How did the idea of DONDA’s house come together?
Rhymefest: Well you know Kanye’s mother was really a mother to a lot of young kids beside just Kanye. I grew up with her. I knew her since I was 16. His mother was a full bi-scholar. She used to teach us to basically tell the truth. So when you hear the honesty of Kanye in his lyrics or the honesty in my rhymes and lyrics that comes from the encouragement we had from his mother and we thought, “Man, what a great idea would it be to teach young artists coming up to tell their truth and not just what they hear on the radio or what they think they need to say to be hot but their truth.” So the idea of an artist development organization was born.
How did the idea of the ‘Got Bars’ program come together?
Donnie Smith: My background is actually in education. I’ve been a public school teacher for over ten years here in Chicago. So what we wanted to do with ‘Got Bars’ was to design a program that kind of had a holistic approach to teaching artist development. We were saying what a young person between the age of 15 and 24 would need to be a successful artist and to be able to have long standing in the industry. We decided we would do a creative writing class which is actually taught by Rhymefest and I actually co-taughted the class this fall. What we do is teach them the fundamentals of creative language. You’d be surprised to know how many people don’t know the definition of tone or they don’t know what a metaphor is or any kind of those poetic building blocks so we teach that. We also focus on performance and teaching them how to deliver their messages and their lyrics. Finally, we help in wellness component because what you find is that a lot of people just don’t know how to have a healthy lifestyle.
What would you like this program to accomplish?
Rhymefest: When you look at football or basketball, they are connected deeply to academics. Young people are taught, “Hey, play football. Be a great student athlete and you could go to college, maybe even go to the pros.” Well, many young people today are doing music even more so than athletics. Yet if you look at all the public schools around America, they are getting rid of the art program. There is virtually no music and art programs for young people who very much like to do art and music. What we’re hoping for our program could be that component between arts, academics and future excellence.
I read that you guys are very big on fighting against violence in Chicago. So is this program about getting kids a different opportunity to get away from violence and things like that?
Rhymefest: Absolutely, when you think about our target audience we’re working with 15 to 24 years old and why we chose that particular demographic because that is the age group that is most likely to engage in violent acts here in Chicago. What we say is that south side and west side of Chicago is a safe downtown and when it comes to fundings, art programs are first to go unfortunately in a public school system. So we are trying to give that outlet to express their emotions. What we’re doing here is not only saving young people from being the perpetrator of violence but we’re also taking in young people who could be the victims of violence.
Is the program only Chicago right now?
Rhymefest: For now yes it’s in Chicago but as we expand our fundings we are looking to expand our program.
I know lot of applicants had applied last year so how successful was the program last year?
Donnie Smith: The program was incredibly successful last year. We had over 500 applicants last year to apply to the program. We had a big finale performance in November and those students are actually the lifetime members of DONDA house. For example, one of the young women who graduated, she is 17 years old, she was actually invited this week to sing for Mark Ronson. Mark was in Chicago looking for new singers. We continue to be the source of support for continuing education. We’re going to start doing these open mics in March every month which is just an additional outlet for young people to come out and learn and express themselves.
Where is the program held?
Rhymefest: The program is held in local schools and a church called the Ark of St Sabina. We also do tremendous community work in a form of non-violence and education. We also have artists who have bought into our program for example last year we had Kanye to give 50 tickets to the participants to come to his show and come back stage. This year we got No I.D. who is going to be taking part by coming to talk to our participants as well as Saigon from love and hip hop and cold hard from crucial conflict.
In what direction you want the program to grow?
Rhymefest: We’re planning to expand to other cities and hopefully eventually go international and then other piece we’re going to do is that additional artistic medium. So right now we’re only doing music writing because that is our foundation but eventually we’re going to have photography, visual art, dance; we envision ourselves as the boys and girls club of arts programming.
Are there other programs you guys are working on or plan on working on in the future?
Donnie Smith: We got the ‘Got Bars’ and we will continue to work on additional art. We’re hoping to have a production version of that and it probably will be called ‘Got Beats.’ Then we’re going to have 7 days a week of art programming that is free. We’re going to have theater, photography, dance and eventually we’re going to have our own space so that will give us additional time to offer programming to use. Once we are fully operational there will be DONDA’s houses in every low income neighborhood of our country.
Is there anything you guys want to say about the program or DONDA’s House that you would like to tell our readers?
Donnie Smith: It’s not enough just to be an artist anymore, we have to be activists.