Hip Hop Chairs

An easy and fun exercise designed to engage Groups of or Individual young people in a discussion of values, beliefs, and behaviors using the popular culture they relate to best.

Objective: To engage all group members in an energetic, peer-centered discussion of relevant social and personal issues through the analysis of popular hip-hop songs.

Time: Dependent on group size. Should last no more than 15-30 minutes.

Materials: Printed lyric sheets, highlighters, 2 chairs, CD player.

How it works: Typically, a group of students is given a sheet with the typed-out lyrics to a hip-hop song with a positive message (after students have done the exercise a few times, a song with a negative message can also be used to test the development of students’ beliefs).  Ideally, the song’s theme should deal with current issues with which young people have been struggling and should act as a bridge to a more in-depth discussion.  A staff leader plays the song for the group, and students are asked to follow along on their sheet and to circle or highlight passages that stand out or that have meaning to them in their lives. After the song has finished playing, two students must volunteer to sit next to one another in chairs that have been placed in front of the group.  One of the two students must start the cipher- a round table group discussion meant to build power through the sharing of wisdom and knowledge- and begin to talk about what the lyrics of the song meant to them. Questions that can be touched upon include:

What is the artist trying to say?  What do the lyrics mean to you in your life? Do the lyrics seem true to your experiences?  What struck you about the tone of the lyrics? Do you agree with the message? Is the message something that young people should follow?

The first student must continue to speak until someone from the group feels the need to respond or to discuss their own perspective and comes up and taps him or her on the shoulder and take his/her place in the chair.  The second of the original students who began in the chairs then begins speaking to the new arrival and to the group until someone else from the group taps him/her on the shoulder and takes his/her place. This process continues until everyone eventually has had a turn in one of the chairs. In order to complete the cipher, the first speaker comes up, taps someone out, and then eventually taps the last person after he/she has finished speaking so the first speaker can wrap up the discussion and fully link the circle.

An example of a song that would be discussed in Hip-Hop Chairs is:

Artist: Rakim

Album: The Master

Song: Up Lift

(1st verse)

Levantore!

Yeah, it's just ghetto, kid test the devil to hit the next level

Wish they was a rebel with cerebral metal

Inflex the bezzle with the peddle to the metal

In a thug's paradise where love have a price

So we love for life like thugs love the night

They sell drugs for ice for the Benz with bug lights

Some hug mics to the world, hung like parasites

The likes lethal, the mics lead you

A sneak preview, watch what we do and what the hood teach you

I still see through the eye of a needle

So I can watch people cause slug backwards is evil

(2nd verse)

Levantore!

Yo, what's this? Yo bust this. Yo it's time to up lift

They think all we do is bust clips and puff splifs

And plush whips and clutch chips and touch chicks

Flont rocks like Fort Knox and hog blocks

Taunt cops with more props and we want not

Panhandling with your mans and them

Scrambling, gambling, plans to win

While the cops clock em, thieves flock em

Women watch em, traders wanna top em

Ay yo what's the problem

Before the narcs knock em opposite playas plot to rob em

The ghetto got em, my man said it's rough at the bottom

(3rd verse)

Levantore!

Ghetto alert, let's do whatever work to get rid of the curse

We went from 1st to America's worst

On this competitive turf, now let's inherit the earth

There's more prize for one another, and call shots

12:00 til the next ball drop

All year around plus they shuffle non stop

You think it's rough at the bottom, it's even rougher on top

My peeps gonna have to reach and turn for me

And everybody's side of the street'll be celly

Ain't nothing funny, burn plenty and burn money

And earn money and watch the century turn 20

(4th verse)

Levantore!

We all should, from the woods to the big city and the small hood

Everybody should be welcome to the ball if we all could,

But we fall cause we brawl, yo it ain't all good

We need to play right, stay tight with ya air alight

Keep your game tight, no need to play trife

Get cheese from the daylight to the late night

And it's shouldn't take death to appreciate life

Before a lot parish, we got to cherish if Allah let us

Let's give prop and merits till the block flourish

In this metropolis, stay on top of this

You know what the prophet is, be prosperous

(5th verse)

Levantore!

Now we networking

Respect the next person, it'll be less hurting

Or left lurkin, while we kept our dreads working

Connect set for certain, total networking

Last chance to advance and stash grands

If you have plans to have fam and mad land

Own shine, condone crime or hold 9s

I know what the problem is, killing our own kind

To my flame throwers, train sober, remain soldiers

Stay sane so these pretty dames can hold us

Terror terrain rollers and Range Rovers so the train goers

Claim your fame, maintain, till your game's over

(6th verse)

Levantore!

Ghetto alert, let's do whatever work to get rid of the curse

We went from 1st to America's worst

On this competitive turf, now let's inherit the earth

There's more prize for one another, and call shots

12:00 til the next ball drop

All year around plus they shuffle non stop

You think it's rough at the bottom, it's even rougher on top

My peeps gonna have to reach and turn for me

And everybody's side of the street'll be celly

Ain't nothing funny, burn plenty and burn money

And earn money and watch the century turn 20

Levantore!

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