Originally published in The Michigan Citizen
In the controversy over varying interpretations of Detroit Public School graduation rates, or the district’s well-documented financial problems, adults tend to ignore the opinions of the very students who struggle through these difficulties in their effort to obtain a decent education. On the audio cd Rising Up From The Ashes: Chronicles of a Dropout, young people use hip hop and recorded interviews to speak their minds, tell their own stories, and tell the stories of friends and family members who have dropped out of school.
Detroit Summer’s Live Arts Media Project (LAMP) is a youth-led popular education arts and media program that helps young people develop creative solutions to the problems they face. LAMP’s youth participants and an all-star cast of Detroit’s best hip hop artists and producers use the disc’s 23 tracks to take us on a journey through the world of Detroit’s youth and their challenges. Continue reading