![]() At first, many of the students were shy, but overtime, they each opened up and grew comfortable in vocally sharing their thoughts about the readings and enjoyed the presence of fellow workshop participants. Without wasting time, we critically began reading Tupac’s work while offering comments and thoughts along the way. “And we’re going to delve into some of it today.” “Yeah, he did, actually,” I replied, smiling. “Tupac? That’s like my favorite artist,” said one teen, excitedly. ![]() ![]() Needless to say, they were a little taken aback that we would be starting off the sessions by studying Tupac Shakur. After introducing myself to the students and having them do the same for me in return, I wasted no time and explained the purpose of the session. On September 12th, I remember conducting my first session at the hotel with a group of teens.Īs they came into the room and sat down, I passed around photo copies of stapled poems by Tupac Shakur from his sole poetry collection in The Rose That Grew From Concrete. These workshops have been running twice a month within the same week. For the past few months, I have been fortunate enough to run poetry workshops for teens at the Pan American hotel in East Elmhurst, Queens. You know what it means as not only a culture, but as a musical art form that influences the way in which young African-American men such as myself, live out our daily lives. To everyone reading this, if you know me well enough, then you know how much hip-hop means to me.
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