"Imagine that fourth, fifth and sixth grade children, through a hip-hop intervention, were able to do what most people can't do in the setting of that drama and that trauma," said Williams at the Skoll World Forum held in Oxford, England, last month at a session devoted to the 50th anniversary of the musical genre. Olajide Williams (who worked on the project "Stroke Ain't No Joke") and rappers with a social conscience Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, Sister Fa and Ali A.K.A. But that's exactly what has happened, say participants in a panel discussion: Dr. Skoll Foundation The world wasn't exactly sure hip-hop could be a vehicle for public health as well as social justice messages. It took them weeks to get the beat and the lyrics of "Stroke Ain't No Joke" right, but once they had it locked in, "Doug went into the studio and I think he knocked it out in a few days," says Williams. This is what Williams and Fresh were trying to do in that Harlem studio. "And yet in my mind, we hadn't fully leveraged it for public health." "Music has always been able to diffuse not just through our personal lives but across the world," he says. Our problem is often scaling those answers." To Williams, music, and hip-hop in particular, could serve as a powerful tool. "Our problem is not coming up with the answers. He's sitting next to Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run-DMC during a panel on hip-hop and public health at the Skoll World Forum.īut Williams knew when it came to more traditional public health interventions, "they don't diffuse into society" as easily. Olajide Williams (right) was instrumental in creating the "Stroke Ain't No Joke" hip-hop song in collaboration with rapper Doug E.
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