Go with the flow

WASILLA — It’s the kind of catchy hook that tunnels into the brain and stays for days.

“I be different. You be different. We be different. Just be different. I be different. You be different. We be different. Just be different.”

That’s the message ReadNex Poetry Squad — a troupe of hip-hop poets from New York City — will deliver to hundreds of Mat-Su Borough students and faculty this week. They kicked off their Alaska visit at Burchell High School Monday afternoon. Burchell staff Paul Morley, John Brown, Jim Wanser and Diane Demoski were so impressed by a workshop the troupe did at the Twenty-first Century Learning Center conference in Washington, D.C., they used some of the school’s Twenty-first Century grant funding to bring the group to Alaska, Morley said. The troupe also will work with Mat-Su Central and Valley Pathways, he said.

“We were just really taken with them,” Morley said.

A public preformance is at Burchell Friday from 2 to 4 p.m.

ReadNex (pronounced rednecks) Poetry Squad members are poets and MCs Decora, Freeflowin, Cuttz, Latin Translator and DJ H2O. Freeflowin said the group has been on tour for 10 months. In their 10 years together, she said the troupe has visited hundreds of high schools and worked with thousands of people.

“We’re educators, activists and recording artists,” she said. “We teach workshops in schools about how to use hip hop and spoken word poetry as a vehicle to enhance the learning experience for youth.”

And Morley said that’s exactly why they booked the group.

“Slam poetry has become a powerful and fun way for our kids to apply their literacy skills here at Burchell,” he wrote in an e-mail.

ReadNex kicked off the workshop at Burchell with a demo of their DJ and MC skills, and featured their new video “I’m Dif ’Rent.”

The video closes with a quote from Nelson Mandela: “When we lose our right to be different. We lose the privlege to be free.”

Asked to summarize, a Burchell student said, “Be yourself anywhere you are.”

“Everybody here is talented. Don’t believe the hype,” Cuttz said. “You all have a name. You all have skills and abilities. Believe in your talents skills and abilities.”

The recording artists talked with students about their own experiences being different and how they turned their own unique styles, rhythms and beats into careers.

“We have the ability to create — just like God. Understand your power,” Decora said.

They also taught students a new word, ashé. When the troupe said ashé, students shouted it back in call and response fashion.

The poets said the word comes from the Yoruba ethnic group in West Africa and refers to the energy of creation.

Burchell junior Emily Stevenson, 16, goes by Bubbles. She grew up in Southeast Alaska and moved to Southcentral later in her school career.

“I came here and everybody loved everybody and it was nice,” she said. “This is what makes Burchell Burchell — the celebration of people’s differences.”

Stevenson said that’s important because more than 100 of her classmates at the high school are homeless. “For a lot of kids, Burchell is there home and it’s their family.”

As for ReadNex, she said, “We don’t know what it is they are teaching us. But whatever it is, it’s good.”

Burchell student Richard Fetuu, 19, writes poety and spits rhythms. For him, he said music and beats are a way to make people understand.

It’s an avenue to express his feelings, Fetuu said.

“The thing that they are teaching is great,” he said.

Burchell student Charlie Peterson, 19, spent the whole workshop watching while he made a video on his phone to share with friends later.

“What you went through in the past can help you in the future,” he said. “I think they are trying to teach us to use what we learn today to help make good choices.”

Peterson said he’s different and he doesn’t mind. Sometimes he displays his individuality by wearing a tie to school. “I just want to be different.”

For Burchell student Cody Downard, 18, the workshop was a surprise. “It made me feel part of something. That you can be a part of something.”

He’s one of the homeless students at his school.

The trouble started for him when he was 8 and his parents divorced. A short time later his father died and his mom ended up in jail, he said. Downard ended up in foster care in California. Then on the only unsupervised visit he had with his mom, she kidnapped him and they flew to Alaska, he said.

His mom has been homeless for about 10 years, he said. And that’s what he thought the future held for him until he went through the Military Youth Academy, Downard said. “I never saw myself graduating high school. I just thought I’d grow up to be nothing, like my mom.”

These days he lives with a friend and is preparing to graduate from high school and go to college at the Art Institute of San Diego.

Downard said the ReadNex workshop showed him a new way to tell his story.

“It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from or what language you speak. Be yourself. Don’t waste time trying to be someone else. Just focus on what you need.”

For more information about ReadNex, visit daybeforesoundtour.blogspot.com or debeforerecords.com.

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.