Teens Find Their Voice and Put It To Beats YPSILANTI, MI (Michigan Radio) - Places that help high-risk teenagers often have to find creative ways to get kids through their front doors. A lot of times, agencies have to make hanging out at their place more appealing than hanging out on the streets. Michigan Radio's Kyle Norris visited one agency in Washtenaw County that has been trying one way to attract teens.

BMC's real name is Rodrecus Tartt, but everyone calls him BMC. It stands for benevolent emcee. He works at the drop-in center at The Ozone House. The Ozone is an agency in Washtenaw County that helps high-risk kids.

BMC is hanging out in the Ozone's studio with a couple of teens. The studio is in a tiny room that doubles as a counseling room. BMC runs the studio. He explains The Ozone patched it together, bit by bit.

Eighteen year-old Aaron Rice, also known as Schoolcraft, is one of the kids hanging out.

As he likes to say, "I eat, sleep, drink, dream, and rap!"

Schoolcraft was not in school for awhile and he just got back into school. He's getting his GED, and is in the equivalent of twelfth grade. Schoolcraft says he's trying to get on the right path.

He's working on making a mix tape which is basically a collection of several songs, along with a couple of friends. One of the songs he's working on is called "Dream Deferred."

Schoolcraft says he's trying to get this mix tape out there, in the hopes that he'll get discovered and signed.

The Ozone offers the studio for a couple reasons. First of all, it gets kids into to center and off the streets. In order to use the studio, kids have to do a half-day's worth of community service. So that could mean picking-up trash from the lawn, or cleaning the bathrooms at the center.

Second, the studio is a way to spotlight the kids. Nicole Winningham is an Ozone case manager. She says some of the kids here are "breathtakingly talented," even if some adults don't see it.

Winningham says, "It's not often valued by adults when young people have these amazing musical talents. Just valuing those skills, gives them a sense of self-worth."

She says in turn, that can give the kids the motivation and courage they need to get over the hurdles they have in their lives. Kids who come here deal with things like violence, neglect, poverty, or substance abuse.

BMC, the Ozone studio manager, says for a lot of these kids, music is all they have.

"You know, your moms don't care what did in school today. You go home to situations like that. Or you go to like where, your counselors and your teachers don't really care about what you say because you look certain way, or you dress a certain way and they have a certain perception about you. But if you can make that one hot song or if you can write that one hot line and all your peers and the people in your neighborhood praise you for that. It's kind of like, well somebody's listening to me now, someone's listening to my voice and I really do matter."

Aaron Rice, also known as Schoolcraft, says he wants to make songs that people blast in their cars. You know, the kind of song that makes you press play over and over again.

So far, he's gotten a positive response from people. He says even old folks like his song "Dream Deferred."

"I had my teacher at school steal my cd for couple days, because she kept bumping it in her car, it's a good feeling."

He says when he got his cd back from his teacher it had a big scratch on it. And he says you know if a cd is all scratched-up that someone's really been listening to it.


knorris@umich.edu

© Copyright 2009, Michigan Radio