Anchorage Daily News

When most people think of hip-hop, they think of music with heavy bass beats and performers with low-slung jeans and fancy jewelry.

When Our Time 2008 thinks of hip-hop, they think of a positive source for civic change.

Minority students in the School District are now the majority and more should to be done to engage these students and create a vibrant group of young people, said Liz Posey, who designed and started Our Time 2008 as president of the Anchorage Urban League of Young Professionals.

"Otherwise all that diversity is there and the government will not be responsible to the community," Posey said.

The program started with a simple mission statement: "Hip-hop is power, politics is power, hip-hop and politics ... now that's real power."

The goal of Our Time 2008 is to empower young people by encouraging them to vote. The group recruits volunteers who become registrars able to assist people in the voter registration process.

"We're building up our team of registrars, and we're going to deploy them to go into the diverse community and register people," said Kokayi Nosakhere, marketing and public relations chairman for the networking and training of minorities at AUL-YP.

The program's goal this year is to get 100 volunteer registrars to help register 1,000 people to vote.

"The difficult part is the 'get out the vote' campaign," Nosakhere said. "We're going to get them to come out and actually impact their election."

That's where hip-hop comes in.

"We've found that it's been very effective in reaching people who don't see themselves as political," Posey said.

A March 22 seminar, designed to educate youths, opened with a clapping exercise in hip-hop beats. Nosakhere clapped out a beat, and the participants clapped the same rhythm back to him. After his opening, Nosakhere launched into his introduction for the seminar.

"Engage the system; engage the process. Without engagement there can be no change," he said.

The program included workshops relating to hip-hop and community change. One workshop was a behind-the-scenes look at how politics works. Another workshop taught participants how to use hip-hop theater to become a participant in the political process. A community leader and activist presented another workshop on becoming a political activist, regardless of age, education or background.

The seminar also included a speaking appearance by George Martinez, a former New York City elected official and current cultural envoy for the U.S. State Department. Martinez urged the "hip-hoppers of Anchorage" to organize and make change.

"National politics is cool, but all politics is local," he said.

The conference also drew a distinction between hip-hop culture and the rap industry.

"I think there is a lot of confusion about what hip-hop is. A lot of people confuse it with the commercialized rap industry," Posey said.

Many people combine the two into one stereotype: guns, drugs, violence and disrespect toward women. Martinez said he wants to see young people improve the negative stereotypes of hip-hop culture. Hip-hop is a multigenerational movement that can be cultivated for its positive influence on the community.

Posey said that people can be professional and be active in organizing and making positive changes in the community and still be about hip-hop.

About 50 people, a diverse mix of ethnicities and age groups, attended the seminar. Posey says the project is mashing up social networks and bringing people together.

"I think it's kind of an awakening for Alaska," she said.

For now, Our Time 2008 is biding its time, building up a group of newly educated voters for November. Until then, Our Time will focus on its most important message:

"Vote," Nosakhere said.

Kyle Zencey is a sophomore at West High.

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