For instance, since "Stroke Ain't No Joke" debuted, the recommendations around stroke detection and prevention have expanded. When necessary, Hip Hop Public Health works to update its content. "So it's really comprehensive," says Benson, "so that educators can help integrate this into health education in schools and after-school programs, museums, libraries - anywhere that young people are served." "And we've created an acronym that helps recognize those symptoms of dementia."īenson says her team then works with school districts and community-based organizations to get these materials into the heads and hands of K-12 students across the country. "We are currently in the process of concluding a randomized controlled trial look at dementia awareness in communities of color, specifically trying to destigmatize dementia," says Williams. The organization has created more than 200 resources to date ranging from music videos to lesson plans to educator toolkits on topics including nutrition, mental health, physical activity, dementia, oral health, vaccine literacy, and disease prevention. "Stroke Ain't No Joke" was the first in what would become a series of hip-hop tracks using the musical genre "to build health literacy and ultimately support behavior change," says Lori Rose Benson, the CEO and executive director of Hip Hop Public Health. "If hip-hop could tell people how to dress, what to drive, what to smoke, what to drink and how to act," says DMC, "why couldn't hip hop tell people how to live?" Stoked by 'Stroke Ain't No Joke' And artists like DMC were eager to be a part of what Williams was building. It was these constructive elements "of social activism, of social justice, of lifting people up" that Williams sought to leverage, particularly within communities of color and underserved populations. He took his mic, sprung to his feet, and launched into the alphabet song, concluding with, "Now you know your ABC's!" Reacting to the applause, he shouted, "You know what I'm saying!?" At the Skoll World Forum, DMC, egged on by Williams sitting beside him, bet that everyone in the audience had learned something fundamental through "one of the greatest hip-hop songs in the history" - the singsong ABC song. Everything about hip-hop uniquely has a way to inspire people into transformation." There's something universal about hip-hop, says DMC, who serves on the advisory council of Hip Hop Public Health: "Old, young, white, Black, even if you don't understand English, you can relate to the feeling of it. Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, a hip-hop pioneer formerly in the seminal group Run-DMC, says "it speaks in a youthful, fun, understandable way" while packing the intensity of punk rock or rock and roll. The team at Hip Hop Public Health says that hip-hop offers something extra when it comes to the information they're trying to relay. "Music has powerful neurological effects on our brains," says Williams. For patients with a stroke, we use melodic intonation therapy to help them to speak," which refers to hitching spoken words and phrases to different pitches and rhythmic patterns to restore speech. "We use it for agitated patients with delirium - we use music to calm them down instead of using restraints. "Music helps us to learn, music augments our memories, music lowers our stress," he explains. Williams, now a neurologist at Columbia University, says that music has a role to play in medicine generally. In this anniversary year, Skoll wanted to call attention to this lesser known part of hip-hop history - which continues to thrive in 2023 with new rhymes and expanded programming for young people. ![]() "He was that inspired."Ī year later, the organization Hip Hop Public Health was born, co-founded by Williams and Fresh. 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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