The Power of the Beat
Poetry and Hip Hop

With its roots in the African diaspora going back centuries, 'Rap' emerged in Brooklyn NYC in the 1970's as a reaction to disco as DJ's talked lyrically over vinyl tracks and grew to become the biggest cultural phenomenon of the C20th. It began to reach wider audiences when a song released by the punk era band Blondie, 'Rapture', featuring a rap middle section reached No.1 in the UK and America. This cultural movement soon added street art, fashion, dance and social activism to become Hip Hop. Rap is based on an emphasised beat or metre and strong end rhyme. The metre of all rappers is known as Iambic Pentameter because each line contains 10 beats - five alternating soft and emphasised. It is effective because it mimics the human heartbeat . Iambic Pentameter is the poetry of Shakespeare's Sonnets and appears in plays like Macbeth.

Rap as a Pedagogic Tool

The effectiveness of the iambic beat and the popularity of rap and hip hop makes it a dynamic way for educators to connect with students many of whom may be disengaged with education or to make complex and difficult topics relatable. Although using hip hop as a teaching tool is not common in the UK it is well established in parts of the USA. The 2023 series of The Voice UK featured a science teacher who uses rap in the classroom.

The Power of the Beat Project

At Portsmouth Poetry we were convinced that Rap could be a powerful tool to help young people engage with poetry. Having discovered that three brilliant local performance poets - Omar, Rishky and Majid (now operating as 4-3-2 Nomads) could deliver the project for us, we devised a programme designed to help Year 10 pupils in local schools with the poetry section of the GCSE English Literature and Macbeth, the set play by Shakespeare. We added a fourth poet Bassie Gracie from Brighton and were awarded funding from Arts Council England to run the project from 2021-22 with three participant schools. Portsmouth Poetry produced a teachers guide to Rap as a pedagogic tool with loads of resources and lesson ideas free to download. [To obtain a copy, contact us at info@portsmouthpoetry.org] 

Stage 1: 2021-2022 Success 

Arts Council England require you to identify the outcomes that will evidence a project was a success but often the successes include things you did not anticipate. We knew that Rap was a viable teaching tool and that our project would enable students to navigate the GCSE syllabus and engage with poetry. We did not anticipate that it would change the lives of some of the pupils in our cohort. Pupils who were disengaged became confident students, several became poets and rappers and have performed at events in the region. Several have gone on to university. Even more surprising was that the project led teachers and schools to reconsider their delivery strategies and have enabled them to extend the range of arts open to their students.

Stage 2: 2025

In 2024 we redesigned the project and submitted a second successful bid to Arts Council England to repeat the Power of the Beat in 2025 adding music and dance to the mix and a community project with refugees during Refugee Week in June. Additional funding was given by Portsmouth Creates. The project runs with Park Community School, Portsmouth Academy and ?????, features our four fabulous young poets, successful pupils from 2021-22  and other young poets from the area. The brilliant poet Luke Wright will be running a workshop at Park ahead of a gig at Portsmouth Guildhall Lens Studio before heading to Glastonbury and local award winning poet Maggie Sawkins will be working with pupils at Park where she was once a student. The project launches at The Aspex Gallery Gunwharf Quays on World Poetry Day (Friday March 21st) and concludes with the publication of work by pupils on National Poetry Day (Thursday October 3rd)

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