Pitch Perfect

This is the very last action project of my senior year here at GCE Lab School. Our Social Entrepreneurship class has been so important to me, especially before college. Business is not easy. Entrepreneurship is not easy. This project has definitely helped me find myself and what I want to do. This is our one and only project for this course, but for good reason. Throughout this course, we had heavy preparation for this project. We actually had mass amounts of time to develop and carry out an idea for a business. I love music, as you guys might know. I am pitching an idea to Soundcloud to allow artists to collaborate easier. My knowledge of the world and myself has expanded in this course. I know more than I ever did about what businesses do, why they do it, and how they do it. This project was extremely cool and I was very interested and passionate about it. I think my logo is pretty cool, and I wanted to make sure you all understand how important it is for people to come together.

How To Survive In The Music World

For the last Humanities action project of my high school career, I was asked to create a survival guide. For the first and second action project of this course, we mapped out our mission and worked towards it. This action project digs deeper into how what we will face on our path to success. This unit, Apotheosis, was mainly just uncovering who we are and how we can "survive" in our own skin. I chose to pursue music in my journey because it's my passion. I learned so much about myself this unit, and it's truly amazing how much you can learn about yourself, that you didn't already know. This project was hard, simply because it's hard to dig deep. Even though I challenged myself, I think my project came out very nice. I want people to chase their dreams. If you are viewing this, don't be scared to unleash your inner creativity.

My Work For Jackson Guild, INC.

I have worked with Ms. Janay Jackson for about 7 months. This program was very enlightening. Teaching the youth has always been something very dear to my heart. The fact that I got to help younger and older people learn valuable lessons about business and real estate was just amazing. I thank this organization for helping me feel how it is to work in an office and to feel how it is to impact lives. Teaching older people has always brought this sense of irony to me, and I think it's really awesome that people are always seeking knowledge. I really hope that future volunteers understand that "knowledge is power." I will make sure that others know the real power of intelligence! Get informed!

"The Jackson Guild" TJG. 28 May, 2017.

No Phone, No Problem

The second unit of my Endurance course, Katabasis was all about the trials & tribulations of our figurative hero. In this project, we are that hero. We must "endure" something for 12 hours and log our experiences. The significance of this 12 hours is for you to determine. You can go on a twelve-hour hike, play video games, or even build a mini shed aquarium. The idea of this project is to achieve the mission that you set out in the first unit. Or at least get one step closer. I chose to simply not use my phone for 12 hours. I decided that I could become a better artist if I just became one with the art. No distractions. No phone calls, text messages, or games. During this project, I think I found out that writing music kind of hinders my creativity. There's something about writing music instead of typing it for me. Typing is always more ideal for me. The distractions hinder my creativity as well, though, so I guess I have to pick my poison. This project was intensive, but it was really fun and interesting!

The War Against Myself : Chapter 1

For the first action project of my last Humanities course, Endurance, we were asked to write an auto-biography 50 years into the future. The purpose of this action project is to help us find who we are as human beings. This unit helps us explore our limits and begin to understand what type of people we are.  We went through a number of different endurance challenges throughout this unit. It seems right that I will get to talk about myself on this action project, right? I've learned a lot about myself so why not share with you guys! Really digging deep and self-reflecting is not always easy. I think I'm proud of the way things came out though. Thanks for viewing my project! Always remember to be selfless, but you cannot be passionate about anything else if you're not passionate about keeping yourself together!

"ETP" JO. 18 Mar, 2017.

It felt like I was in a void. From ages 17-20, there was this emptiness. Who am I? That question drove every decision I made over those three years. There are so many things I regret, but if I hadn't made every decision I did, I wouldn't be where I am now.

At 17 years old, I was attending GCE Lab School in my hometown, Chicago, Illinois. GCE was a crucial part of my life. I think it was honestly the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's ironic because my mother put me there. What would I do without her? She's 83 years young, and she still finds time to be the best person in my life. She guided me through my high school years. She was my Captain America. My teenage years weren't even that bad. Why did I need a hero? I wasn't bored. I wasn't starving. What I was doing, was fighting the greatest battle of them all. The fight against myself. My junior year of high school is when I began writing poetry. Shortly after that, I began my music adventure. Both of these things immediately became very important to me. Poetry was bliss. The writing wasn't even my favorite part. Whenever I met other artists, I couldn't wait to exchange art. I'm addicted to good energy! Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB), a poetry organization based in Chicago, was the start of my artistry. Thank you.

At 18 years old, I started thinking. A lot. There wasn't a lot of people on the same level as me. My views and daily thoughts got very philosophical and abstract. I started challenging, not only my beliefs but other peoples' as well. How did our kind get here? No one really knows. Are we not making assumptions based on educated guesses? No one was there when we were created. But I'm not here to preach to you about how your beliefs are wrong or anything like that, but I wanted to bring attention to the fact that somehow someway, we are meant for something. You have to find that something. This was my call. Shortly after that, I was accepted to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. This was a huge change in momentum because I was going to stay in the city and study audio engineering and business, but I didn't want to turn down Morehouse. The opportunity was once in a lifetime. Music still seemed right. Music was powerful. It was creative, original, breathe-taking. I didn't understand the greatness of music for a while. When I started writing and making music, I quickly became more sensitive to art. I started respecting other artists a lot more. I began to understand the broadness of "artistry." I understood music was bigger than sound. Music is silence as well. Music is everywhere.

At 19 years old, my first hit single was released. Love was my first single that went platinum. I never knew this song would blow up like this, nor did I expect it to in the first place. The song is about keeping a stable relationship while being a full-time musician. Being a musician comes with touring, women, and non-stop recording. You can easily dig yourself into a deep hole. Teenage love is complicated. A snippet of the chorus of the song is below:

"She say she love me when I'm on the road
All these beau-ti-ful girls want me to fold
I need someone to keep me warm when it gets cold
But love it will save us until we grow old"

I wrote this story because when the music got serious, I felt myself growing distant from my significant other at the time. I really wanted to be with her so I began writing about how I felt. "All these beau-ti-ful girls want me to fold." I'm basically saying that there are so many women on tour that will try to destroy our relationship, but I won't let it happen. I use music to express myself. It's my language. I wrote "Ma Knows" a year later which was written for my mom. Music is literally another language. You understand some of it, but you can't understand all of it.

After my late teens, things just started going uphill, well, for the most part. The name of the artist collective I was in is called "Exit The Premises" (ETP). These were some of the best years of my life. This group was all of my best friends. All we did, was help each other unlock our potential as artists. We all had independent careers, but we were part of something bigger. Exit The Premises was a statement. Being in ETP was a statement, and we kept it strictly family which was convenient because our family was so talented. Our logo was an alien. This alien represented all of those people who don't exactly "fit in." It was strictly for the creative and experimental. One of our mottos was to just try new things and stop being so hard on ourselves. It was important to realize that music doesn't just have one sound.

My mother is one of the dearest people to me. She taught me to be resilient and to challenge the status quo. She has proven to be the reason for all of my accomplishments. My mother went through a lot. She had me at 16 years old. It was hard, to say the least. I couldn't imagine having a child at that age. The responsibilities and the burden on my social life would be tremendous. My mother quickly became an adult. I almost ruined her teenage years. She loved me, though, and she kept moving forward. My mother's resilience is crazy. She is the reason that I try to be the strongest person I can be. The hardest thing my mom went through was post high school decisions. My mother wanted to go to college for hair. Her mother told her that it is was unrealistic. My mother ended up going to college for what her mother wanted and not for what she wanted. I didn't want to make the same mistake. I ended up going to Morehouse for business, just to understand the business aspect of music, and to be in Atlanta.

My life has been unreal. I starting touring at age 19. I eventually did drop out of Morehouse my sophomore year, but it was a hard decision to make and I had to make it. After obtaining 8 grammies over 10 years, at the age of 29, I started taking online classes at Texas University. I ended up getting my Bachelors Degree. It was for me, as a milestone, and for my family as well. I am now, at the age of 68, a co-founder of Exit The Premises (ETP) and CEO of $$ Records, Where Artists Are Free.

Mylist (The Curator)

For my second Elective course of the year, Mixtapes, we learned about the humanities behind the music. What are solfege and pentatonic notes? Where is the "home" note in this particular song? Is this song on a major or minor scale? These are some questions we thought about while learning about the historical context of music. For our project, we were asked to create a playlist to become the curator for the Pitchfork festival. We must use 5 songs and connect them back to who we are as a person and how we see the world around us. This project was simply amazing, but really hard. Sorry in advance for all the vulgar language in the music.



Hi, my name is Sean, and this is my playlist for Pitchfork. I am a very different person, so I like my music the same way. I want my playlist to be unique and like something that people don’t hear often. I personally am a musician. I’m a Hip-Hop/R&B artist. I rap, sing (although I’m not that great at it), write, and have currently started producing music. As far as the world goes, music is so diverse and different. There’s anything from Rock/Rap collabs to Hip-Hop/R&B collabs. The possibilities are endless. The world around me is cruel but full of great opportunity. Every minute you’re alive, there’s opportunity. The world is so vast and vibrant. My playlist will reflect my morals in life. Some type of originality and creativity.

Grief
Progressive/Profane track:
This song mainly consists of hard bars. The lyrics are hard-hitting and the beat compliments the lyrics perfectly. However, the delivery is very peculiar, and uncomfortable. Almost makes you feel this kind of uneasiness. Hip-Hop/Rap is the closest genre to this sound, but it almost makes you feel like this should be a separate genre. I think this song tries to give off uneasy feelings. It sounds quiet and loud at the same time, with very little repetition, besides "good grief." The tempo is also a medium-slow. While listening closely to the lyrics, you will start to realize that Earl Sweatshirt is reminiscing about the current state of his career. He highlights his thoughts and he vents about obstacles that he faces. He also speaks a lot about how dear he holds his real friends to his heart. This song came out in 2015. 2015 is the same year that people were breaking the barrier of “depression rap.” Acts like Tyler, the Creator paved the way for artists such as Earl Sweatshirt, Isaiah Rashad, etc. I think that anyone that respects real conscious rap. People that like to self-reflect and go against the status quo would love this song. This song is vulgar, however, so this song could definitely not be played in churches or at schools. The way I like to say it is, “the song is too real.” This track kind of got me into conscious music. Self-reflecting music that moves the rap game in ways that no other type of music does, is just so powerful to me.

We Don't Care
Progressive/Profane track:
Isn’t Kanye just amazing? This song right here has the most replay value on my playlist. It simply speaks to my soul in a way that other Hip-Hop/Rap music doesn’t. There’s a children’s choir implemented to give away a more soulful feeling. Kanye is the definition of unique. He uses certain instruments to glorifies pitches when they raise and drop. He’s simply a genius. The song was relatively loud and had a lot of repetition. The tempo was actually upbeat and kind of fast.The message of this song is self-explanatory. “We Don’t Care” is a very powerful song that talks about a lot of social issues in the world; specifically targeting the things that Kanye sees. It seems like Kanye uses this song to bring light to a dark topic. This song came out in 2004 when George W. Bush was president. He wasn’t the best president by any means. This was a very rough time for black people. This song is for anyone to be honest. Anyone who loves music should respect this song. There’s a bit of vulgar language, but the message is excellent. This song came out in 2004. At the time, no one sounded like this. That’s how I’m trying to be as a musician. The world is full of creativity.

Favorite Colors
Progressive/Profane track:
This song is interesting. Taylor Bennett, three-time grammy winner Chance The Rapper’s brother, created this empowering, uplifting song and chose the PERFECT feature. The feature from Kyle sealed the deal. This song quickly became a song that topped my personal chart of creativity and uniqueness. This song tries and succeeds at giving off a good feeling. A “nothing can stop me” type of vibe! This song is something you play when you’re down or you just want to have fun or be happy. It successfully gives off happy vibes and that’s just really cool to me. There's a quiet sound to this song. The tempo is just right. It's slow, but not too slow. One of my favorite parts of the song is the repetition in Kyle's verse where he repeatedly says "Ramen." This song came out not too long ago, in 2017. Musically, 2017 has been pretty inactive from a Hip-Hop standpoint. Just recently has there been some activity with Drake’s release of “More Life.” Then Kendrick Lamar’s retaliation and release of the date when his next project releases on April 7th. This song, I feel like, even though it’s much smaller scale than Drake and Kendrick Lamar, the impact on the music was still large. I think it was important to music. The diversity in this song is crazy. From the instruments to the lyrics, to the delivery of Kyle’s verse. I would think there wouldn’t be many enemies of this song. Although, there are mentions of marijuana and other things. This song is important to me because it doesn’t sound unoriginal. The world should hear this song just so they know that there are no limitations in music.

Myself
Progressive Conservative/Profane track:

This song is important because it takes that resemblance to Hip-Hop and the artist changes it to his sound. That’s why I love this artist because his versatility and his ideas are serene to me. This song is highlighting how the artist has done it all by himself. From the money to the women to the fanbase. This song seems to be a “flex song,” where Nebu glorifies his accomplishments. This song is moderate sound, so not loud or quiet. There's a bunch of repetition which works with the fast tempo. This song came out in 2016, which was a great time for this type of music. “Bubble gum rap” or “alternative rock” are some classifications of this age of music. This song definitely has some vulgar language and there’s plenty of “enemies,” but the friends are artists like me who love to hear the new and cool music. This track is powerful to me, but it also sounds great to me. Also, Nebu Kiniza is a very important artist to me because he took a sound and made it his own. He’s the most unique mainstream rapper I can think of.

Glitter Glove
Progressive Conservative/Profane track:
REESE LAFLARE, a very underrated Hip-Hop artist is one of the coolest artists in the game if you ask me. His versatility and creativity will bring him a very long way in his career. You can even call this genre “alternative rock.” This music is just great to listen to. This song is just a very fun song. It’s literally about dancing and it’s just made for the listener to “turn up” and have fun. That explains the moderately fast tempo and the catchy repetition. This song was released in 2016, where people were just getting accustomed to this type of music, so this song was just magnificent at the time, and it still is now! This song still does have some vulgar language. Some enemies may be churches and some parents, or older adults. This song is simply amazingly creative in a way that I hear it and I don’t ever want to stop listening to it. Isn’t this what the world needs?

My Trip to SXSW

I'm an aspiring artist. I rap, sing, produce, and I'm trying to become more versatile with my work. I went to Austin, Texas for the South by South West (SXSW) Festival which was the opportunity of a lifetime, but I was forced to miss school for a couple of days which was quite unfortunate. I think the exchange was probably worth it, seeing as we made a few connections that will do nothing but substantially benefit us down the road. We just have to make sure we keep up our end of the bargain. Unfortunately, in today's hip-hop industry, success is less about skill and more about who you know. It's not really cool, but we have to pander to the status quo.

"ETP" JO. 18 Mar, 2017.

We left on Thursday, March 16th to arrive on Friday, March 17th. The ride was 16 hours so we stopped at a motel on the way there and back. The trip was nice and long. But like the reason we went, music was the main thing that kept us going. Music is so "comfortable." When I say "comfortable," I mean how all the different genres and sounds in music allow for ANYONE to be "comfortable." That's what is beautiful about it right? The possibilities are endless. We are still discovering new things, and music was founded around 500 BC. Is that not weird? Even in 2017, we are still finding ways to change and alter sound to create music. Not even to mention all the things that the human mouth can do. As our music does seem to get more and more repetitive, we probably thought "nothing could get better" a couple decades ago, but now our technology is smarter than us.

Music is important to young people. Without music, I wouldn't know a lot of my friends as much as I do. Music allowed us to develop these relationships. Our group wouldn't be a group without music. Music bring people together, like how it brought people to come see us perform at our venue.

The trip proved to be very important for the group. We had time to reflect on how we feel about one another, and we also did a bunch of networking. The most important thing is making sure we are proud of each other. If we ever have problems, we need to fix them like civilized adults. Otherwise, that would mean there's a little kid in ETP, and there's not!

Fable For Young People

For the third and last action project of my STEAM class, Systems & Models, we were asked to analyze a particular part of our school while having full creative control. The particular parts of the school have to relatively specific. I chose interpersonal relationships. This entails the relationships between students of different ages and cohorts within the school. I also had to interview 4 people from within the school to get a better perspective than just my own. We were asked to connect our findings to the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) chart. We were also asked to relate our findings to Maslow's Hierarchy and our research on I-O psychology. I had difficulties following the rubric while completing the project, but this project allowed me to write, which is one of my favorite things to do. I wrote a fable type of story for you all. It is about a teenage boy and his little sister. Enjoy!

"Bro & Sis" Web. 26 Feb, 2017.

This is my fable, “The Divide.” The story is represented in the quoted bold text and annotated in the regular text. I hope you enjoy reading it!

“There’s this beautiful thing called ‘divide.’ This is the same divide you have with your younger siblings. How beautiful is ‘divide?’ Or does divide have this negative connotation that everyone generally gives it? If you ask me, divide is a way to separate yourself, and sometimes you have to. The real question is, when does divide become a liability? This story about Jonathan and his sister Joanne will entail the story of ‘The Divide.’”

I chose to write a fable type of story as a creative way of depicting the social divide in my school’s cohorts. The underclassmen and upperclassmen don’t have much of an understanding. It seems as if the underclassmen want to have more fun, and the upperclassmen are used to the freedom that the underclassmen seem to be new to. I will be trying to depict this by the big brother Jonathan, being the upperclassman, and the little sister Joanne, being the underclassman.

“Jonathan was having a rough day. Honestly, it was just a regular day in the Harden household. Joanne is in her room, on the phone screaming irregularly. It would be ideal to check on someone screaming like that, but it was normal in the Harden household. Jonathan, at 17 years old wasn’t having it! He stormed into Joanne’s room with fire in his eyes! Before anything came out of his mouth, a pillow was thrown at his face as his 15 year old sister yelled, ‘get out!’ Jonathan responded, ‘I’ll get out if you please shut-up.’ Joanne teased, ‘I’m telling mom you told me to shut-up!’ ‘Whatever, just be quiet!’ Jonathan said while leaving Joanne’s room.

As you can see, there's room for improvement. Let's analyze the SWOT of this brother and sister's relationship. A strength that I see here is that they obviously have some type of connection or understanding which can be related to the relationship between the cohorts in my school. This is a nice transition to the weaknesses that we witnessed in their relationship. Like the cohorts in my school, these two seem to have different interests and wants/needs. I asked a senior at my school, VG, how he thought the general relationship between the upper and underclassmen was, he responded: "the larger the grade gap, the less friendliness displayed." I asked the same question to a freshman at my school, ZG, and he responded that the relationship between them was, "decent, but it could be better." He claimed "the freshmen are misguided and the seniors can help in certain ways." Although ZG is a freshman, he seems to not be a negative factor in the problem between the cohorts.

"Jonathan knew that Joanne was relatively tolerable some times. Maybe she wasn't too bad. It would be kind of boring without her around the house. He whispered playfully under his breath, 'I'll get her back. She wants to be annoying, I'll show her annoying!' Jonathan planned on playing his music louder than hers. He wanted to play his music so loud that Joanne couldn't even hear herself speaking on the phone."

There's obviously opportunity for their relationship strengthen. I asked a teacher, how she felt the upper and underclassmen's relationship was and she said she thought that "everyone gets along well." She said she thought that, "the freshmen as a group get scapegoated for a lot of stuff, but individually, I think everyone treats each other fairly for the most part." She has a point. The freshmen specifically are blamed for their energy which is commonly looked down upon because the seniors don't share the same energy. As the cohorts in my school do, Jonathan and Joanne need to find somethings mutual. How can they find a way to compromise; to look past age? It's all about systems thinking, and making all pieces of the puzzle come together. I asked the counselor in my school if she believed that there was a "divide" in the school she responded: "I don't know if I would call it a divide, maybe a bit of a misunderstanding between the age groups." This misunderstanding represents the gap in maturity and motive.

"What Jonathan didn't anticipate was, him playing one of Joanne's favorite songs. Jonathan had a maniacal look in his face. He was going to get his sister back! Twenty seconds had passed and Joanne bust through the door singing! 'DON'T YOU OPEN UP THAT WINDOW, DON'T YOU LET OUT THAT ANTIDOTE! Jon this is like my favorite song!' Jonathan's plans were soiled. He tried to find it in himself to be angry, but he realized that Joanne wasn't so bad. The hard part is finding something mutual between the two. Music is just one of the things that they have in common. Jon jokingly responded, 'Haha, I forgot. You know, sometimes you're not too terrible.' After briefly laughing, Joanne replied, 'Yea, you're not that horrible of a brother. I just hope we can keep the house to ourselves. It would be a catastrophe if I had to share my room if mom and dad had another child.' Jon's face showed some uncertainty. He responded, 'I'm leaving next year, so if that was to happen, you could just take my room.' Joanne smiled."

The threat in this case is a newborn child. Relating back to my school, the threat of this situation would be new students. Once the upper and underclassmen come to an understanding, these new students or newborn child will alter the relationship that was once formed. There doesn't have to be this idea of Six Sigma. There doesn't have to be a perfect relationship, but there does have to be a mutual relationship. They have to relate to each other. Within I-O Psychology, there's this idea that innovation drives our economy. I believe this to be true because innovation means interaction and collaboration. Interaction prospers through social skills. Social skills are needed in order for there to be order.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is important to understand in this situation. Esteem on the hierarchy is very important to both the seniors and underclassmen. They want to graduate, and the underclassmen want to be "cool." Seniors really only need water and food, but underclassmen need satisfaction of classmates. There's this sense of self-actualization, and how you want to be viewed. Maturity goes hand-in-hand with self-achievement. This is an interesting way to put it into perspective for you.

THE END

References:
ZG. Student, Interview.
VG. Student, Interview.
Sharon. Teacher, Interview.
Jessica. Teacher, Interview.

"SIOP" SIOP.org. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

The First Woman Is Drafted To The NBA!

For the second and last action project of my Equality class, we were asked to think 100 years into the future and try to tackle one of the social issues we've been covering throughout the second unit. These social issues include gender and race inequality, and also social class. We were supposed to create an article or newspaper to represent how things have changed over 100 years. I chose the first woman to be drafted to the NBA. The NBA is a man's league. The WNBA was issued in 1996 to separate men and women who wanted to play ball. We were then asked to write a short letter to the editor of this created article/newspaper with a reaction. This project was pretty difficult and it really forced you to use your creative bones, and that's why I loved this project so much! I hope you enjoy my project!

Are You Racist? Don't Answer That Question!

For the second action project of my STEAM course, Systems & Models, we were asked to conduct a social experiment. As the first unit of this course talked about who "you" are. This unit talked about learning who the people are around you. This class is very amazing in building your social analyzation. I tried to really demonstrate this concern for "those around me," by conducting an experiment that would highlight the systematic racism in the environment I stay around. My idea was to grab one of my white friends and then we both asked for money outside the subway station. The results were quite interesting. This project was amazing and right up my alley as well. This project was difficult at the same time, as I did have to create a very detailed lab report. Thank you for viewing my social experiment and enjoy!

What Did the Emancipation Proclamation Solve Exactly?

The first action project for my Humanities course, Equality, consisted of creating a textbook. We were asked to choose a relatively broad topic. Our projects were essentially supposed to look something like a textbook; three educational devices, text, etc. Textbooks have to be accurate, though. We made sure that we had more than five sources for our information so that everything checks out well. This project was long and hard, but very important to me. This project, not only told me about myself but about what my people go through on a daily basis. I interviewed one of my younger peers and his answers really spoke to me. The project was especially difficult but necessary. I learned eventually that so many people are oblivious to the horrible systematic racism still present around the world. This project is my attempt of informing people that the oppression of black people will never be justified. Although the difficulty was very high, the project was enlightening.