“My name is Victor, and my rap name is Chocolate Cake.” Others could not help but laugh as the boy, in a circle of other middle schoolers, introduced himself to St. Louis rap star Howard “Chingy” Bailey and other guests for the first of the two-part culmination of Hip-Hop Architecture Camp.
After learning about design and incorporating the musical genre into building communities, Chocolate Cake joined Sprinkles, Lion (King of the Jungle), Lil Wolf and about two dozen other young people as participants. About half of them were ready to bust a rhyme. They worked on the lyrics over the course of the week-long camp, held at the Natural Bridge Branch of St. Louis County Library two weeks ago. Over an original beat made just for their camp, they would flow in the hopes of leaving an impression on the four judges – which included Chingy and fellow rapper M.C. The winning lyricists would have their rhymes featured on the rap video they were shooting at Busch Stadium.
Before the competition, the students had plenty of questions for Chingy. They wanted to know what it was like to attend the BET Awards. They were curious as to inspired him to make music. They wanted to know how old he was when he first started performing. After being inspired by Michael Jackson, Chingy was 12 years old when he started pursuing a career in music – the same age as several of the camp members.
“And in 2003 I had the number one record in the country, so I’m living proof that these things can happen if you take the time to progress and keep going,” Chingy told them. “You’ll get discouraged, but still push through it.”
“Do you still get nervous,” one student asked.
“I was nervous at first, but after a while, you get used to it,” Chingy said. “I’ve performed in front of all types of crowds – from two people to 20,000 people.”
The students were up next. They would face judges and their fellow students as a captive audience.
“We’re not laughing,” said camp facilitator Mike Ford, known internationally as “The Hip Hop Architect.” “We’re motivating everybody.”
They were asked to speak on their observations growing up in St. Louis and what they want to change. Their lyrics reflected crime and blight. A few spoke of the Ferguson unrest. But each problem the student detailed was followed up with a possible solution. Several of them were nervous, but they pressed forward, even when their voices barely raised above a whisper.
Some might ask what any of this has to do with architecture. According to Ford, the answer is “everything.”
At about the same time Chingy was riding high at the top of the Billboard charts, Ford was looking for inspiration for his master’s thesis. He had the bright idea of merging hip-hop with design.
“The Greeks and the Roman architects were inspired by their culture,” Ford said. “I wanted to create based on something my culture – on something that inspired me.”
He takes vocal cadences a rhyme sequences and creates grids to build communities.
“Man, that’s dope,” Chingy said when Ford showed him samples of what he had done with the rhymes of Lupe Fiasco and Tupac. Since graduate school, he’s gone on to develop an educational model that fuses the two seemingly unrelated art forms. He uses rap as a cultural bridge to get young people interested in architecture.
It’s what the students had learned all week. They even developed models for reimagining the North Hanley Transit Center.
“We hear all the time about the lack of black architects,” Ford told Chingy. “But we [as black people] built the pyramids and entire civilizations – and people are still trying to figure out how we did it thousands of years later.”
He’s taken the camp across the country – including Chicago, Los Angeles and his native Detroit.
The music is the soundtrack as they get excited and inspired to hopefully eventually rebuild their own neighborhoods.
“This is the future of our communities. This is the future of music. This is the future of design,” a student said in the preview for the Hip-Hop Architecture Camp Los Angeles music video.
“We’ve got to go to work from the bottom up,” a student rapped. “That’s how we’re gonna change it up, clean it up; build it up.”
As the judges deliberated, the St. Louis camp also had a chance to see the Detroit camp’s video, “Black Bottom.” The song is about a once prominent African-American community that became a casualty of urban development.
“Black bottom, black bottom, black bottom, black bottom, black bottom,” the St. Louis camp continued to chant after the video ended.
Once the winning verses were selected, Chingy worked with the students on the pre-written chorus. They were heading to E.I. Studios to record the song that evening, and then on to Busch Stadium to make the music video.
“We’ve got a world superstar that’s ready to help y’all– to teach y’all the chorus,” a woman working with the camp told the students to get their attention.
“You ready to listen?”
“Who’s got the mic?” she asked the students to calm the chatter as they settled back in from judging in another room. “Chingy,” the students shouted back.
When he took the floor, he told them to make sure that they added the hard “r” that has become a staple of St. Louis hip-hop thanks to Chingy’s “Right Thurr” and Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.”
Once they caught the beat – and the rhythm that Chingy laid out for them, they took the hook and ran with it.
“St. Louis, we live there. Other people just don’t care. They shoot it up, they gang it up and I be like, ‘whoa there.’ We gon’ change it up, we gon’ build it up. We gon’ change it up, we gon’ build it up.”
