A decade ago, when social worker Tomás Alvarez III was working as a school counselor at Berkeley High, he assumed that as a man of color he would have more success than the other counselors — mostly white and female — in reaching African-American male students struggling with truancy and other problems. But, he found, they weren’t any more interested in talking to him than the others. A search to find ways to get young black males to discuss the trauma in their lives led him to found the Oakland-based nonprofit Beats, Rhymes and Life, which uses rap and hip-hop as a form of therapy. We’ll talk to the programs’ co-founders and two participants about the positive effects of telling their stories through their lyrics and music.
- More: Beats, Rhythm and Life website
- More: A Lovely Day documentary – KQED Arts