Rappers urge kids to stay in school
Bay Area hip-hoppers use their popularity to promote education through CD sales
By Todd R. Brown, STAFF WRITER
STEPHEN ASHFORD, a physical education teacher at East Palo Alto Charter School, works with kids during class Friday. Ashford, a rap artist, put together a CD to encourage kids to stay in school. (John Green - Staff)
EAST PALO ALTO — Stephen Ashford keeps a steady eye on a group of kindergartners as they play Red Rover during PE class at East Palo Alto Charter School.
"I work at a machine shop, too, but this is my favorite job," Ashford says, decked out in baggy jeans, a G-Unit jacket and Allen Iverson sneakers. "Teaching doesn't pay that much, but I wouldn't trade it for the world."
The 31-year-old juggles a third career, too, one that helped him find another way to enrich his pupils' lives. Ashford also goes by "Kontac," a rapper identity that has helped him become a valuable inspiration to the next generation in his hometown.
Last year, Ashford brought about 30 pupils into an Oakland studio to learn how to write lyrics and produce music. Next month he will release a CD called "Stay inSchool," which enrolls an A-list of Bay Area hip-hoppers to make the positive pitch and raise money for study programs.
Among the participants are local independent artists Dem Hoodstarz and East Bay hyphy hit-makers E-40 and Keak da Sneak.
"Some of these kids look up to these rappers more than their own parents," Ashford said. "What better way to get these kids to stay in school? They'll like the beat, but there's a message in there."
A husky man with his hair braided in tight corn rows, Ashford recalled the challenges of his own school years, first in East Palo Alto, then in Richmond, where he attended junior high and high school.
He said he took a history class
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in his freshman year that his counselor signed him up for again as a senior. His textbooks were more than a decade out of date.
Still, he went on to College of Marin, where he played football with a handful of other black students. Eventually he got an associate's degree and wound up on the other side of the equation, working with a faculty he said offers much more encouragement than he got in the early 1990s.
"We have a math club, a reading club. We have a garden where the kids grow vegetables," said Ashford, whose wife, Lerisa, also teaches at the charter school. "Our teachers — you see them staying to 6 or 7 o'clock just trying to get the job done. That's the really inspirational part."
Saree Mading, the school's assistant principal, whose daughter sang for Ashford's recording project last year, said having a real-life rapper to help shape young minds shows that education is no joke.
"It's pretty difficult to reach your typical teenager. Just to have an example like Steve. ... It still has a 'wow' effect on them," she said, adding that she liked what she heard on the new single. "I was like, 'Yeah, Steve, this works.'"
Also dropping science on "Stay in School" are East Palo Alto rap duo Mac & AK, twin brothers in their early 30s who run their own production business, E&K Music Group.
Mac, aka Eric Gordon, said the song is aimed at reversing the high dropout rate among inner-city minorities.
"This epidemic has been going on since we were kids," he said, recalling the racial tension he felt at Carlmont High School, where he was bused. "It's kind of our obligation to give back, in some positive form.
"A lot of these kids come from broken homes, they living in an environment where drugs are being bought and sold right in front of them. Maybe they saw they homeboy get killed in the street, and they have to go to school the next morning."
Gordon, who works in the mailroom of a Menlo Park law firm, studied business administration at College of San Mateo, while his brother, Keith (rap name "AK") graduated from San Jose State University in 2003 with a degree in sociology.
"I'd say more than three-quarters of us have had an opportunity to go to college," Gordon said of the "Stay in School" crew, dubbed the Bay Area Rappers Care coalition.
That includes gold- and platinum-selling E-40, who spent two years at Grambling State University in Louisiana.
"It's not by accident that
E-40 has his career," Eric Gordon said. "Without an educational background, he wouldn't have been able to do what he did. He had a lot of mentors. It wasn't just because he was the greatest rapper in the world, it was because he had a great business mind."
The same holds true for the many independent artists in the Bay Area, he said, including Mac & AK, who have a gold plaque for a track on the soundtrack for "Nothing to Lose," starring Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins.
"We might not be well-known on a mainstream level, but our name rings true in the streets of the Bay Area," he said. "Not because we're the greatest rappers in the world — we had to take the reins ourselves. None of us are dummies whatsoever, no matter what you hear us rap about."
Twenty-seven-year-old Band-Aide, who grew up in Belle Haven and raps in Dem Hoodstarz, echoed those sentiments. He graduated from high school and studied business at Chabot College for two years.
"We run the business ourselves," he said. "'Cause you're dealing with money, you got to be on top of your mathematics. You want to be able to read, because you have to read contracts people are giving you.
"You can save yourself a whole lot of money with education. You can make a lot of money with education. You can't get far in life doing anything without it."
Ashford said he's had interest from the Montel Williams, Tyra Banks and Oprah Winfrey shows to discuss the new single and why there is a dearth of constructive messages for youngsters in hip-hop, whose stars often fixate on drug crimes, gang violence and sexism — daily problems in the inner cities.
"The kids are the future, basically," Ashford said. "We're responsible to get these kids at least out of eighth grade. It's over 450 kids I see through the week. This is what I do."
Bay Area hip-hoppers use their popularity to promote education through CD sales
By Todd R. Brown, STAFF WRITER
STEPHEN ASHFORD, a physical education teacher at East Palo Alto Charter School, works with kids during class Friday. Ashford, a rap artist, put together a CD to encourage kids to stay in school. (John Green - Staff)
EAST PALO ALTO — Stephen Ashford keeps a steady eye on a group of kindergartners as they play Red Rover during PE class at East Palo Alto Charter School.
"I work at a machine shop, too, but this is my favorite job," Ashford says, decked out in baggy jeans, a G-Unit jacket and Allen Iverson sneakers. "Teaching doesn't pay that much, but I wouldn't trade it for the world."
The 31-year-old juggles a third career, too, one that helped him find another way to enrich his pupils' lives. Ashford also goes by "Kontac," a rapper identity that has helped him become a valuable inspiration to the next generation in his hometown.
Last year, Ashford brought about 30 pupils into an Oakland studio to learn how to write lyrics and produce music. Next month he will release a CD called "Stay inSchool," which enrolls an A-list of Bay Area hip-hoppers to make the positive pitch and raise money for study programs.
Among the participants are local independent artists Dem Hoodstarz and East Bay hyphy hit-makers E-40 and Keak da Sneak.
"Some of these kids look up to these rappers more than their own parents," Ashford said. "What better way to get these kids to stay in school? They'll like the beat, but there's a message in there."
A husky man with his hair braided in tight corn rows, Ashford recalled the challenges of his own school years, first in East Palo Alto, then in Richmond, where he attended junior high and high school.
He said he took a history class
Advertisement
in his freshman year that his counselor signed him up for again as a senior. His textbooks were more than a decade out of date.
Still, he went on to College of Marin, where he played football with a handful of other black students. Eventually he got an associate's degree and wound up on the other side of the equation, working with a faculty he said offers much more encouragement than he got in the early 1990s.
"We have a math club, a reading club. We have a garden where the kids grow vegetables," said Ashford, whose wife, Lerisa, also teaches at the charter school. "Our teachers — you see them staying to 6 or 7 o'clock just trying to get the job done. That's the really inspirational part."
Saree Mading, the school's assistant principal, whose daughter sang for Ashford's recording project last year, said having a real-life rapper to help shape young minds shows that education is no joke.
"It's pretty difficult to reach your typical teenager. Just to have an example like Steve. ... It still has a 'wow' effect on them," she said, adding that she liked what she heard on the new single. "I was like, 'Yeah, Steve, this works.'"
Also dropping science on "Stay in School" are East Palo Alto rap duo Mac & AK, twin brothers in their early 30s who run their own production business, E&K Music Group.
Mac, aka Eric Gordon, said the song is aimed at reversing the high dropout rate among inner-city minorities.
"This epidemic has been going on since we were kids," he said, recalling the racial tension he felt at Carlmont High School, where he was bused. "It's kind of our obligation to give back, in some positive form.
"A lot of these kids come from broken homes, they living in an environment where drugs are being bought and sold right in front of them. Maybe they saw they homeboy get killed in the street, and they have to go to school the next morning."
Gordon, who works in the mailroom of a Menlo Park law firm, studied business administration at College of San Mateo, while his brother, Keith (rap name "AK") graduated from San Jose State University in 2003 with a degree in sociology.
"I'd say more than three-quarters of us have had an opportunity to go to college," Gordon said of the "Stay in School" crew, dubbed the Bay Area Rappers Care coalition.
That includes gold- and platinum-selling E-40, who spent two years at Grambling State University in Louisiana.
"It's not by accident that
E-40 has his career," Eric Gordon said. "Without an educational background, he wouldn't have been able to do what he did. He had a lot of mentors. It wasn't just because he was the greatest rapper in the world, it was because he had a great business mind."
The same holds true for the many independent artists in the Bay Area, he said, including Mac & AK, who have a gold plaque for a track on the soundtrack for "Nothing to Lose," starring Martin Lawrence and Tim Robbins.
"We might not be well-known on a mainstream level, but our name rings true in the streets of the Bay Area," he said. "Not because we're the greatest rappers in the world — we had to take the reins ourselves. None of us are dummies whatsoever, no matter what you hear us rap about."
Twenty-seven-year-old Band-Aide, who grew up in Belle Haven and raps in Dem Hoodstarz, echoed those sentiments. He graduated from high school and studied business at Chabot College for two years.
"We run the business ourselves," he said. "'Cause you're dealing with money, you got to be on top of your mathematics. You want to be able to read, because you have to read contracts people are giving you.
"You can save yourself a whole lot of money with education. You can make a lot of money with education. You can't get far in life doing anything without it."
Ashford said he's had interest from the Montel Williams, Tyra Banks and Oprah Winfrey shows to discuss the new single and why there is a dearth of constructive messages for youngsters in hip-hop, whose stars often fixate on drug crimes, gang violence and sexism — daily problems in the inner cities.
"The kids are the future, basically," Ashford said. "We're responsible to get these kids at least out of eighth grade. It's over 450 kids I see through the week. This is what I do."
