Lyripeutics is a collective of artists, educators and community organizers working in the greater Denver area and beyond. Through our initiative, the Lyripeutics Storytelling Project, we have created a design-based research (DBR) study investigating how learning environments, rooted in hip-hop based education and critical literacies, can facilitate opportunities for BIPOC youth to learn (and share) wellness narratives that are specific to their cultural communities. The study explores how hip-hop artistic practice can be a tool for youth to tell stories about their community cultural wealth. The project’s goal is to assist BIPOC youth in researching community stories that promote wellness as well as practicing ethnographic writing, oration and hip-hop performance to re-share these stories within their communities. This project addresses wellness outcomes for Latinx, Indigenous and Black youth in Denver who are less likely than white youth to seek mental health care. By leveraging community-based narratives about healing, youth learn from community members about cultural healing practices and mental health care. Our work aligns with that of  CU Boulder’s Renée Crown Wellness Institute, which has provided funding for this project to help build a world in which health and wellness are valued, promoted and protected for all children and youth.

• RAP Lab (Manual High School)

  Additional Info

  The collective of artists, educators and researchers have designed and built a state-of-the-art hip-hop studio adjacent to the school library at Manual High School (MHS). Students are using the facility to create and record music, poetry and other art. In Fall 2023, our teaching team is teaching three periods of a Hip-Hop Studio course serving 40 MHS students.

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  Location

  in colorado

  Denver

  Dates

  Ongoing

  Public or Private

  Private Program (by request only or for a specific audience or group)

  Program Fee

  No charge to attend/participate in activity or program