By Timmy
ALI 400 — Chapter 12
In 2013, I received my first opportunity to teach youth within a formal educational setting.
I was assigned to Western Middle School in Louisville—a school widely known for high levels of violence, low test scores, and the kinds of stigmas that had earned it the reputation of being the last middle school in the city where anyone would want to send their children.
And yet, what the school lacked in public perception, it more than compensated for in something far more important:
a deeply rooted culture of love for its students
and a sincere commitment to their well-being.
At Western, I taught:
creative writing,
spoken-word poetry,
and positive hip-hop writing and production.
These were not treated merely as artistic outlets.
They were used as pedagogical tools—
for conflict resolution,
emotional regulation,
and self-expression.
The agency I contracted with paid me $220 per hour.
For the work involved, it was the highest salary I had ever earned.
That detail matters, because it allowed me, as a single father, to lift my family out of poverty through work that was not extractive—
but restorative.
The First Day
On my first day, my agency supervisor introduced me to the principal, counselors, and staff before walking me to the classroom—an in-school recording studio and creative writing space.
Waiting inside were my first three students.
One of them stood with his mother and grandmother.
His name was Timmy.
Timmy was twelve years old.
He was small, visibly fragile, and severely ill.
His mother and grandmother asked to speak with my supervisor and me privately.
In an office away from Timmy, they explained that he had been diagnosed with:
three forms of terminal cancer
and severe scoliosis.
According to his doctors, he was not expected to live past December.
It was September.
They told me the sole reason they had enrolled him in my class was because Timmy loved hip-hop.
They wanted him to have something connected to the music before he died.
It was my first day on the job.
The Idea
Timmy was a white kid from one of Louisville’s poorest white neighborhoods.
As they spoke, a single thought formed immediately in my mind:
Eminem.
When they finished explaining the situation, I smiled quietly and confidently.
“Don’t worry about anything,” I said.
“I’ve got him.”
I walked back into the classroom, introduced myself, and began teaching.
Those three students would go on to teach me far more than I could ever teach them.
When I had a moment, I walked up to Timmy and asked:
“So—who’s your favorite rapper?”
He lit up instantly.
“Eminem!”
At the time, Eminem sat at the peak of hip-hop culture.
He had broken racial and cultural barriers so thoroughly that nearly every white kid in America claimed him with pride.
The Method
I said,
“Alright. Here’s what we’re going to do.
What’s your favorite Eminem song?”
He told me.
I said,
“Perfect. Today we’re going to write every lyric down.
Then you’re going to go home and memorize it.
When you come back next week, you’ll have it memorized.”
He nodded eagerly.
“After that,” I continued,
“we’re going to practice performing the song exactly the way Eminem did it—
his cadence,
his delivery,
his timing—
until you can perform it just as well as he can.”
Then I told him the real plan.
“Once we do that, we’re going to remix his style.
We’ll fuse it with your personality and create something entirely new.
You’ll keep the technical excellence—
but the voice will be yours.”
The look in his eyes changed immediately.
He believed me.
The Transformation
That belief spread.
Within three weeks, the level of buy-in from those students was extraordinary.
The classes became:
focused,
disciplined,
deeply healing.
What stunned me was not that the methodology worked in a formal setting—
but how fast it worked.
To launch the program, we produced a positive hip-hop concert in the school auditorium.
I headlined the event.
During the first song—
by the end of the first chorus—
the entire auditorium was singing lyrics to a song they had never heard before.
Everything was immediate.
The Miracle
By the end of the school year, Timmy and I had created five original songs, complete with music.
And then something happened that no one could explain.
Timmy lived past December.
By that point, his scoliosis had begun to reverse.
He was standing straighter.
There was a light in his eyes that everyone noticed—
teachers,
staff,
his family.
By May, at the end of the school year, Timmy had recovered from all three forms of cancer.
He was pronounced fully healed.
He stood tall.
He was vibrant.
He was alive.
The Lesson
It was as if he had been given an entirely new lease on life—
because someone had shown him that he could become something more than what his circumstances had named him.
And that year taught me something I have never forgotten:
The power of positive hip-hop is not symbolic.
It saves lives.
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