed to promote self-confidence, empowerment, individuality, self-expression, and healing from trauma. We also highlight possible careers in the music industry to show young people that there are creative ways to earn a living. This is why Give a Beat was invited to be a part of this particular program.

Through our collaboration with Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network (AIYN), on October 14th, Give a Beat, as guest artists, put together a DJ Workshop at the Camp Scott Juvenile Hall Facility for Girls in Santa Clarita, California in the outskirts of Los Angeles county. What transpired that day was nothing short of transformational - for the participants as well as the Give a Beat instructors which included Andrea Graham (aka DJ aquaVee), Arabian Prince and myself.

Lauren and Arabian Prince en route to Camp Scott.

We had about 10 girls participate in the workshop. From my understanding, the girls, many of whom don’t know each other well at all, were pulled out of a bigger group - they didn’t know what they were going to do. AIYN did a brief introduction and then I started off the workshop by telling the participants about Give a Beat, why I started the organization and little bit about what we do. I also talked about the history house music - how it was started in the late 70’s in warehouses in Chicago, New York and Detroit to bring all kinds of people together in community and dance, dance, dance. As might be expected, this really resonated with the girls.

Arabian Prince (one of the founders of NWA with Dre) joined us for this workshop and when he introduced himself the girls at first didn’t believe him because he was so casual about who he was. They felt so honored that someone of his stature would want to take time out of his life to do this workshop. It set a nice tone for the afternoon. We then went into an icebreaker activity in which the girls got to pick their DJ names. Some girls picked their own names, some needed help and overall it was a big hit!  Some of the DJ’s names included - DJ Kiwi, DJ Boogie and DJ Sinful. Even one of the correctional officers came up with a name for herself, DJ CLope!

Arabian Prince preparing for the workshop.

We also taught the girls about the vast world of DJing and all of the opportunities there are in the music industry. To reinforce this idea, we brought a long list of different job opportunities in the music industry, some recent issues of DJ Times magazine, and talked about how people can even make a living being DJ’s for parties and weddings! This also sparked a lot of interest.

We then got into the hands-on portion of the workshop and set up two stations with a Traktor controller, one speaker and a couple sets of headphones. One station was run by Arabian and the other was run by Andrea. We also had a Subpac backpack which the girls absolutely loved! I should say that all of the gear has been generously donated by Native Instruments and Subpac exclusively for our DJ workshops - like this one at Camp Scott.

Arabian Prince wearing the latest Subpac.

One by one, Andrea and Arabian showed the girls how to mix. There was great energy in the room and we were able to create an atmosphere of acceptance. This is especially important since many of the participants don’t know each other well. Camp Scott is a short-term transitional facility so there is a lot of turnover. Many of the people there have been arrested for drugs, addiction, behavioral issues, gang activity etc. The music definitely brought people together that afternoon so much so that if you didn’t know any better, you would have thought that the girls were friends before.

Discussing a next visit with Ms.Roman.

It is such a great feeling to know that for that afternoon, our workshop helped to uplift everyone’s spirit for that day. Maybe that carried through the night, and the next day and the day after that. Even the correctional officers loved what we were able during those 90 minutes. One of them told me, “I have never heard any of the girls say ‘that was so much fun,’ before.” I am so happy that we were able to show the participants, who have been through so much in their young lives, that there is opportunity out there, and that there are creative careers that they can pursue. During the time that we were together, no one was complaining or fighting. If just for that time they know that a sense of peace and acceptance can be attained it is all worth it!

Of course, they really would like us to come back and we are going to work diligently with AIYN to see how we can make that happen. We would also like to go to a Boys facility as well.