Hip Hop Arts and Education

Tuesday, October 20, 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

Organized by Iris Morales, executive director, Union Square Awards; Radha Blank, arts and culture, senior program assistant, Nathan Cummings Foundation; Klare Shaw, senior associate, Barr Foundation; Lorraine Marasigan, program officer, Cricket Island Foundation.

Presented by Iris Morales; Toni Blackman, founder & director, Lyrical Embassy/I Rhyme Like A Girl; Michael Cirelli, executive director, Urban Word NYC; Martha Diaz, president, Hip Hop Association; David E. Kirkland, assistant professor of English education, NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.

Hip Hop performers, writers, artists and educators are forming exciting collaborations to promote literacy and build social awareness among students. Using hip hop culture as an educational tool and unifying force, they are engaging artists; developing curriculums, training teachers, and enlisting educational, research and art institutions as partners. The session will highlight the growing and dynamic field of Hip Hop Arts Education as a tool to facilitate critical thinking, artistic and leadership development; and Hip-Hop’s viability as an instrument for social change.

Leaders in the field will discuss varied approaches inside and outside the classroom, hip-hop culture as a vehicle to develop critical consciousness in urban youth, and hip-hop arts as an innovation to public education.