In an exclusive interview with The Root, educators at the newly opened Bronx School of Hip-Hop revealed how beats, rhymes, and life form the foundation of a first-of-its-kind public high school curriculum.
Recently opening its doors to its inaugural 9th grade class of 100 students, the school uses hip-hop’s five elements — DJing, MCing, breaking, graffiti, and knowledge of self — as the basis for its project-based curriculum.
“When you think about an element of MCing, you’re talking about literary devices, persuasion, mastery of language — which is the goal of English and language arts in school. When me and you went to school, we may have had to read Shakespeare or (Harper Lee’s novel) To Kill a Mockingbird,” said Jason Reyes, the Founding Principal. “But now we have hip-hop that also does that, that can be utilized for those same purposes.”
When Reyes speaks to The Root from his office, the hip-hop vibes are direct and unapologetic: he’s wearing a backwards black adjustable baseball cap, and behind his desk are paintings of legendary rappers like Notorious B.I.G., KRS-One, Lauryn Hill, and Nas. The hallways are adorned with quotes from other iconic lyricists.
He brings up DJing, beat production, and audio engineering to learn mathematics, graffiti as a tool for public expression and visual art, and breaking to teach physical education and biology.
“We want to show the connection between the genius that has already existed there, how it shows up, and how we can learn from it,” he continued. “We’re combining the elements of hip-hop with traditional core learning. It’s much more engaging for students to see the value of things that they’ve already experienced and loved.”
Reyes was a high school and college basketball player, majoring in communications before landing a job at an advertising agency. Unfulfilled with his work in the corporate sector, he took advice from his sister to begin substitute teaching. He found purpose there and continued his educational career, eventually becoming a principal at a middle school in the Bronx. The changes he made there — such as revamping school uniforms, changing the school bells to hip-hop instrumentals, and integrating activities that celebrated hip-hop culture — returned positive results in achievement scores, attendance, and engagement.
When he was approached to lead Bronx School of Hip-Hop last November, a proposal had already been circulated last year by a superteam advisory board of educators, nonprofit organizers, and hip-hop legends. Leaders include the president/CEO of Bronx-based nonprofit Windows of Hip-Hop Melissa Libran, author/educator Christopher Emdin, District 9 Superintendent Harry Sherman, former New York City Schools Chancellor Dr. Meisha Ross Porter, and hip-hop icons like Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz, and Special Ed.
New York City’s Panel of Educational Policy school board unanimously approved the school this past December. Since then, Reyes and his team have been hard at work, preparing for its first day of Sept. 10. A block party with food and music followed the end of the school day, with Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Fat Joe, Melle Mel, and Pete Nice of 3rd Bass among the attendees. The school opening was later chronicled in a video released by the Mayor’s Office, which included a sit-down conversation between Mamdani and legendary rapper Nas about the past, present, and future of hip-hop in New York City.
Martha Diaz, founder of school community partner Hip-Hop Education Center, says that her discovery of a hip-hop-centered charter school in St. Paul, Minn. “opened my eyes to what was possible. I realized we didn’t have to wait for traditional educational institutions to validate our culture. We could create our own educational spaces rooted in hip-hop’s history, values, and creative practices.”
Diaz said that since its founding in 2010, Hip-Hop Education Center has spent years developing an extensive collection of books, films, curricula, games, and other educational resources rooted hip-hop. They’re working with the school to develop a dedicated library and learning center alongside an archiving and media lab.
“Hip-hop is inherently interdisciplinary. It encompasses history, literature, mathematics, science, technology, entrepreneurship, visual arts, civic engagement, etc.,” Diaz says. “The question isn’t how much hip-hop we can add to traditional academics. It’s how we can use hip-hop as a framework to deepen academic learning.”
She then gives an illustration to demonstrate the difference between using hip-hop as a supplemental part of teaching, which other schools have done, and hip-hop being foundational to its curriculum, which Bronx School of Hip-Hop is aiming for.
“When hip-hop is supplemental, a teacher might use a rap song to introduce a history lesson or help students memorize a mathematical concept,” Diaz explains. “Those approaches can be valuable, but they often position hip-hop as a tool to make an existing lesson more engaging.
“When hip-hop becomes foundational, it shapes how knowledge is explored, created, and shared,” she continues. “Students might study the social and economic conditions that gave rise to hip-hop, investigate sound engineering through music production, explore mathematical patterns through rhythm, or examine intellectual property and entrepreneurship through the music industry. Students are not simply consuming culture. They are researching, questioning, analyzing, creating, and producing knowledge.”
Diaz says that Hip-Hop Education Center’s K-12 music education guidelines approach hip-hop through four interconnected areas: music history, music appreciation, music composition, and music performance. This framework, she says, helps educators find authentic connections between rigorous academics, cultural knowledge, and practicing creativity.
Even though Bronx School of Hip-Hop is the first public high school of its kind, hip-hop and academia have a relationship that goes back decades. It has continued in recent years in higher education, with rappers and producers such as Lupe Fiasco, Bun B, 9th Wonder, and Mia X joining colleges and universities as lecturers and professors. Lupe is even the Distinguished Visiting Professor at Peabody Institute for its new Hip-Hop Bachelor’s Degree program, which welcomed its first class in fall 2025.
Students at Bronx School of Hip-Hop are still four years away from post-secondary education. But in the meantime, its educators are focused on illustrating the cultural’s multifaceted abilities.
“Ultimately, the academic standards and expectations remain important. Hip-hop provides a culturally meaningful pathway for students to meet and, ideally, exceed those expectations,” Diaz says, continuing to speak on the differences between hip-hop as a supplemental tool and a foundational one. “The difference is that hip-hop stops being the hook that gets students interested in learning and becomes part of the foundation through which learning happens.”
