Gabriel Benn dedicates his life to the educational advancement of teens through Hip Hop, as an Educational Literacy Program (H.E.L.P.). H.E.L.P. was designed to bridge the communication gap between beginner (K-3), elementary (3-5), intermediate (6-8), and advanced (9-12) students and teachers by using popular hip-hop artist influences and song harmonizing.

This is good news that will hopefully reverse some of the startling statistics about high school drop out rates among various sectors of society including, African-Americans, Hispanics, and economically disadvantaged youth in urban, as well as, rural landscapes in the United States. The African-American male, drop out rate in some urban areas exceeds 50%.

The situation was dire enough that on July 30, 2004, the North Carolina Supreme Court in an unanimous decision upheld the ruling of Judge Howard Manning’s orders in the state school’s finance case, commonly known as Leandro, the decision mandated that the state immediately take steps to equalize poorer school districts with the wealthier regions of the state.

Educational Lyrics, LLC, in conjunction with Guerilla Arts Ink implemented H.E.L.P., and Rock Creek Academy, both based out the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

H.E.L.P. cultivates many genres of the hip-hop world, in order to reach a broad array of teens in need. The organization serves youth from several different cultures, socio-economical backgrounds, race and languages.

H.E.L.P integrates multi-faceted strategic measures to raise the importance of reading, cognitive and critical thinking. H.E.L.P. promotes phonetic awareness and language skills by identifying, creating, and using rhyming words; studying word families; and reading sight words and irregularly spelled words.

H.E.L.P. also focuses on fluency skills, including: echo and repeated reading, composition, and performance. In the area of reading comprehension, H.E.L.P. incorporates innovative structured programs including: opportunities to read with a purpose, active reading skills, poetry devices, identifying explicit and implicit meanings, character studies and discussion groups.

Upcoming H.E.L.P. publications will feature the following artists and songs: Common – ‘The Corner’; Ghost face – ‘All That I Got Is You’; Kane West – ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone’; Nick Cannon – ‘Can I Live’; Slick Rick – ‘Children’s Story’; Moss Def – ‘New World Water’; 50 Cent- ‘God Gave Me Style’; Nick Cannon – ‘Can I Live’; Lupe Fiasco – ‘Kick Push’; Ludacris – ‘Diamond In the Back’; and India Aire – I Am Not My Hair.’

Is your student, child or neighborhood in need of some fundamental H.E.L.P., if so become an important tool in building the bridge of communication and erasing the communiqué gap between people and problems?