Hip-Hop as an Anti-Crime Medium

A Chicago nonprofit is using Community Works with the medium of hip-hop to turn the tide against teen violence and make neighborhoods safer.

By Lori Brittain, NCPC Staff

Since January 2008, more than 25 students have been murdered in neighborhoods throughout Chicago. By June the number of deaths had already surpassed last year’s total. This is particularly troubling as several experts who follow crime trends have predicted that more violence is likely to come with summer’s hot weather.

Chicago area citizens, the city’s mayor, the Illinois governor, and various reporting agencies have all attributed the increase in violence to a number of factors, including the availability of guns, a souring economy, and early warm temperatures. State and city officials have promised to allocate funds to support antiviolence programs, summer jobs, and an increased police presence in those neighborhoods with the highest levels of teen violence. Despite these promising solutions, Chicago and cities like it across the country often struggle to find and implement long-term strategies to reduce youth violence. They are crying out for answers, but the solutions aren’t coming easily.

As policymakers struggle to find solutions, organizations and community centers in Chicago are continuing to reach out to children, teens, and their families in high-crime neighborhoods. One nonprofit organization implementing innovative strategies to reach local teens and thwart additional violence is Totally Positive Productions, Inc. (TPP). TPP provides services to youth in the Englewood District, a community often cited for its high crime, poverty, and gangs.

TPP’s mission is to help young people replace negative attitudes about life and their communities with positive, constructive attitudes that can help them thrive despite their environment. Through a combination of violence prevention education and hip-hop, TPP has been able to engage teens in meaningful discussions about the issues and problems they face in their schools and neighborhoods and provide them with an outlet to express themselves. Hip-hop is a unique form of musical expression that exceeds typical boundaries of music—often incorporating elements of young urban fashion and culture.

Like many young people, the teens served by TPP have embraced hip-hop culture. Executive Director Tajudeena Jones made a conscious decision to use this interest to engage teens in the organization’s prevention programs. At TPP, teens discuss how they can translate hip-hop into a positive outlet to help prevent crime and create social change in their communities. Mr. Jones says,  “Our goal is to support youth in addressing social change that will bring about environmental and social improvements in our communities. We do this by helping young people realize and develop their talents.”

In March 2008, TPP began its second series of sessions using NCPC’s Community Works violence prevention curriculum and program to facilitate discussions and generate solutions to community issues such as handguns and violence, substance abuse, drug trafficking, and gangs.  Throughout the program, TPP participants integrate the factual information and prevention messages acquired during Community Works meetings with their own experiences to create positive rap music and other forms of spoken word. Their 16-week program ends with the entire group working together to put the crime and violence prevention messages they learned into hip-hop language that resonates with their peers in the form of public service announcements and an essay competition.

It is clear that no one solution can remedy the youth violence problem, but it is encouraging to know that grassroots organizations like Totally Positive Productions are willing to implement nontraditional and creative strategies to reduce youth violence. We can only hope that these efforts coupled with the innovative approaches of local and national nonprofits will have the desired effect— to help people keep themselves, their families, and their communities safe from crime and violence.

Resources

Youth Violence An Issue of Public Health, Tell Me More, NPR News, June 4, 2007; recorded radio interview available on www.npr.org

Treating Violence As a Contagious Disease, by Elizabeth Austin, featuring Dr. Gary Slutkin, executive director, Ceasefire Chicago, www.rwjf.org/newsroom, www.ceasefirechicago.org