Boots From The Coup
To Teach High Scool
by - Davey D
8/27/02 12:11:14 PM

As the start of the school year draws closer, the city of Oakland is buzzing with the new teacher set to join the ranks and help turn things around for the students. Boots Riley, lead rapper of the Coup will be doing double duty this year. On weekends you may find him in the studio or on stage turning out a show. During the week from 8am-3pm you will find Boots wiping chalk from his huge afro as he teaches his high school class 'The Social Justice Issues of Hip Hop'. Students will be presented a rigorous course that will examine the economic and social conditions here in the US that have accompanied and impacted the development of Hip Hop.

The school Boots will be teaching at is a new school set up by the city of Oakland called 'The School for Social Justice and Community Development'. It is located at the Family Life Center in the heart of East Oakland on the campus grounds owned by Allen Temple Baptist Church. For those who are unfamiliar Allen Temple is one of the city's largest churches and most influential churches in the Bay Area. The Principal of this new school is recent Mayoral candidate and former Oakland City Council member Wilson Riles Jr.

Boots and Riles will have their hands full as this new school will be dealing with some of Oakland's hardest to reach, 'at risk' kids. Many will be coming from neighboring Castlemont High which in recent years has been deemed one of Oakland's most notorious schools. Riles explained that the curriculum will take a deeper look at the subject matter the youth are required to study and it will be made relevant to the political and social realities facing them. This new school will not be a place where folks simply remember facts and figures and regurgitate them out to the teacher. They intend to really develop self sustaining thinking and analytical skillz.

Now many are probably wondering if Boots the rapper can handle the challenge of teaching. For those who know Boots it's an emphatic 'Hell Yeah'. I remember a few years ago when Hip Hop and youth organizations came together and fight against California's Juvenile Crime Bill-Prop 21, Boots was a main organizer who did what many politicians and even activist simply refused to do. He would go into some of Oakland's roughest neighborhoods and spend time talking to young 'thugged out' cats. He would give 'political education classes'. I bore witness as he managed to get hardened street cats politicized and active in the struggle. Boots noted that he did not want people joining any sort of struggle ill prepared, so he along with cats like the late graf artist Mike 'Dream' and members of the Black Dot Collective put in hard work reaching out to the 'unreachable' with teach ins, community forums, one on one mentoring sessions and and a community newsletter. They spent a considerable amount of time working with local street rappers.

After these young artist were brought up to speed and familiar with the issues at hand, Boots rented out a flat bed truck and would take these young artist and do impromptu concerts in the streets of West Oakland. Many of the cats that were taught went on to be viable, articulate dynamic spokes people during the Prop 21 fight. Many of the guys Boots reached out to, permanently changed their lives and to this day they are out and about trying to make a change in their community.

Prior to the Prop 21 fight, Boots had struck a major chord when he organized the Mau Mau Rhythm Collective. This was a popular edutainment/academic/ social justice program which used the arts and Hip Hop as a tool to educate people. This was all being done in the late 80s early 90s and was one of the first programs of its type in entire the country. Over the years Boots has done everything from organize Book drives to put together community forums to organize large scale rallies all in the name of educating the community. As he gears up to bring put all this wisdom to a formal classroom setting, I see the subject matter he discusses resonating with his students. If we look at the political conditions and climate that initially gave birth to Hip Hop expression in the of the early 70s, then you see that Boots will have more then enough to talk about.

For starters,during that time period in the early 70s, we're talking about New York City experiencing the worse fiscal crisis in American history, the passing of the Rockefeller drug laws and President Nixon declaring a 'War on Youth'. Very few kids will turn a deaf hear to the discussions around those aforementioned topics. If Boots decides to look at the social political conditions that gave rise to Hip Hop here in Cali, he will have them eating out the palm of his hand. As he examines the politics during the time we had our 'Paid In Full era' the 'Afrocentric/Message Rap era and now our Bling Bling era', he will change lives for the better. Heck there are cats who are trying to figure out how to simply audit this class just so they can be better informed. Boots' class looks to be ground breaking. It also looks to be a bright spot in a city that has now experienced a horrific crime wave with more than 70 murders.

Principal Wilson Riles noted that; "Boots teaching a class is phenomenal. His class the 'social justice issues of Hip Hop' are at the core of young people learning things that are relevant and that they are interested in and will be faced with in life."

With Boots becoming an Oakland school teacher, he joins the growing ranks of Hip Hop artist turned teacher. Here in Oakland we have a number of folks like; Hodari Davis of the group Bas Bombing Sounds. He used to teach Afro studies as well as Hip Hop over at Berkeley High School. He now teaches the Making Waves Program over at the Marin County school district. Like Boots, Hodari deals with at risk kids.

Big Frank Red teaches class over in San Francisco to third graders... A few years ago he put out an album 'I Smoke Mics'. He also works as a sports reporter and he does a Hip Hop/Sports Talk show called The Dungeon up in Sacramento.

Supastar Quam Allah who has released a number of songs on ABB Records, worked as a TA at UC Berkeley. Another Oakland rapper Naru who released 3 albums including the critically acclaimed 'Never Again Project' is an Oakland elementary school teacher. Another school teacher is Rob Jackson is not only a member of the Hip Hop Spoken Word group Black Dot Collective, he also is down with the Oakland based rap crew Rennassaince.

Juan Carlos aka The Original Aztec is another cat who was putting out records while holding it down in the public schools of Hayward which is right outside of Oakland. He worked as a counselor both for the school district as well as La Familia Counseling center.

Kalil Jacob Fantuizzi although has never released an album is a long time fixture on the Bay's Hip Hop scene. Not only is he a school teacher, but while attending UC Berkeley he established the campus Hip Hop club as well as its first Hip Hop class.

Long time Hip Hopper Brooklyn Williams runs her OGMC Hip Hop Education Program at Castlemont High. before she came to there she was over at Berkeley High. In addition to her on campus work, her organization OGMC has held several annual Hip Hop Education Youth Conferences.

Nina Kahori another Hip Hopper was down with the Asian Hip Hop group OS [Overseas Artists]. Before she hooked up with OS she ran for Berkeley School Board during her senior year in high school and won making her one of the city's youngest elected officials. This was done in addition to her being a student teacher.

Aisha Bilal who is sister to Muhammed Bilal of MTV's Real World and the rap group Midnight Voices, used to run the city of Oakland's Edutainment Department. Here she put on forums and ran all sorts of programs for youth that required her to teach and mentor...

Of course we have other established Hip Hop artists who are also teachers like Defari who attended UC Berkeley along with Hodari Davis, Superstar Quam Allah, and Beni B of ABB Records. We have Asheru out of Washington DC as well as Jahi another DC based rapper who teaches. If memory serves me correctly J-Live is also a school teacher. I'm sure there are other Hip Hop artists who are rocking microphones as well as holding it down in our nation's school system. There are dozens of people all over the country who are down with Hip Hop who teach class. I simply can not name them all off at this time...But we give them much props for being on the front line with our kids and we give props to Boots for stepping up and doing the hard work that so many of us complain about but never ever do.. Boots will began teaching his course sometime next week.