Episode 107 Transcript: Hip Hop Therapy

Aliah Wright:
This is Social Work Talks, and I'm your host, Aliah Wright. Joining us today is J.C. Hall, MSW, LCSW, a hip hop therapist and school social worker based in the Bronx, New York. He works at a high school there where he's the Hip Hop Therapy Studio Program Director. For 11 years, J.C., a clinical social worker, has turned his love of working with youth and hip hop into a career that he adores. He says that hip hop, with its ability to help heal, saved his life. The students he works with in the South Bronx, where the graduation rate is 54.7 percent but improving, use this genre of music as a form of self-expression, helping them to share their stories, struggles, and triumphs in a way that resonates with their peers. It also provides a sense of belonging and empowerment, helping them navigate through the challenges they face each day. Welcome, J.C.

J.C. Hall:
Thank you so much for having me. This is an absolute honor and a privilege. I really appreciate it.

Aliah Wright:
J.C., could you start by telling us a bit about yourself and why you became a social worker?

J.C. Hall:
Yeah, that's a great question. I'm going to give you the long answer, if that's cool. I might go off on some tangents. To be honest, I was very skeptical about becoming a social worker and applying to school. Basically, I got my bachelor's in science and psych, and then after graduating college, the best job I could get was delivering pizza, which I loved. I could just ride around, bump music all day, write, deliver pizza. It was a great, great job. And I was also pursuing my music career as an independent artist, self-releasing records expecting and hoping that would pop off.

I had a love/hate relationship with academia because I felt like it was pulling away from my artistry and time that I would be putting towards creating what I love. And what you even said in the intro, what really helped heal me, and engaging with hip hop music, just to double down on that statement, it absolutely saved my life. It came to me at a point in my life where I was at my absolute lowest, and I don't think that that is coincidence. I was reaching for any life vest I could grab onto. I was always in love with the music and immersed in the culture, growing up in New York, but never took a crack at participating in it and actually writing and putting my thoughts down on paper and then rapping on a mic and sharing it with peers until I was about 15.

That was also when I was first diagnosed with major depression and really struggling with drug addiction and alcoholism. Hit the ground running at a very young age and really didn't think I'd see 16. There really was very, very little hope, and hip hop helped hold me over for a long time. I would say up until I got into substance abuse treatment and also in therapy. Initially with therapy, it didn't resonate until I found the right therapist. My first several years, I would go sleep on my shrink's couch. I was just kind of like, "Hey, you don't understand a single thing about me. I don't know what you're talking about, and I could not care less. I'm here to take a nap." That was really it. "I'm going to just sleep off my hangover. I got drunk in school, let me sleep this off. I'll go home. We'll be good."

That was really my only experience. And he would just let me sit there, and there was zero exchange. And then I finally landed in therapy in one of my treatment centers. I was introduced to the therapist I see to this day. I've been working with this man for, what, 17 years? No, 18 years. Dude helped save my life. Incredible. It was really about the relationship and he was a bit of a poet himself, and I think that's why we connected on that artistic level. He was the first therapist that didn't see my identification with hip hop culture as part of the problem. Therapists, just because of the cultural disconnect, seemed to always just see hip hop was street, criminal activity. They were like, "That's a part of his problem." They didn't see that as a strength. They didn't see how that was helping carry me through, that ability to just have some space where I could write down how I felt and then rap it to my peers and have my peers look at me and say like, "Yo, that was dope. That was incredible."

Especially coming from someone feeling terminally unique, no one could ever understand me. I'm just a garbage human being. Just really feeling like that and acting out in those ways and doing just shameful things. Now all of a sudden, I got peers around me congratulating me, and even though I'm rapping about those things, they're finding... There was a hope in it. That helped boost me up. Going back to your initial question, hip hop saved my life and it's something I'll do to the day I die. I still record music first and foremost for myself.

I got into psychology because I wanted to understand the human brain, how it works, and I just was throwing darts in the dark. I was like, "I don't know, it's generally interesting." Got my bachelor's in it. You can't really do anything with that. Someone told me about social work, and I started looking into social work programs. I went to Fordham for undergrad. I figured, "You know what, Fordham's got a pretty solid, top 10 social work graduate program. Let me just apply there. I'm familiar with the campus, kind of hope they don't accept me, don't really care if I get in. I'd rather just pursue my music, but let me get my parents off my back and make it look like I'm making moves." And they accepted me and I was like, "Oh no." I was just like, "Oh man, now I got to actually go."

The summer going into that year, 2010, I overheard someone say about music therapy, and I'd never heard of that. It was a revolutionary idea to me. I was like, "Wow, let me look into this." I start really diving into searching. I find a program at NYU, I find all these different programs. I'm like, "Okay, forget social work. Let me jump into that." And I was about to apply to these programs, but I'm reading through the eligibility requirements and you have to know how to sing and play three instruments. As a hip hop artist, personally, I don't know how to play any instruments, I can't read sheet music. I can make beats and rap, but that wasn't within their definition of what music making was in order to get... I don't know if that's changed much, but those programs weren't built with hip hop in mind.

So now I'm stuck. Social work sounded great because I wanted to really be in the trenches more so than... My vision of therapists a lot of the times in psychology, stereotypical as it is, where it's people in ivory tower, lay on a couch, very disconnected from the communities that they're working in. I thought social work was a lot more in the trenches and wanted to... So I was bummed. I was like, "Man, so music therapy is not for me." In the Google search bar, I cut out music. Randomly get this idea, "Let me put in hip hop and see if hip hop therapy pops up." Random. Really didn't think anything would come of it. All of a sudden, there's a whole list of pages when I press enter in the Google search. I'm scrolling Google-

Aliah Wright:
Got to love Google.

J.C. Hall:
Right? Shout out to you, Google. I keep seeing this guy's name, because I'm looking for any sign of legitimacy. I'm like, "All right, it's a term that's coined or whatever, but this can't be legit. What is this?" I'm looking through, and now I'm finding scholarly peer review journal articles, and I keep seeing this guy's name, Dr. Tyson, Dr. Tyson. I'm like, "Who is this dude?" And I go to look for his contact in one of his papers, and it turns out he's the professor at that one school that I had just applied for for my graduate program, back at Fordham. It was just like, "Wow." It was one of those serendipitous moments where everything in my life, those puzzle pieces, randomly fit together at a time where I was just existentially at a very low point like, "What am I doing with myself?"

I reached out to him. I sent them a novel of an email saying, "Man, I've read everything you've ever written. I would love to just pick your brain shadow you anything, man. You need a research assistant, you need someone to like... Anything. I'll get you coffee, you name it." Just totally... And he hit me back, the most humble dude I've ever met. It was just like, "Yo man, let's meet up. Let's link. No biggie. I appreciate. I respect what you're saying hip hop has always done to you." I gave him a whole personal story, way too much information. He is like, "I relate with that. That's part of why I've created this."

We meet behind the school. He pulled up in a Yankee fitted cap and he had a cross on a silver chain, and off rip, in his suit. Professor in a suit, and it was off rip. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to vibe with this guy." And we just clicked. We just clicked. And he was my professor for several years, mentor, colleague. We started doing presentations together. We were working on a book together up until he passed suddenly in 2018. Rest in peace.

Aliah Wright:
I'm sorry for your loss.

J.C. Hall:
Thank you. I appreciate that. For me, it's like I'm sorry personally, but I'm more sorry for the world. He was just such a brilliant dude and there's so much he was working on that he had in the tuck. Chapters on chapters that just never surfaced after he passed. He coined the term, first originated the approach "hip hop therapy" in the mid-nineties, working in Miami-Dade County. And the dude was brilliant. He was a researcher, a statistician, and a brilliant clinician. Really solid, all around, had everything, you know what I mean? Had every facet of that. It was a loss personally, but also to the field, to the world. Ever since, I've really just been trying to push the word forward, help by creating HipHopTherapy.com. It was really like, "This is the guy who founded it, this is what it is." All his work is linked there, everything he's ever published, because that's the dude right there.

Aliah Wright:
That's incredible, J.C. Now let's dive deeper into the connection between hip hop and therapy. How does hip hop therapy specifically benefit high school students? I want you to walk our listeners through how exactly you practice this.

J.C. Hall:
Yeah, that's a great question. Another great question. I think I would say hip hop therapy really could be effective anywhere. I happened to be in a high school because that's where my second clinical internship was at, and I was able to just build this program, professional studio, from the bottom up. And I stayed there going into year 11, right now. How it impacted, I would say the majority of... First and foremost, I would say the recognition and validation of hip hop culture and healing spaces is one of the biggest things. Just from my experience, as a client, as someone receiving services, having never been in a space where that was seen as a strength. My identification with the culture, my love for the music, it was just never seen as a strength. If anything, it was seen as a weakness as part of whatever condition they thought I was dealing with.

First and foremost, it's like you see these kids that come from this very institutionalized setting. It's within a high school. It's the second chance high school. It's kids who have not been served by their traditional public schools, have slipped through the cracks, so they're two or more years behind. They could be 18 years old with freshman credits, and they have up until 21 to graduate. It's in these buildings, these schools in the South Bronx, they look like prisons, like barred windows. They enter the space and they walk in and it's covered with artwork of all their favorite artists. It's got all the latest professional sound recording equipment, turntables, the soundproof booth, professional microphone, beat pads. Off rip, you can just see the look on their faces. It's almost like the defenses drop, you know what I mean?

It melts away, almost like when the burden's relieved and you just drop your shoulders. You see it immediately. That's just off rip. I think the biggest thing, initially at least, getting the foot in the door, is creating a space where healing can really occur and genuine exchange can occur and rapport building. That hierarchy is broken down. It's not like they're coming to me as if I'm the expert, and they're there to just listen and be told how to behave. We're meeting there under the mutual common ground of we love hip hop and if you want to create it, I can help you do that. I'm not there to tell you what's good hip hop, bad hip hop. You want to create something? Let's do that.

In the same way you would have certain goals in treatment that you might go into. "I want to work on this particular relationship. I want to work on this particular mood or address this particular symptom." You can approach it in the same way, it's just changing the environment into a much more culturally responsive and sustaining environment. Which in practice, it has greatly increased graduation rates, it's making the kids much more excited about coming to school, which is a huge plus and part of what I have to show to continue the program. But for me, it's much bigger than school. It's much more about self-actualization. It's a lot more about them finding joy and spaces to play. You know what I mean? And they might not necessarily want to go become professional artists, even though they can. And many of them are extremely talented. Even if they go end up going into an audio trade school, they have some basics how to work pro tools, so now they can get jobs.

Engineers can make good money recording others. There are tangible things that are really important, but also more social and emotional. It's a space where they can connect with others. And a lot of times, they're from differing neighborhoods. They're from beefing blocks, different gangs, and they get to come in this space where we're here under the common flag of hip hop. And kids who normally, had they seen each other on the streets, it'd be a very different interaction than when they're seeing each other in the studio. And it's very humanizing in that sense. You're listening to your classmate make music and you're like, "Oh, wow, I relate with that. I feel that emotion. I know what that's like to struggle with my mom. I know what that's like to not have any resources and to go hungry for nights."

Then all of a sudden, they start talking and building these bonds. It's a whole group of kids who normally would never really necessarily click, just like hip hop in general. I'm a white kid from the suburbs. Hip hop, one of the most powerful things of it is transcends a lot of these racial, ethnic, socioeconomic barriers that have traditionally divided us, as a way of cutting through and speaking to the human spirit. In the same way these kids, in a microcosm of what's going on globally, happening in that studio and the healing that can occur with that. And then as a therapist coming in and intentionally trying to work and address certain traumas, whether in an individual setting or a group setting, and a lot of it trying to just process, for example, incarceration, all forms of injustices, whether it's maybe crimes that they've potentially committed or that the justice system itself has committed upon them.

Really just trying to work through a lot of what they've been through. South Bronx is still the poorest congressional district in the country. 49 percent of kids are living below the federal poverty line. And recently post-Covid, especially just wild, wild gang violence. Community violence through the roof. A lot that the kids are witnessing and being exposed to and losing people really close to them and having some kind of space where they can come together and process all of that and start working through some of that. But also find joy, because not all about just focusing on the sad. They come in and they light up. They're not just working through the negative, they're finding something positive to strive for, something that gets them out of bed. Like, "Oh, I can't wait to record today. I can't wait to go to drop this song later." To give them purpose.

A lot of therapy is stereotypically seen as focusing on the negatives. And it's not about building capacities, it's more about addressing traumas that have happened to us or negative things, but it's also about fostering joy and happiness and purpose and finding some sort of mission in life. So trying to create space for that. And that's really all through the social work lens. Arguably, what social work is bringing to the table of mental health professions is that person-in-environment perspective. It's understanding that people... Our sanity is often outsourced. We can only be as mentally well as the environments we live within. When we come from very sick environments, it's almost impossible not to become sick. What are we doing to work with individuals, not just to bolster them as individuals, but to empower communities to confront systems. And that's what hip hop was born out of. It was born out of confronting oppressive and racist systems and policies. And hip hop therapy is, arguably, doing the same thing within a medium that has traditionally been a very Eurocentric, upper-middle-class modality.

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Aliah Wright:
Now this year marks the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop. Now, before I continue with my questions, I would be remiss if I did not ask your favorite hip hop artists.

J.C. Hall:
Oh, that's solid. You got me there. Can I give you a top... Oh, man. Even top five is tough. Pac...

Aliah Wright:
How about top three?

J.C. Hall:
Top three? That's good. I got to say, I got to say Pac, Big, and Em. Pac is my number one, though. Pac will always be my number one. Something about the [inaudible 00:19:27]

Aliah Wright:
And that's Tupac, for those who don't know.

J.C. Hall:
Sorry, yes, yes. A hundred percent. Currently, you got Kendrick, J. Cole... There's some... Yeah.

Aliah Wright:
I was going to go with old school and contemporary, but I think we went there. When did you first encounter hip hop?

J.C. Hall:
Ever since early elementary school, but I'd say the first time that it really stands out was the Fugees. It was Lauryn Hill, was the first... I was always really fascinated with the English language and writing poetry and classes and stuff. And Lauryn was the first one I heard where my mind was blown with what she was able to do, the way she was able to wield words, and just in and out of the beat. And the poetics behind it were so dense that I was just like, "This is brilliant. This is poetry on steroids." I was drawn to it at that young age, and then Big Pun came in. But I would say Lauryn Hill was the first MC I really heard that was like, "Oh, this is it. This is the music right here."

Aliah Wright:
Can you tell us how this genre has evolved and impacted the lives of the students you work with and where you see the future of hip hop therapy heading, or where you'd like for it to head?

J.C. Hall:
Hip hop therapy? That's a good... How it's evolved, and what's been so beautiful about this 50th anniversary, is seeing it on these mainstream stages, these news outlets covering it, all these articles coming out. It's beautiful to see it get some shine and recognition for what it is. It's like the undergirding structure that holds a lot of popular culture. It has its arms in everything. It's influenced everything from fashion, the way we talk, the way we act, the way we move. It's not just the music, it's a culture, whether it's the dance, the dress.

So to get some of its roses this year was a really beautiful thing because I feel like it has not always gotten its roses. And I think it's a bedrock of a lot of the way I came up and a lot of others. People have been born in the hip hop generation. That phrase was coined for a reason. It's just so intertwined into how our modes of being, culturally. It represents redemption and resilience of those living on the margins. If you really think about the communities it was birthed from, which I'm blessed to be able to work in. The kids that I work with are from these areas. How it's just transcended and now it's a global multi-billion dollar phenomenon. Breaking is about to be in the Olympics, 2024. It's a beautiful thing.

Even though it's become very mainstream and it catches a lot of flack for that, it's still used as a force for good behind the scenes and for sociopolitical resistance, whether it's in the green movements or fighting for racial justice. That's a part of its DNA. I don't think that can get whitewashed out of it by corporations as much as there's that fear, and it's happening in certain instances, but the culture in its pure form, I think, it's much stronger than that.

Aliah Wright:
When you think about the future of hip hop and therapy, do you envision practices like yours across the country where you have students who are actually creating music and using that as a form of therapy and being able to be in a studio and seeing how a studio works and being a part of something?

J.C. Hall:
Yeah, I would say-

Aliah Wright:
Is this something that's being replicated right now? Or do you see that in the future of it being replicated in other places?

J.C. Hall:
I see this being replicated across the world. Wherever an identification with hip hop culture exists, which is everywhere. Seoul, Japan, Guatemala, my good friend, Dr. Elliot Gann, he's got a therapeutic beat making model. He travels the world. He's in Australia right now. He was in Costa Rica. It's like going and implementing this. Hip hop has taken root everywhere. Therefore, hip hop therapy would be useful everywhere. Not just schools, but prisons, community centers, wherever there's a therapist. Ideally in a dream world, the same way you could look up right now like, "Oh, let me go on this website and look up a cognitive behavioral therapist." You could go up and say, "Okay, I live in Austin, Texas and I want to look up five hip hop therapists that I can choose from in my area." Or however many. Having some sort of...

Getting it to that point is a long journey. I would say over the past decade, a lot of the work that, at least, I've been trying to do and others like me have been just trying to help legitimize it and even get it into the public discussion. When I first was in grad school, my first day I said, "I want to be a hip hop therapist." And they laughed at me. They thought it was a joke. It's still fighting for recognition and validation, but I think it's gotten to a point now where it's even having such an opportunity like this to be able to have this conversation or presenting at national conferences and global conferences. The recognition is there. The next step is the next decade needs to be more about, what does it mean to be a hip hop therapist, possible credentialing, how do you quality control?

Because right now, anybody could just say, "I'm a hip hop therapist." Anybody could, and there's no way to really control for that. That might require creating some sort of organization, some sort of nonprofit, some sort of governing body. A lot of that is stuff I think about and I'm talking with others about, but I love just doing the work. It's a little overwhelming for me because I like really just working with the kids and not necessarily, I'm not as well-built for the rest of that, but I'm also understanding and aware that that needs to be done if this is to be accessible everywhere.

Aliah Wright:
What advice would you give to those social workers who may be considering entering clinical practice and using hip hop as a means to help clients?

J.C. Hall:
I would say really do your homework. First and foremost, it's a culture. And if you don't identify with it... If you're embedded in it and whether you're a participant in it or not, whether you are MC, whether you're tagging, whether or not you're a participant, it's going to kind of change how I would give advice for that. If you are within it and embedded within it, I would really just say trust your gut. If you are of hip hop and are hip hop and identify... For me, the biggest thing was trusting my gut because a lot of people would try to sway me different ways and tell me why it's not therapeutic or why not to use it, the potential risks.

But then if you're coming in as an outsider, which is okay, just do your homework. Try to immerse yourself as much as you can and develop an appreciation for, and try to understand as much as you can any other culture. Just you might eat a certain food from this particular country doesn't make you an expert in that. It's the same as just because you might use hip hop in your practice... Having some sort of cultural humility, I think is ultimately what it boils down to and being open, but also don't be scared. If that's what your clients identify with, you'd be remiss not to try to incorporate it in some way. And you can do it in very basic ways. It could be as simple as, "Hey, show me a song you really like. Let's look at the lyrics together. Let's discuss what are you identifying with? What's your favorite line? Help me understand."

Even now... I grew up on hip hop music. A lot of music comes out now that I don't even know what they're saying. Sometimes it's mumbled and I can't make it out. I'll sit with the kid and say, "Show me. Walk me through this. What is it about this that you like?" I'm not judging them or saying like, "Oh, that's not real hip hop." I'm just trying to understand. It's a tool for conversation and rapport building and showing you respect what they like. Because when you shut the door on that, especially when someone personally identifies with it deeply, it's like saying no to that person. It's like saying not just, "I don't like the music you love." It's like, "I don't like you." That's how it can come across. Trust your gut, be humble, and push for it, because it's not always going to be accepted in a lot of spaces.

Aliah Wright:
We spoke before about some documentaries and some other things that you wanted to share as we wind down with your final thoughts. Can we talk about that a little bit?

J.C. Hall:
I would definitely love to encourage people to check out Mott Haven, M-O-T-T Haven. It's a short documentary that came out. It was shot in 2014/2015, and it's available on Vimeo, on YouTube. But it really just documents the origins of the hip hop therapy program that I run. And you get to really see it from the eyes of the youth. You get to see their growth journeys through it. It's heavy stuff, so forewarning, but it's so beautiful. And two of the kids, Ephraim and Biggie, we just put out this newer short film/experimental music video out, of them, almost a decade later. They're talking a lot about how they're still using hip hop for healing and how it's helped them through some serious traumas and tragedies in their lives and the strengths that they find within it.

Check those out, side by side, if you have the time Mott Haven being the first, you get to really see the program in action, which is the perfect qualitative study in my mind. And then Byways is the second film, that's on Vimeo. That's almost like a longitudinal follow-up where you get to see how these kids are still using hip hop for that purpose years, years later. Ultimately, the goal of it is to help one develop a therapeutic relationship with the culture that they identify with and help provide those resources for self-empowerment.

Aliah Wright:
And we also talked about the website, HipHopTherapy.com, and that's where people can find you, right?

J.C. Hall:
Yeah. And it's a centralized resource for all free information.

Aliah Wright:
Listeners, we're going to have that in our show notes. But I just want to again, ask you if there's any final thoughts from you about hip hop and therapy?

J.C. Hall:
Man, I just really want to thank you for this opportunity. Anyone who's even listened this far, I appreciate it. I know how I've seen it impact the lives of the individuals I've been blessed to work with and how much I would've benefited from something like this when I was coming up. I really just want to encourage you to give it a second look, especially if it's something that, at first glance, seems counterintuitive, just give it a shot. There's a lot of people out here who would benefit from this. A lot of people identify with hip hop and love hip hop. Thank you.

Aliah Wright:
Thank you, J.C. And thank you, listeners, for tuning into this episode of Social Work Talks. We hope you've enjoyed our conversation with J.C. Hall about the transformative power of hip hop therapy. You can learn more about the things we've discussed in the show notes on our website, where you'll also find links to HipHopTherapy.com, as well as individual links to the documentaries we've discussed, and to the upcoming conference, and that is the Global Exchange Conference. And also Psychotherapy Networker 2023 Conference. Thank you so much for listening.

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