There is a new club on campus and it’s called the Urban Youth Society. It’s here to enlighten
the student body about the rich history of hip-hop music and how it is used by people to express themselves.

“We want to educate everyone about the true meaning of hip- hop because it’s like obscured,” Czarina Nunez said of the purpose of the club. The Urban Youth Society aims to enlighten and inform the student body and the community about
the meaning of hip-hop and its roots back in the street where it
all started. The roots of hip-hop can be traced back to the ghettos
of New York and various cultural movements on the West Coast back in the 1970s.

“If you think about the direction of hip-hop in today’s generation, it’s a little obscured from its roots. You see hip-hop put in such a bad light just because of mainstream media. . . . If you look at how hip-hop really started back in the street, you’ll see the history behind how much passion and intensity all these artists have for their cause and struggle,” Maria Elena “M.E.” Urquin said. “It (hip-hop) is like the people’s voice; it’s how they want to be seen, how they want
to be portrayed, how they want people to know what the meaning of hip-hop is.”

“Right now our main thing is the ‘Rock the School Bells’, but we also want to reach out to a lot of high schools and stuff like that,” Czarina said of the club’s immediate plans.
A quick history will show that hip-hop did not come to be called hip-hop until the 1980s, when DJ Afrika Bambaataa gave it its name. But up until that point throughout the 70s, the word hip-hop had been used by MC’s as a part of
the scat style of rhyming. A scat rhyme is when a singer uses vocal improvisation to create their own songs whether by using wordless vocals, nonsense syllables, or other sounds with their voices. This method of singing gives the singer the ability to improvise their own melodies and rhythms.

“Hip-hop is a great tool to educate students, and hopefully that will help change their mind and perspective and how they
deal with everyday life,” Adrienne Gagarin said. “In terms of benefiting the student body, it’ll educate our student body about these elements of hip-hop and how they can relate that to themselves and in turn how they can use that in the future.”

As part of the club drive to help students understand the real meaning of hip-hop and its roots, a scholarship known as “Rock the School Bells” will give a total of $500 for three students. “The scholarship is awarded
to three students that can really express themselves. . . . It can be photography, writing, or drawing or whatever. Anything that has
to do with the arts and how they can use that as a means to express themselves in a way that relates to their education,” Gagarin said.