“CREATE CHANGE” - Mural

For the first few weeks of Summer Session, students became more familiar with the mural creation process. As a result of their lessons, led by Brandan bmike Odums, the students created their first mural together on the exterior wall of StudioBE.

“AMPLIFY YOUR TRUTH” - Mural

The young artists in this group met with community members of Hollygrove to help them come up with a concept for their second final project. Amplify your truth is a representation of the Hollygrove community’s rich culture and deep roots in music. The young person in the piece represents the youth of the community. The flowers are a representation of the flourishment of creativity of the community. The speakers are a representation of what it means to amplify your voice.

“Truth” - Original Song + Music Video

What is adolescence? How can the process of growing up, specifically for people of color, be translated into a form of consumable artwork? These are all questions that were pondered during our creative process. The song “Truth” relays this message to an audience of elders and young people alike to break the narrative that surrounds youth in New Orleans. Artists Hayood St. Cyr (AkaWoody), Kerry Santa Cruze (Rexroth), Miya Scaggs, and Jordan Colin (JayMC) came together to create a song that is broken down into four parts and expresses the multiple layers of coming of age. The first part that was written by AkaWoody expresses how he is always made out to be the villain of sorts. He opens his verse by saying, “I’m speaking to me, I’m speaking to them, I’m speaking to you but you lookin’ like who, who is the truth?” This is the precursor to the entire theme of the song. Haywood opens with the large question “who is the truth,” and this one line sets up the rest of the narrative. We are all searching for our truths whether we find them in this lifetime or the next. 

“They tried to kill us but they didn’t know we were seeds” is the final line of St. Cyr’s verse and from there the song transitions into Rexroth’s verse where he opens with, “all my life I wanted to make those movies.” During his verse, he discusses being looked at as a “weirdo” throughout his life, and how he was the only one in his family who wanted to become famous for what he loved one day; cinematography. He discusses how his biggest fear was his mortality. Growing up Rexroth remembered watching Malcolm in the Middle and kicking it with his boys when he was younger. Together they created a company called Madrox Productions and he continues to run it to this day. These foundational moments created what doubters in Rexroth’s life called a “weirdo,” but the Eternal Seeds collective refers to as an artist. Adopting a Tyler the Creator-esque style in the majority of his projects, Rexroth strives to break the stereotype of the typical black kid and what his or her interests are “supposed to” look like in society.

As we transition through, there is a pivotal shift with Scaggs’ verse. In the third part of the song, she discusses her upbringing through poetry. Growing up in a small shotgun house in uptown New Orleans, she remembers not having much except her dreams and fantasies that were developed by all the love she was shown from her number one supporter: her mother. Throughout her childhood, she was more of an introverted kid, with a small group of friends. They would frequently have slumber parties where they’d play with dolls and build pillow forts to sleep in for the rest of the night while watching movies like the Twilight Saga and Twitches, that would lull them all to bed. Miya describes these memories very fondly in the poem, but also juxtaposes them and says that she blames her upbringing for giving her a false notion of the reality of the world. Although Miya does appreciate where she came from, she believes that little black girls who were fortunate to have a lot of love in their lives, like herself, are oftentimes not prepared for the cruelty outside of their version of reality. She ends her verse with this message, “Little black girl, break outside of the illusion they created for you.” 

The final verse written by Jordan Colin or JayMC is truly the grand finale. Contrasting the former truths that were expressed in the other three verses, Colin explains his truth simply and light-heartedly. Throughout his verse, he refers to himself as a Loch Ness, but follows that by saying, “they’ll understand when they see my tale.” Colin’s goals are simple, his truth is complex and to understand it is to know who he is as a person. Being that he is the producer of the song “Truth,” he has a special place in his heart for music production and the industry as a whole. He feels like his voice can be the conduit for showcasing his city, his peers, and for young people as a whole in this generation. He’s studied many of the great artists that came before him and recognizes that he stands on the shoulders of giants. He not only wants to earn his stripes and be remembered as one of the greats one day but even today at seventeen, he continues to chase his dreams and live in his truth every day.