Hip-hop artists visit Kapiti schools

Imon Starr and King Home Boy performing for children at Raumati South School.

Imon Starr and King Home Boy from hip-hop outfit Olmecha Supreme have been visiting schools in Kapiti, running workshops for primary school children.

At Raumati South School yesterday Olmecha Supreme MC Imon Starr said "High school kids have all the opportunities already there for them, so we're focusing on the primary aged kids while they are young and super keen."

Imon Starr, left, and King Home Boy talking about songwriting at Raumati South School.

Organised by Coastella, the musicians visited four schools in the district.

The aim was to get a performance together with the children for the Coastella music festival on Saturday as well as fostering the students interest in music and song writing.

"This is the second one we have done this week and its going so far so good."

Talking to Kapiti News, teacher Charlotte Kerrigan said, "Last year we had The Nukes which was funded by the council.

"Although still subsidised, this time we had to pay but it is still worth it, Imon and King Home Boy have been great."

The workshops covered aspects of song writing such as harmony, instrumentation and writing lyrics through poetry.

After workshopping a song with a year six class Imon and King Home Boy then performed for the rest of the school with the help of the class.

"The song writing process we have been doing is super collaborative," Imon said.

"We work with the kids as much as possible.

"We break down what music is, what a song structure generally looks like and then we start with a topic and start building up a song.

"Verse, chorus, verse, chorus and if we have time we get a bridge in there.

"Today's song is about ice cream and candy, they wanted it to be about murdering Peppa Pig but we thought that was a little bit too salacious, we might get in trouble."

Calling themselves 'fulltime creatives,' Imon and King Home Boy have been involved in workshops and working with children for years.

"We are part of the community so it is important to us to be involved," Imon said.

"Having a background in hip-hop and jazz, freestyle and improvisation, it's natural for us to work with children in song writing because what we do is improvisation around a theme.

"Working with kids you just pick a theme and go for it."