Story Stitchers Artist in Residence Britt Baker came in to work with the Collective’s STL Youth Jobs summer interns last week. Britt led the group through a process for writing a chant song. Britt’s time was well spent.
She’Kinah, a high school student, reflects on her experience…
My experience so far being on Story Stitchers has been not just a blessing to me but a huge impact in my life. Before Britt Baker came in to help us out on our chant I felt that I didn’t have anything to really contribute to the team, that Story Stitchers was really only about rapping, and they didn’t really want to go deeper than that, but I was wrong.
Since the two sessions spent with Britt, I found out that there is so much more to music and that when you speak poetry, rap, sing, or just do free writing, those are all things that express who are you and why you came to Story Stitchers in the first place. That’s what Britt showed me.
When we were working on the chant, these words spoke out to me the most:
‘We ready, we ready, we ready, for the violence to stop’
and
‘It’s time for a Revolution’
What that means to me is that we have been living in an unsafe world and what Story Stitchers is trying to do is make the areas we live in today into a safe place. So the people who are scared to go outside just to get their mail out of their mailbox that they can finally say, ‘Hey, I’m starting to feel a change that there is going to be a revolution’ and that’s exactly what this photograph is trying to say… That there are still good people in this world who are actually trying to create a safe, protected, loving, warm environment.
So my question is why continue to hurt the people we love or continue to destroy the world we live in because if you haven’t noticed yet, the same people who are trying to destroy your happiness are only hurting themselves more and more.
So I am very happy I came to Story Stitchers and gave it a chance because ever since then, I am not just singing about what’s happening in the world but when I walk through the front door of Story Stitchers I know there’s a goal and mission and we are responsible to figure out what it is so we can get the job done.
