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Welcome to Doctor K's Hip-Hop newsletter

To me Emcee means Move the Class

Hip-Hop heads know that the term MC, spelled e-m-c-e-e, originally was sampled from the term Master of Ceremony and remixed by Rakim in the 1986 classic “Eric B for President” when he said, “‘Cause to me, emcee means Move the Crowd.” As a hip-hop educator, I follow in this tradition and to me, emcee means Move the Class.

Let me Reintroduce myself: My name is Dr. Kahlil Almustafa aka Doctor K. Many people know me as a Spoken Word Artist. Many others will know me as the Teaching Artist who visited their classroom, library or juvenile detention center for a hip-hop and poetry workshop.

When I started my first newsletter, it was shortly after the turn into this new millennium and I had dropped out of college again to travel with a hip-hop/rock band. I was profoundly disinterested in school but I was fully engaged as editor of The Paper. So I started my own newsletter and in only a couple of years had more than 5,000 subscribers.

(Continue reading on Substack)

Move the Class presents

Workshops:

Words Create Worlds: Spoken word in Classrooms and Communities
Move the Class: Integrating Spoken Word and Hip-Hop in classrooms

Presentations:

Growing up Hip-Hop: 20+ Years of Collected Poems
Black Minds: a Hip-Hop History of Education for African Americans

Consulting Services:

Growing Your Non-profit: sustainability planning, fundraising, grant writing, board development, program development and reporting
Public Policy Development: insights from the field, writing, research, integrating storytelling and artistic practices and community engagement

MUSIC VIDEOS

Declaration of Hip Hop Independence: A Poem about Hip-Hop's Political Power

I wrote this poem because of my belief in the power of the hip-hop generation to transcend the "Isms" he inherited and establish a new legacy for the next generation. This video was indeed an embodiment of the poem as I spent the majority of the funds I received from a grant to pay a small, but mighty crew. The young people featured in the video are my little cousins, as well as students from 5 different schools I was teaching at. Also sprinkled in the crowd are my family and friends.

Cut It: The Student Loan Debt Remix

Doctor K aka kahlil almustafa raps a takeover remix of Cut It about his personal experiences as a doctorate student dealing with the student loan debt crisis. Filmed on shortly after the presidential election, on November 13, 2016, Doctor K is surrounded by his family and friends, who are featured in portraits holding stunning statistics about the scope of the problem. Also featured in the video is the beautiful campus of Loyola Marymount University and the 1996 Rav-4 which was the actual car he drove to grad school in.

Generation X: A Poem about Malcolm X's legacy on the Hip-Hop Generation

"Generation X' is one of my first hip-hop tracks, and is the lead song my debut album "CounterIntelligence" which I released on May 19, 2006, to honor Malcolm X's birthday. The lyrics are written by me cut together with segments from Malcolm X's Ballot or the Bullet speech. The Hip-Hop Generation is an embodiment of much of Malcolm X's politics and attitudes which I attempt to capture through my lyrics.