The 5th annual Free Teens media summit was held the weekend of March 28-30, 2008 at the Fairview Lake YMCA camp in NJ. It was an awesome weekend- with 60 teens including Free Teens club members from Harlem, Mt. Vernon, Yonkers, NY, Jersey City, and Paterson, NJ, members of the NJ WAIT team, leaders of the Clean SLATE program in Los Angeles, and youth involved in the Abstinencia te honora program under the leadership of Vanguardia de la Niñez in San Juan, Puerto Rico working under the guidance of NYC area media professionals in music, theater, dance, video, photography, and spoken word to create their own “lovesmart” media dealing with healthy relationships, smart choices, etc.
On Friday evening, Yvonne Harvey Williams, founder of Emerged Greatness and recently named the most valuable speaker for Monster.com, gave a heartfelt and powerful talk on "The Real Truth about Hip Hop" in which she shared how some Hip Hop artists are told by media industry professionals that teens like "idiot music" as long as it has a beat. She broke down the subliminal messages contained in many rap songs and challenged teens to use their intelligence to take part in creating a new media culture that views men and women with respect.On Saturday, all were surprised with sunshine mixed with snow, which made the outdoor games literal "icebreakers".
After warming up, students attended 2 of 7 workshops on theater (Instructor: Jennifer Miller), visual art (instructor: K.O. Simms); music video production (Instructors: Roderick Giles, Vince Miller, Jamal Hodge, Dwight Hawkins, Jamal Hodge and Francisco Ordonez); songwriting & music recording (Instructors: Errol Pierre (TRIFE), Kurt Garrison, Jamal Johnson, George Kazakos, Diego Costa); swing/hip hop dance (Instructor: Sameira Staple); spoken word/poetry (Instructor: Celmali Jaime); and photojournalism (Instructor: Curtis Hamilton).In the afternoon, teens began to work in their focus area of choice, spending hours writing and recording music, rehearsing dance routines, painting, writing, practicing their drama lines, filming and photographing. Throughout the weekend, CultureMachine director Diego Costa interviewed instructors and participants with live webcasting on CultureMachine.TV.
Saturday night was "open mic" night with special guest appearances by "super" music producer Dame Grease who shared the story of his personal rise in the music business and his thoughts about shifting Hip Hop in a more positive direction and by the "Common Thread" band from Brooklyn which brought a powerful pro-family message with high energy and musical virtuosity.On Sunday afternoon the Summiteers shared their performances, drama, dance poetry, and raps. Music videos were shown including WAIT for Me (sung by Tiara Sanders, background vocals by Monte Grayson) and Not Going Out Like That (sung by DeShawn & Karla).
The songs included Crackin' Chick (sung by Raven), My Future (background chorus by Monte, Tiara, and Lenise & chorus: Mariah Ralph; rap verses by DeShawn, Raven & Kenny P), Change Dwirl (sung by Denise & Hillary; background vocals by Raven) and Abstenerte Te Honra (sung by Karla from San Juan, Puerto Rico). Also shown were paintings that dealt with themes of unmarried pregnancy and male obligations and photo slideshows. Two-time Emmy Award nominated cameraman and director Roderick Giles congratulated the teens for going beyond being "passive consumers" and becoming CREATORS of their own positive media.Free Teens founder Richard Panzer concluded the summit by challenging the teens to take the message of relationship intelligence back to their schools and peers. It was truly a moving, awesome experience, young people expressing themselves, having fun, and creating lovesmart messages to begin the process of transforming their communities.
This was our 5th annual Teen Media Summit and the best one yet! Videos, songs and photos from the Summit can be seen at CultureMachine.com and FreeTeensYouth.com.
