Rapper brings 'Hip-Hop and the Arts' program to Lansing BCFI for youth development

CORRECTION: Chadwick Phillips was introduced to hip-hop by his brother Segrin. An earlier version of this story named a different brother. 

Rap battles in the halls of Everett High School led Chadwick "Niles" Phillips' life to come full circle. 

Becoming a rapper was not always Phillips' dream. 

As a student at Everett High School in the early 2000s, he was invested in sports, running track and playing on the high school's basketball and football teams. Inspiration from watching his older brother Sebastian paint kept his interest in visual arts.

It was not until he heard songs by a group including his brother, Segrin, on 96.5 FM that he became enthralled with the genre. 

"He introduced me to hip-hop in general, but I’ve always been connected to music, the harmonies, melodies and message. So that’s what connected me with one being into music as a fan," Phillips said.

Throughout his youth, Phillips joined rap battles at the Lansing Center, Everett high, Detroit and several others in East Lansing. One battle he participated in East Lansing won him $1,000 and made him think "this right here is chill," he recalled. 

Along with music, the rapper sought to earn his bachelor's degree from Michigan State University. A youth program he was a part of in high school had taken him to Eastern Michigan University and he had learned where a college degree could take him if he applied the learned skills.

After graduating from MSU, he moved to Brooklyn, New York, to further his hip-hop career. That was where he joined Hip-Hop Project, an early stage youth development program. He was inspired to start Hip-Hop and the Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and now Lansing.

"It keeps me connected to my nostalgia and tapping into it, has made it easier to tap in with the youth because it’s the youth in me connecting with the youth in them," Phillips said of hip-hop.

The Lansing program gives kids the opportunity to learn about the ins and outs of music, but also be able to write either poetry or a song. 

Najeema Iman, who met Phillips at the Avenue Cafe when he released an album, helped him bring his program to Lansing. She works with Lansing's Building Child and Family Initiatives as the assistant director of the STEAM camp. Phillips' program replaces a former after-school reading segment, but the nonprofit did not want to overwhelm kids with more Zoom fatigue. 

"People are tired of Zoom, kids are tired of being in a Google Classroom, so if you’re going to do an after-school program, you have to offer something a bit different; this gives them a different outlook," she said. 

The program started on Feb. 16 and runs until May 26. All classes are from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. every Tuesday or Wednesday on Zoom, registration is ongoing until spots fill up at LansingBCFI.org.

Each week, kids in the free program will be doing a different activity interacting with both Phillips and others who signed up. Maya Mccombs, of Lansing, signed her daughter Amaya, up for the series after seeing Phillips advertise it on his Facebook page. 

"I hope she gets more motivation to perfect her craft," Mccombs said. "I hope she becomes more poetic and finds more ways to express herself while being crafty in doing it."

The sessions will keep kids' attention with energetic activities so Phillips can engage with them on something fun, opposed to a standard Zoom call. He sought for his sessions to be memorable for students to see a person who grew up in Lansing and has been to New York City and Minneapolis, and see themselves in him. 

For the enrolled students, Phillips aspired to be a model of strength for them like what he sees in his mom, Loretta Sue; his grandfather, Woodrow; and his grandmother Sadie Phillips. Those three people, he added, were his foundation growing up and they keep him driven to success today.

His mom is credited for his success as she called MSU on a regular basis to inquire about available scholarships to help pay for college.

"When you influence a child in a positive way, it’s like you’re planting a seed in the soil. It’s like nothing else is in that soil," Phillips said. "No rain has come, yet, or sun. To be able to plant that seed of optimism, joy, imagination, creativity and aspiration to be great in a child, that’s incredible."

By the end of the program, he said children will have learned a new form of artistic expression through songwriting, monologuing, scriptwriting and life skills like persevering.

"So many young people don’t have a voice and this will give them an opportunity to express their voice and hopefully it will get to the point where we’ll have someone who will be the next big artist or producer that comes out of Lansing," Iman said. 

Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at (517) 267-1344or knurse@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @KrystalRNurse.