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This episode, I speak to Mark “Metal” Wong and Steve “Believe” Lunger from Hip Hop Fundamentals. Based in Philadelphia, Hip Hop Fundamentals is an educational company run by breakdancers, whose mission is to “use the dynamic American art form of Breaking to effectively teach academic content, youth empowerment, and social issues.” With a roster chock full of talented, passionate teaching artists, the Hip Hop Fundamentals crew delivers memorable and inspirational workshops and in-school residencies through Pennsylvania and New Jersey — as well as throughout the country.

This episode, Manny Faces talks with Dr. Ian Levy about hip-hop and school counseling. Dr. Levy was the 2016 New York State school counselor of the year and is currently Assistant Professor of School Counseling at Manhattan College.

Levy, who has been recognized for piloting the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Hip Hop based counseling framework in urban schools, examines mental health practices in those schools, interrogating the role of the school counselor and other school staff to ensure the emotional lives of young people are adequately addressed.

His work has been featured on CNN and in the New York Times.

But most important. He has used hip-hop to help kids. Lots of them.

On this inaugural episode, host Manny Faces is joined by Dr. Bettina Love, an award-winning author and Associate Professor of Educational Theory & Practice at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on the ways in which urban youth negotiate Hip Hop music and culture to form social, cultural, and political identities to create new and sustaining ways of thinking about urban education and intersectional social justice.

Manny and Dr. Love speak about hip-hop in educational settings, as well as Dr. Love’s recent work in the field of “hip-hop civics.”