“This is our city. It is our town, and this is how we are going to turn it around. Plant the seeds and watch them grow, for our community and economy, our destiny and family.”
These are the opening lyrics to a new rap song featured in the video below.
The subject is uncommon for a rap song.
But so are its writers.
Four high school students from Flint, Mich. recently wrote “Our City,” the soundtrack for a documentary entitled The Kings of Flint. The film features Jacky and Dora King and the Youth Karate-Ka: Harvesting Earth Farm program.
The King’s Flint farm is a place where students work throughout the year, learning to grow food and practice martial arts.
This film is associated with project entitled “The Greening of Flint,” which chronicles the efforts of farmers and residents attempting to revitalize vacant lots with urban agriculture projects. The project is a collaborative effort of Michigan State University students and staff and Flint residents.
Students and workers at the Harvesting Earth farm, Desiree Brown, Willie White, Ian Reddington and Hakim Gillard, wrote the lyrics to “Our City” with the help of Pharlon Randle, manager of Bangtown Productions and Recordings.
Bangtown, a flint-based group, travels to elementary, middle and high schools to help students write and produce music.
The song took an hour to write and an hour to produce.
“If you really listen closely to the lyrics, it is a tale of a city, spoken through the words of students so eloquently in a way that normal text cannot speak to you,” said Geri Alumit Zeldes, a Michigan State University professor and an executive producer and director of The Kings of Flint.
The song was then put to footage from the farm shot by MSU student Jared Haburn and Zeldes, and edited by Troy Hale, an MSU documentary filmmaker and a co-producer and director of The Greening of Flint.
“Flint really has a negative image,” said Hale. “But there are a lot of people out there trying to do great things and really trying to change the city around.”
Last Saturday, the Kings of Flint was shown at the Flint Film Festival. This Saturday it will be presented at Kettering University from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the TEDx Flint event. The event brings together community members and organizers to discuss new and innovative local ideas.
It will also be shown at Michigan State University at 4 p.m. Saturday in the Communication Arts and Sciences Building as part of a celebration of 100 years of journalism education at the university.
I have known of this project for quite a long time and find it thrilling for Flint that the Kings are involving teens in such worthwhile project/projects!! You are all giving Flint such positive reinforcement. And the song you four have written….WOW!