718. Stories to Fill The Hope Gap: How Hip Hop Therapy Is Rewriting What Healing and Storytelling Look Like - J.C. Hall

Welcome to Stories that Fill the Hope Gap, a 10 part limited series created in partnership with Good Is the New Cool and we are for good. Hey, I'm John. And I'm Becky. Together we're unpacking how story is becoming the most essential tool change makers have not just to raise money, but to restore hope in a world that's running low on it. We're breaking down what it actually looks like to tell stories that fill that 27% gap between hope and despair and why the world desperately needs you to start. Let's get started. Hey, Bea, what's happening? Hey, John. I am ready to groove and I hope you are too. This is going to be so good. We are having an incredible conversation today about hip hop therapy. Are you leaned in? I mean, I'm here for this. Yes. Today we are so honored to have J.C. hall on the podcast. He is a licensed clinical social worker 1 and a hip hop artist too, who is running a hip hop therapy studio at Mott Haven Community High School in the South Bronx, which is a second chance school where trauma exposed students use a professional recording studio as a primary healing modality, not a bonus activity. He is a rapper. He is a beautiful, creative human. He is a 2024 David Prize winner. There's only five of these picked in the entire New York City area nonprofits each getting $200,000 who are absolutely breaking through with their work. So congratulations, J.C. we are so honored to have you on today. So honor to be here. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh. We want to know your story. And before we get into hip hop therapy, we want to know about little J.C. like, tell us about his journey and what led you to get to this place. That's a great question, man. Little J.C. i was a problem child for sure. You know, I was definitely a problem. I really struggled growing up. I struggled with alcoholism, addiction, mental health issues. Sorry to just jump right in, but let's get it. Yeah. And you know, hip hop, the music, it was really the only thing I first identified with. I heard these MCs talking about things that just more so than any other genre of music that just resonated with me. Just like utter desperation, feeling lost, feeling isolated, feeling alone. And the way they spoke, the poetry embedded within the words, it was. It just really grabbed me. Lauren Hill was one of the first artists. Oh my God. I was like. That was one of two CDs I took to college, by the way. Yes. The miseducation. Yes. Yes. It was like one of the first. And I just Like, I resonated with it so deeply. And it was, it was. Hip hop was essentially my therapy that it kept me alive just long enough to finally then get to actual therapy. So I needed treatment, you know, but the two, they didn't always coincide well. You know, I was. Because I struggled with a lot of these mental health issues. I was in and out of rehab, psych wards, you know, halfway houses, sober homes, you name it. And despite all that, you know, the one thing I could always reliably turn to was hip hop. It was the music, it was the community I connected with through that. And in these institutions, they would take away my CD players, they would take away my ability to listen to this stuff because they saw my identification with the culture as a root cause behind some of the criminality using drugs. Or they're like, no, you're listening to this. Like, their view of hip hop was kind of that very limited, commercialized 1% that gets promoted on the radio. That's materialistic, misogynistic. There was no real general understanding of the culture or the fact that hip hop was birthed as a form of post traumatic growth within the communities that birthed it. You know, back in the 70s in the South Bronx, in the Bronx, New York City, there's no real understanding. So my lifeline would get kind of removed. So my first exposure to therapy was this huge cultural disconnect. I felt like they were saying, you're wrong, something's wrong with you. It only made things worse. I would go sleep on my therapist's couch. I just was like, yeah, give me the medication. Because at that point I was like, using, you know, drugs, drinking every day. This is High School. 15 years old. Had no intention of seeing 16 years old. So, yeah, I would sleep on the couch. You're going to write me a script. Cool. Give me the meds, I'll pop those, take a little extra. That was my exposure to therapy. And, you know, it wasn't until I met a therapist who I saw, you know, up until recently, he passed away. I saw him for 20 years. The man helped save my life. He wasn't a hip hop head, but he used to write poetry. And he. I remember the first time I told him that I love hip hop. He's like, oh, yeah, that's poetry, man. That's poetry. He was kind of like a hippie dude. And I was like, oh, wow, this guy gets me. He's like, I used to write some music myself and he'd share some lyrics and then I'd share some lyrics. And then it was, we connected just even over that, you know, and that was enough for me to finally be open to treatment. Because as much as hip hop was keeping me afloat, I also was struggling in the real depths of addiction and depression. And I needed real help as well. Like therapy, 12 step programs, I mean, so many different things. It took, it took a village, let's just put it that way. And so, yeah, it was those two things together that saved my life. Therapy gave me the tools like hip hop did. And hip hop also gave me purpose and direction in many ways. So I always knew hip hop was therapeutic. But it wasn't until later when I was going to go to grad school for social work that I stumbled across the actual term and was like, oh wait, this is like a real legit evidence based thing coined by this guy named Dr. Edgar Tyson. The story how I even came about around to that. But simply put, the one school I applied to to go to for grad school to get my social work degree, it turns out this guy's a professor at who coined the term and had all these studies. Yeah. So I sent him an email, a novel like, hey man, way too much info. Like I've already given you guys. Like I was struggling, I was in the psych wards and I da da, you know, and hip hop saved my life. And seeing this work you were doing, you know, he started in Miami Dade county in Florida, working with youth in foster homes using this, this approach. And I just was like, can I pick your brain? Can I shadow you? And he was just like the most humble, coolest dude. He was like, yeah man, let's link, let's meet. You know, and the first time I met him, he was in a like dope suit and had this big cross on this like bling, like just was like. And a Yankee fitted hat. And I was just like off rip, like, this is my dude, you know, and in academia, like that was not. I felt so out of place so to be able to meet him. And he mentored me and we were working together, we were working on a book, got to work with him very closely for about a decade until he passed suddenly from a heart attack at 54. Thank you. Yeah, and yeah, a lot of what I've been doing since is really just trying to promote and further the work. And yeah, so I guess that's kind of how what brought me to the work, that's kind of been a bit of the evolution. Jc, thank you for your vulnerability to share. I want to honor the therapist that Was with you for 20 years. What was his name? Dr. Stuart Lerner. Thank you. He is a learner. Like, he. He stopped long enough to see you, and you felt seen. Like, I just want to name that. And just. You're doing that right now by being so open about your story. So thank you. For others. Talk about hip hop therapy. Like, there's there some years, probably between this experience, this lived experience to man, this is actually something that I want to bring to other kids. Like, what did that look like? Absolutely. Absolutely. So the way Dr. Tyson first envisioned it in the mid-90s, it was. He noticed one of the kids was banging out on the lunch table and rapping along to a song. Bone Thugs and harmony. See you at the crossroads, which is so cool. Oh, my gosh. That is my favorite bone song. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Tell me what you got to do. Yeah. And then to lose an easy E. And he's noticing, like, wait, I listen to the same music as this kid. So let me try to have a convo with this kid about that, you know? Cause Tyson was hip hop through and through. Grew up in Jersey, Patterson projects. And so him and the kid, you know, before, the kid wouldn't open up or have any, you know, and then he starts talking to them about, well, what about that song? Why do you resonate with that? And he had lost his grandmother recently, and they were then able to start doing. Talking about grief and processing some of that when. Before they would sit. And it was like, when I was a kid, just like, you don't know me. I don't know you, bro. I got nothing to tell you. You know what I mean? Like, just total disconnect. But now it's. We're talking about something we both love. We're talking about why this is dope, how we identify and relate. And he was like, wow, this really needs to be, you know, something studied. And let me compare this to just your more traditional CBT approach. So it started like that, and for me, that resonated. And I started running groups, playing songs, and having group discussions with kids and individual discussions. But one of the most healing things for me was actually participating in the culture and writing, rhyme, rapping, mixing, recording my own music, then performing, getting on a stage. There's, like, kind of levels to it where you can go from that more introverted, introspective to now let me bring this out into the outer world. And then to be, like, cheered for it and accepted for it. I mean, it has huge implications for working through some of These really that are shame inducing, you know what I mean? To then be able to get on a stage and talk about, you know, I went through this, this and this. But I'm better for it now and I'm recovering. Yeah, there's something to be said about doing that in an enjoyable. To a beat, to a dope beat. I really wanted to introduce that side. And I got the opportunity in my second year of my clinical internship at the school I'm at to this day. It's been 13 years now. I got the opportunity, given a budget, to build a recording studio. So started in a little corner closet, an old storage room, and, you know, kids would mob it and we would pack it out into the hallway and it was like, you know, eventually doubled in size and investment. And it's like, you know, studio standard equipment, very solid, like Neumann U87, Avalon VT737. Like Pro Tools, like real legit studio, standard professional equipment where kids can come and create their own artistic visions in the way that they want to, in a way that resonates with them. So it was able to kind of bring in that expressive element. There's kind of two sides receptive. You're sitting and listening to the music, and then you can have conversations about it. Right. You can engage in therapeutic dialogue based upon what comes up in the lyrics. The expressive side is like, let's create. Let's actually get involved. Let's tell. I'm gonna tell my own story. I'm gonna rewrite my narrative. I'm gonna set it to a beat. I'm gonna take some of these really, like, traumatic experiences maybe that I've had and find a way to process them through a beat, through a performance, through a song, do a dance, whatever their preferred artistic modality may be. Do it in a culturally relevant way and work through. Yeah, work through stuff like that. I think what I love so much about it is just meeting people where they are instead of forcing, you know, like what you've talked about. When you talk about cognitive behavior therapy, it's like this talk therapy. And talk therapy works great for a lot of people, but when you're story is so deep within you and the pain is so intense and there is trauma wrapped up in it, sometimes I can imagine that you might just want to wrap it or piece it out piece by piece as you feel comfortable. And I love that these kids can feel seen and feel known and can express. And so we love story. This entire series is based on the power of storytelling. And I would just love to hear I love hearing about the programs. I love hearing about what you're doing. Tell us a story about somebody who's gone through your program who has had a profound change on you. Yeah, man, I'd probably. I'd have to go with my man Ephraim. There's a short documentary that shows the origins of this program called Mott Haven. He's one of the students in it. He. He passed a couple about a year ago now, unfortunately. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. This kid, he came to us, you'll see in the film, after a suicide attempt. I started working with him. He hadn't really resonated with anyone before. Turns out we both were in the same psych ward, so I was able to kind of connect with them a bit there. Normally, I don't always disclose certain personal things unless I see this as going, you know, it'll further the work in some way. So you kind of see that in the film. He's like, I always wrote poetry, but I'm not really a rapper. And I was like, well, what's a rapper? And he was like, you know, this, like, money, hoes, rims, cars, like. And I'm like, dude, like, it hurt me to hear that because it's like your own culture has been thrown back at you as if it's this negative thing. You know what I mean? And that is like what he was told. It was almost like that was a written response that had been kind of told to him, like, no, rap is bad. Rap is bad. And I related with that, right? I identify with that. So really encouraging him, like, dude, all right, well, show me some of your poetry. And his poetry was raps. It was not, like poetry. It was. It had bars. It was rhyming poetry. So I encouraged him to put it to some beats, you know. So he starts doing that and starts, you know, finding his way and saying some really, like, incredible things. I mean, this really shelled up, bottled up kid not being able to express himself to now saying, you know, really profound things and connecting with others in the studio. And basically a Friday, we were in there till 6pm we used to go till 6 every day. He. He didn't get the chance to record, right? So there were three other kids in front of him. And he was upset about it. And I was like, you know what? Let's see if everybody agrees. Monday is gonna E. Monday's gonna be your day. You could record the whole time. And he's like, oh, yeah. So excited, right? So excited. The weekend comes, Saturday comes, he Goes out with a friend. He's walking down the street. They bump into somebody randomly. His friends say some words to the other kids. They turn around and pull out knives. And his friends abandoned him. And it's just him, even though he didn't start it. So now he's fighting. He got stabbed 10 times, punctured his lung, spleen, kid, his leg, like, really, really bad. You know, any. Luckily, someone pulled up with, like a minivan and, you know, just wrapped them up in their clothes, threw them in, took him to the ambulance. I mean, took him to the hospital. Barely makes it, right? Barely makes it. He says he wakes up that next day, Sunday, wakes up in the hospital, comes to and is like, damn, I'm not going to get my Monday. That's his first thought. You know what I'm saying? That's his first thought. And that, for me, was the first time where I was like, man, like, this means more than just like, you know what I mean? It really means a lot. And he was able to. Then after months, kind of learning to walk again with a cane, came back and was able to process and work through some of that. He wrote a really dope song called Heaven's Gates. Talking about being on the cusp of death, being in the hospital, healing and dealing. We all just feeling, like talking about, processing his emotions, trying to work through it. And he had already developed that basic, you know, musculature to get to the point where, like, now that he's back, he was able to really put it to use in a life and death kind of thing, work through it and, you know, over the course of, like, three, four years of working together, transformed into this social butterfly. He no longer was getting in fights at school, no longer getting into arguments. Everybody loved him. He was like the shining star of the school. And just, yeah, just such an incredible kid, an incredible person, an incredible artist, and all of that just from like, a simple, you know, hey, do you listen to hip hop? You listen to rap? You like rap? Cool. You know, just starting real, real basic, real simple. He'd be one of the many kids I would say, who I've seen of either it's. Some of this work is brought back from the brink of suicide or helped them process tremendously traumatic experiences from being jumped, from being shot, being stabbed, being involved in the juvenile justice system, being harassed by police, being assaulted, all kinds of things, you know, and not just countering the negatives, but I think, also producing joy, you know what I mean? And, like, having something to really, like, smile about and Feel excited about, like, oh, I get to come and create a dope song, a dope beat. I get to, like, connect with my peers about it, you know, inspiring others within your own local community. I mean, you can't put a price on that. You can. And I'm sure, like, when they're listening to his music and singing it, rapping it back to him, like, how validating to have your story wrapped back to you. Like, do it on stage in front of, like, the whole end of every year, we have an annual showcase. You get to perform in front of your peers, students, staff, people from outside in the community. It's like a moment. You get to really take charge and tell your story and, yeah. Feel empowered by it. Like you said, just from that. Incredible. And I mean, it's not just the. The transformation that's personal, but it's like your graduation. Graduation rates are 85% against the average of 60. So it's tracking in terms of data, you know, that's backing this up. And it makes sense, seeing the through line of purpose and connection and identity and all these things. So, okay, you've recently created this film. I want to talk about that. Because storytelling, your mission, is like the core of these threads, you know, and we. I'd love to know, what have you learned about. How do you. You're such a great storyteller, by the way. Yeah, you are. I mean, I'm on the edge of my seat and you've got rhythm. When you tell you. And I'm like, I'm vibing with you. I'll take it. It's like, what have you learned about. How can you bring a story of a mission that connects to an audience that maybe has completely different lived experience? It doesn't relate on that level. How do you break through? That's a great point. So Mod Haven, we started shooting. It came out 2017. We must have started shooting 2013, something like that. It was very early in the days. And initially I was like, I want to explain what hip hop therapy is. I want to sit here and interview me and let's have a conversation and you know what I'm saying? And then. And the director, my buddy Kyle, who. This was all random, like diy, you know what I mean? Like, go to film school. He just kind of caught wind of what I was doing and was like, let me come in and film. You know, it was really just him, you know, shoestring. No, no budget. But he was very adamant about, like, the kids are the story. You know, you don't need to explain it, let people see it. And to me then that resonated because I remember in, you know, creative writing classes, it was always show, don't tell, right? It's always show don't tell. And so it's like, you don't need to sit here and like, let me interview these kids and they can tell me what they want and I can kind of. You'll see the story unfold. So when you get to see the film, one of the things I love about it is it's not me, it's not other like people in the. In the helping professions explaining or spelling it out. You watch these kids transform. You get to hear some of their art, you get to hear them process the loss of one of the founding members, one of the first kids who first started coming into the school. He was stabbed and killed outside the school on the corner. And our first show was coming together, the whole studio program, trying to process and work through that loss, what that meant. Yeah, you get to see it unfold before your eyes. And I think that's probably one of the biggest things is like not feeling the. The need to over explain. And again, like with the CBT stuff, use that cognitive side. I think a lot of what resonates within us is much deeper than thoughts, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's felt. It's like felt sense and lived experience. And I think that anyone who sits and watches that film, even if they have no exposure to hip hop culture, have no idea what it is you're going to see what it means to them. Yeah, that's it. And that's what counts. And when you see someone living in their truth and living it confidently and with joy or whatever that emotion is. Emotion has come up in so many of these interviews today that we cannot just talk about the logic of our missions. We can't throw out these stats without making it utterly human. Because that is what's going to awaken us. That is what's going to make us make a gift and tell someone about this program. Find a corporate partner, whatever it is. And I just think you've done it so beautifully because you gave all the power to the kids, which is incredible. Thank you. So we love to ask every one of our guests about a moment of generosity or kindness or philanthropy that changed their life. It could be a random act of kindness. It could be something big, small. What's something that stayed with you in your life that someone's done for me, I think I gotta go with Dr. Tyson. It's really difficult to put into words what that meant for me as a kid who was really in like an existential crisis. I wanted to continue to make music. I didn't want to. I got my bachelor's in psych and couldn't do anything with it. And I was like, I gotta go to grad school, but I want to make my music. That's what, like, fulfills my soul. That's what I'm. I feel here for. I want to be able to pay it forward through that medium in the same way I felt like hip hop artists did for me. And I felt like I could. I had a knack for saying things through music that I couldn't just speak in prose, wanting to do that and just feeling lost. And, you know, I looked up music therapy because I overheard I had only applied at one point back to the same school I got my undergrad degree. I was like, oh, they got a good social work school. Cool. I'll just apply there. Very like, you know, I wasn't really looking forward to it, Got accepted and started having a full blown, like, meltdown. Like, oh, man, I gotta go. That means more time. I gotta exclude my art, not pursue what I feel I'm really here for type in music therapy. Oh, wow. Okay, this is cool. Let's find programs. I find a couple local ones. You gotta know how to sing and play three instruments. I don't know how to do that, any of that. So it was like another moment in my life with an, of an institution telling me what I love is not art, it's not real music. And I was like, ah, man, this is crazy. So in the search bar, I cut out music and put in hip hop as like a last ditch hail Mary effort into the ether webs. Like, just no way this is gonna pop up, you know? And then boom, clicks and I just. Tyson. Tyson. Tyson. Tyson. Tyson. So I'm seeing this guy. This is like, like, all right, it's a coin term, but is this legit? And so now I'm seeing like. Now these are like peer reviewed journal articles. Real evidence based practice. I'm seeing like, oh, wow, this is for real. Let me find this guy. Let me try to contact him. How do I reach him? Turns out he's a professor at that one school that I just applied to. Right. It's just. It's just wild. Yeah. You can't explain it's meant to be. And reaching out to him and saying like, and for him to get back to me and just be like, just so humble about it, it was. Had he not gotten back to me or been dismissive in any way, it would have been that to me was the universe winking at me. And had he not been there to then hold space for that, for me to like, feel like, okay, I can actually do this, I don't know where I'd be, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. I don't know what would have happened. Check your emails, folks, check your DMs. I'm feeling guilt of like, what's sitting there, you know, where are those people reaching out? We ask all of our guests for a one good thing. It could be a piece of advice, a mantra, a life hack. What's lifting for you? Don't quit. 15 minutes before the miracle. I heard that in 12 step rooms. And that helped me. There were so many times I was ready to give up on myself, on my mission, on my music, on my job, so many times. And I, I'm so grateful I held on, you know what I mean? And just like 15 more minutes, just 15 minutes. I'm so grateful you hung on. These kids at Mod Haven are so grateful you hung on. And now the ripple that you're putting out into the. That's healing, that's creating is just absolutely beautiful. And I know our listeners are going to want to connect with you. They're going to want to connect with the organization. So tell us where you hang out online. I also want to know if you're on Spotify, can we download some of your music and link it up on the show notes? Absolutely. That'd be dope. And then tell our community what they can do to help you. Do you need funding? Do you need volunteers? Do you need social media followers? Tell us what you need. It's a great question. I mean, really, all the above. Love, I guess. You know, for starters, check me out@hiphoptherapy.com. it's a resource I made free resource centralized to pay homage to Dr. Tyson after he passed. You could find all his work there. You could see all the coverage and yeah, just see what it is. Learn more about it on socials. I'm jchiphop Therapy. You can find me there. The main thing is spreading the word. It's like I think people just don't really know about it or know that this is even an option. And I think the more normalized this can be as something that and people understand instead of just hearing hip hop therapy and thinking like, oh, all right, I guess, you know, like to actually hear it and be like, oh that makes sense. You know, and this is art. Yeah. And so yeah. And once that, once that awareness is built, that lays the foundation for that more evidence based practice and like big grants to do research studies to get it to a point where it can be then synonymous with a CBT or beyond the same. You could look up a local hip hop therapist. Like the goal is to get and hip hop's global. It's not just like in, in New York here. So the goal to build it out to where it's accessible worldwide. How to get there, I could use all the help I can get. I don't know. It'll take a village. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's incredible. I just think you listened to your nudge. You had no idea where it was pushing you that entire time. And you have built something revolutionary as much as evolutionary. And I hope that it continues to evolve. I want more kids involved, I want more stories involved and gosh, we're just rooting for you so intensely. So keep going. Thank you so much. Grateful for you. Thank you. Appreciate you guys for real. Hey friend, thank you so much for joining us today. If you find yourself looking for a place to stay connected and keep learning between episodes, I hope you'll come and join us inside the we are for good community. Yeah, it is free. It's full of incredible non profit leaders like yourself and it's now an app in the Apple App Store and Google Play store. So you can take this community with you wherever you go. Head over to weareforgoodcommunity.com to find us. We cannot wait to see you inside.