Press
Hood Heroes: The DJ Project
Words & Photography: Tyler Callister
Stash Magazine - Issue 04 - July-August 2007
Inside a basement studio in San Francisco's Mission District, a youth program called The DJ Project holds the kind of music classes that Mrs. Flutebottom won't be teaching at your public high school. The DJ Project is a nonprofit program that provides free youth classes in hip-hop audio production, DJ'ing, and break dancing. Students ranging in age from 12 to 26 get the chance to write, record, promote, and perform their own original hip-hop.
The DJ Project is an opportunity for youth to be educated in the kind of music they like rather than, you know, that Beethoven stuff. Because let's face it - some kids just don't want to go to band camp and play the flute. Plus, no one wants to be in a youth program called The Flautist Project.
So everyone wants to be a rock star. But sometimes, pursuing a career in music is like trying to ghost ride a bouncing monster truck. That's why DJ Project participants are exposed to something that they would never see on MTV - the minutia of the music industry. DJ Project participants get a glimpse of all the jobs in the music industry - from standing behind the mic to promoting and selling their CD's. And as DJ Project coordinator Florencia Garcia points out, there are 500,000 jobs in hip-hop alone.
So making it in the music industry is hard, but people do pull it off, and occasionally some of these local stars do seminars for The DJ Project. Past guests have included artists like Boots Riley from The Coup, Azeem from Spearhead, and M-1 from Dead Prez.
DJ Project students also have class discussions about the social relevancy of hip-hop. The curriculum encourages youth to recognize hip-hop as one of the most important artistic movements of the last thirty years, but also as something that should also be critiqued and deconstructed. DJ Project participants are encouraged to think critically as they discuss the history of hip-hop and the issues it raises - class, ethnicity, gender, sex, and violence. The great hip-hop paradox is that it embraces the negativity of urban life while uplifting the youth out of that negativity.
The arts in general have always catalyzed positivity and progression in society, and The DJ Project recognizes this. "Hip-hop is a vehicle to engage the youth in positive activities and prevent them from getting into drugs and other unhealthy activities," Garcia says.
And nowhere is that positive change needed more than in San Francisco's Mission District. According to The DJ Project website, "Approximately 30% of probationary activity comes out of the Mission District, which has the highest percentage of judicial actions within the city and county of San Francisco."
So The DJ Project, which is part of a larger nonprofit called Horizons Unlimited, can be a sanctuary for low-income youth who have caught a few bad breaks. "Horizons Unlimited also provides case management programs," DJ Project Director Celina Lucero explains. "A lot of the youth in the DJ Project go into other programs."
Whether these youth decide to go into the music industry or not, their musical zeal keeps them from drowning. As one student says in a behind the scenes video on The DJ Project website, "Music for me is like being able to breathe under water."
For more information on The DJ Project or to find out
how you can help, go to www.theDJproject.com.
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