LOS ANGELES — For most of his career, Brandon “Griot B” Brown was in the classroom. But these days, you’re more likely to find him on a stage in front of a crowd of student as opposed to a classroom — and wearing sweatpants instead of a suit.
Brown is using rap to teach kids about history. And he’s on a mission to rewrite the narrative.
“What is School Yard Rap, you may ask? It is a media production company that focuses on educational content for learners of all ages,” Brown said. "The inspiration for this company came about when I was a teacher in Inglewood, California, and I had to start rapping for my students to kind of make class fun."
School Yard Rap’s latest show "Moor Than a Month: Black Through Time" is a high-energy performance that flips a traditional history lessons on its head.
"'Moor Than a Month: Black Through Time' does not focus on slavery or segregation at all. We teach about, you know, famous Black athletes, Black inventors, Chaka Zulu, different concepts of loving yourself and not hating how you look," Brown said.
And it's just one of many. School Yard Rap has taken a fresh approach to teaching history, using music and live performance to inspire and educate young students about important cultural figures and stories.
"From U.S. history to history of ancient Chinese dynasties to Latino history, my goal is to be equally celebratory to every student because I want every student to walk away with the feeling that they're amazing, intelligent, beautiful and powerful," said Brown.
If there were any time for these lessons to be relevant, Brown thinks it's right now. Across the country schools are scaling back on diversity and inclusion efforts as the Trump administration reshapes DEI policies.
"We have a lot of rhetoric around, you know, the faux pas of celebrating or honoring one culture over the other and at this time it becomes even more of an important — a necessary duty of every educator — to make sure every student is represented," Brown said.
For performer Terry Wayne Jr., the impact on the kids is what drives him.
"The way they light up, their faces, the way they make you feel like a like this big, million-bucks type of figure — it's beautiful to me to be able to get them to be able to be involved and get them on stage and everything like that and build that strength and unity because I really feel that you have to start inside out," he said.
But Wayne realizes it's just as much about teaching adults.
"Their aunts, uncles, mom and dad can be able to say, 'Oh, I didn't even know that,'" he said. "They're out here paying taxes, got full-blown jobs and stuff, and it's still some new information that we can present to them. So that's just like icing on the cake to be able to show you that you're more than what a textbook or history book in school might tell you that you are or where you came from."
That message has only grown more relevant in recent years. As debates around education and diversity efforts intensify across the country, Brown sees his work as a necessary tool for ensuring representation in history lessons.
"What leads to bigotry, what leads to racist ideations isn't something that's born innately in people," he said. "I believe that fear and ignorance leads to it. My goal and what I'm trying to do as a company is just to erase as much ignorance as possible — to let the truth shine that everybody is amazing, and their history is as such."
