A group of Jefferson County Public Schools students kicked off the school year with an original song. Since its release, “Where My Bus At?” has garnered more than 50,000 views on YouTube and has been trending on social media both inside and outside of Louisville.
In the video, dozens of kids rap and dance to the original lyrics while sharing their thoughts about JCPS' ongoing transportation issues that began on the first day of school last year and have left thousands of students attending Louisville's magnet and mainstream high schools without the option to ride a bus to school this year.
“True young geniuses”
The kids who wrote the lyrics to “Where My Bus At?” are members of the Real Young Prodigys, a program of Hip-Hop Into Learning (HHN2L), a nonprofit organization founded by husband-and-wife duo NyRee Clayton-Taylor and Antonio Taylor.
In an interview with LPM News, Clayton Taylor said the song was born out of the frustration students and their families have experienced over the past few months.
“Our motto is 'lyrics that lead to action,' so any song they write or produce has to have an action behind it, so one of the topics we talk about is what we can make a statement through our music,” Clayton Taylor said.
Taylor, HHN2L's creative director, said the Real Young Prodigies spent a week in Cumberland Falls over the summer writing songs together. The older students at HH2NL taught the younger students how to write and record the lyrics that can be heard in the songs, Taylor said.
“It was really great to see the older kids mentoring the younger kids on a project like this and see how it turned out because it's really a youth-led project,” Taylor said.
How hip hop became a way to learn
The Real Young Prodigies began in the classrooms of Wheatley Elementary School, said Clayton Taylor, who was a teacher for 25 years before starting HHN2L.
“I was teaching writing through hip hop in my classes. I'd put on some music and say, 'Okay, write a rap.' Everything we did was through hip hop,” Clayton Taylor said.
Her unique teaching style caught the attention of school administrators, she said. In 2019, Clayton-Taylor received the Kentucky Elementary Teacher Achievement Award for her student teaching.
One day, the principal asked the students if they could perform an original rap song for a school event called “Phyllis Whitley Day,” after which the elementary school was named.
“Let me hear some Drake beats [the students] “They wrote this song about Phyllis Whitley and it caused a frenzy around school. That's when they called themselves the Real Young Prodigies,” says Clayton Taylor.
From there, the Real Young Prodigies began to grow, and Clayton Taylor said she and her husband had an idea.
“We were thinking about how we could take this great activity and how we could take it outside of the classroom and expand it and make it available to more kids,” Taylor said.
The two decided to start HHN2L together, and neither had experience running a nonprofit, Taylor said. Clayton Taylor said he had to work a second job outside of his teaching job, and Taylor used his own 401(k) savings to fund the nonprofit.
“Hip hop saved my life”
When asked why they chose to teach hip hop to students, they both said it was a reason that dates back to their childhood.
Clayton Taylor said he struggled to learn to read and write during his elementary school years.
“I wasn't seen as the student who came into the classroom already knowing something,” Clayton-Taylor said. “I was always told, 'You can't read. You can't do this.' I remember when I was a student, teachers never talked to me about what I could do.”
She said she began teaching herself at a young age using her favorite genre of music: hip hop.
“I had a record player,” Clayton Taylor says, “and I would rewind the tape and write down all the lyrics. Were they right? Probably not, but that's how I learned to read and became more fluent.”
Taylor also said that hip hop helped her get through some tough times as a child.
“I’m a foster kid. [but] “I didn't have a negative view of foster care – I had great foster parents and a great life – but when I left the foster care system and moved to live with my birth mother, I quickly realized I was in poverty,” Taylor said.
Taylor said hip hop helped her channel the anger and anxiety she felt growing up.
“Hip hop saved my life at a young age,” he says. “I realized my passion was music and that it was my escape.”
Now, Taylor said, he is providing that “escape” for HHN2L students.
“Hip hop is a platform,” Taylor says, “it's a vessel where kids can not only find themselves, but find a way out of any situation and turn a negative into a positive. We look at our hip hop heroes – Jay-Z, 2Pac, Biggie Smalls – and we truly believe that's what our kids – true young geniuses – can become.”
Clayton Taylor said he and Taylor have a lot of future plans for the Real Young Prodigies, including hosting a music festival called “Parkchella” at Park Hill Community Centre next month.