Nerdy Rotten Scoundrels

For the last 4 months I have been hard at work preparing Organic Beat Market– a small business I have started with Chicago emcee Defcee (Adam Levin). The organization, based in Oak Park, IL, is a tuition/lessons-based youth mentorship extracurricular program with a hip-hop focus. Currently we are running workshops in poetry, rap lyricism and electronic music production. We hope to eventually offer other areas of focus and extend our staff to include a more diverse learning opportunity for the teens (i.e turntablism, graphic design, journalism, etc) in our effort to reestablish hip-hop culture as a place for learning, development, and growth, AND, work to reach parents and prove that hip-hop can be a place for learning as opposed to being stigmatized, as it often is. Surprisingly, our most frequent customers thus far have been parents who contact us to help their child channel an interest in rap music into something positive, as those interests often start as ill-advised influence by today’s rap culture.

The Promise is the result of 7 months of hard work and tremendous results. Two 16 and 17 year-old kids came in as aspiring writers and left as insightful, intelligent, confident EMCEES. Most importantly, we were able to set them on the right track towards success outside of the studio (i.e, the classroom) and, provide a positive/safe learning environment, as those are ultimately the most important aspects of what we do.

This iTunes link is The Promise in its entirety: iTunes: Organic Beat Market presents The Promise EP

Designs were done by Eric Gupana aka Rice the Soundtransmitter; (1/3 of Chicago scratch crew Cutz on Cuts)

- Sev Seveer