In the lower levels of the Cambridge Community Center, a handful of young musicians are singing and rapping, matching their voices to beats composed by fellow artists. A few are behind the wall of a professional recording studio, complete with a recording booth.
This is The Hip Hop Transformation, a year-round program that teaches people ages 12 to 24 about hip-hop, including its instruments, techniques and cultural history.
It also gives them the space and tools to make their own art, including the studio time, hardware and the software to run it.
The Hip Hop Transformation is an outlet for the boundless energy of youth. The nonprofit receives funding from a variety of supporters, including The Boston Foundation, and its leaders say their straightforward mission is Cambridge to the core.
People view it as a strange thing because they look at Cambridge as this really lucrative neighborhood, but there’s a lot of marginalized communities within Cambridge.David Bellow, co-chair of The Hip Hop Transformation
“People view it as a strange thing, because they look at Cambridge as this really lucrative neighborhood, but there’s a lot of marginalized communities within Cambridge,” said David Bellow, co-director of the program. “So we found a lot of need to support those young people and give them space and an opportunity to amplify their voice creatively.”
How the program works
The program is interdisciplinary; it’s more than rap. This mirrors the art of hip-hop itself, with its five elements: emceeing, breaking, DJing, graffiti and knowledge. Students of The Hip Hop Transformation are also encouraged to consider instrumental production, studio engineering, graphic design and video production.
“This is more than just music,” said Bellow, explaining the program’s philosophy. “It’s good to create art, but it’s also a business. It’s also a culture. It’s also something that has important meaning to a lot of people.”
Here, imparting that meaning is an act of community service. And it’s a service that program co-director Imam Firman leapt at when given the opportunity.
After beginning his career working with acts like New Edition and New Kids on the Block, Firman was contacted by the director of the Cambridge Community Center, who was recruiting hip-hop artists to mentor children in a new music program.
“I was like, 'Oh, anything for the community.’ It’s actually in my neighborhood in which I grew up,” said Firman. “It’s super fulfilling because it’s almost full circle for me. I started off as a teen, and now I’m teaching teens. A lot of artists my age or, a little bit younger or even older, like, if we had this program, you know, [the] sky would be the limit.”
Firman, who performs under the name Flash, takes cultural education seriously. It’s a foundational aspect of his work.
Gen Z learning old school
Like many other cultures, hip-hop is constantly changing — its own identity as a music seems to shift with each pull of a new decade, and the vocabulary of its sound expands with the introductions of new musical technologies.
But today’s young musicians, Firman argues, need to know how their art fits into the genre’s history. It’s a cultural imperative.
Consider this: the proliferation of mobile apps and free software means that the pupils in fresh cohorts are bringing a degree of technical proficiency to the table that may not have existed even five years ago.
But Firman said there’s much more that goes into the ethos and heart of creating hip-hop.
”It was shocking to me when kids were like, ‘Oh I’ve got a rap already,’ and they used AI,” says Firman. “I’m like, 'What? Nah, that don’t work.’ We’re learning that a lot of kids don’t really care about the history, but they’re indulged in the history without actually knowing it.”
It was shocking to me when kids were like, 'Oh, I’ve got a rap already,’ and they used A.I. I’m like, 'What? Nah, that don’t work.'Imam Firman, co-director of The Hip Hop Transformatioin
And while education is important, Firman and Bellow keep it authentic — it goes without saying how painfully corny some hip-hop programs can be.
“We’re not trying to make them rap about their homework or anything,” Bellow said.
The dimensions of music expressed in the program have expanded: for example, several kids sing in a contemporary R&B idiom.
Like Justice Brooks and Navaeah King, two older students who recently collaborated on a song called “Focus.” And it’s more than a little meta — these high school seniors have peppered their lyrics full of references to older songs they’ve created over the years.
“One day we were just messing around at the park, and I was like, 'We should make a song that mentions every song that we’ve ever made together,'” said Navaeah, a fourth-year student whose family counts Firman as a family friend.
Justice, who comes from a musical family, started rapping and singing with The Hip Hop Transformation four years ago, at the same time as Navaeah.
It’s natural to think of Justice’s participation as another link in the chain, or the continuation of a musical legacy. But like many kids, his involvement in a program was because a parent thought it would be a good thing — an extension of an opportunity that lets the new generation do what the older one couldn’t.
“I thought when I was first starting out, ‘This is something my mom really wants me to do,'” Justice said. “I thought I really wouldn’t like it. But I was able to communicate to her ‘Oh, I don’t want it to be this huge thing.’ And she understood. So it’s not this heavy burden. It’s take it at your pace, your steps, but still pursue your goal. So it’s better than I thought.”
