MaLLy loves engaging students in conversations around identity, their community, life, their interests, expectations, goal setting and dreams for the future. These conversations usually serve as the launching pad for a multitude of topics to write about and share with their peers. In addition to the bigger questions about life and our existence on earth encouraging students to explore their feelings in the moment is helpful as well. MaLLy facilitates writing and talking sessions and work around community building, character development, critical thinking, writing, sharing/critical response and presentation. Throughout these sessions we will explore poetic devices, the significance for using them and apply them in our writing and sharing exercises.
Being a Teaching Artist is a wonderful opportunity to connect with young people, walk through the creative process and watch them tell their stories in their own way via voice and performance. Creation is expression. MaLLy believes that every student has a voice and a story to tell that should be heard. Writing and self-expression create an undeniable bond and discovery of self and others. Music (and art) helped MaLLy explore his identity as a Black man and how fluid and diverse the experience is. Being an artist that teaches has encouraged him to bring his full self everywhere.
More About the Artist
MaLLy has been an active performer in hip-hop music since 2009. Since 2016, he has served as a teaching artist at PYC Arts & Technology School facilitating weekly creative writing and performance sessions in collaboration with students, staff, and other artists in spoken word, creative writing, and honors English. He currently co-hosts a talk radio show on 98.9 KRSM — The Discourse. He has released three full-length albums, toured locally and nationally with Atmosphere and Brother Ali as well as played several festivals such as Soundset, Art-A-Whirl, Summerset and many more. Recently, he was selected to be a 2018-2019 McKnight Fellowship recipient by way of MacPhail Center for Music.
Learn more about MaLLy in his February 2020 Artist Spotlight Interview.
Program Offerings
Workshop
Expression Through Identity
The workshop will explore the many components of identity through creative writing, discussion, performance and critical response. The exercises will encourage students of all backgrounds to share their story in their most authentic voice in the form of poetry, rhyme and spoken word. Students will also have a chance to write and practice performing their work in class or in the format of a showcase.
“MaLLy worked as an Artist-in-Residence with 3rd-5th Grade Black boys who participated in our school’s Boys To Men program. I thoroughly enjoyed collaborating with him as he used poetry, spoken word, and a hip hop aesthetic to lead the boys in a creative process that explored their racial identity and cultural heritage. MaLLy was nurturing and thoughtful as he engaged the students on a weekly basis.”
Cam Muata, Equity Instructional Coach, Peter Hobart Elementary School
