David “TC” Ellis
David “TC” Ellis, the Founder and CEO of Studio-4 and Founder of High School for Recording Arts (HSRA), was born in St. Paul, MN. He is a graduate of the St. Paul Open School and was the first rap/Hip Hop artist to release a record in Minnesota.
TC was recruited by Prince and Warner Brothers. After time spent working with Prince and Warner Brothers, Mr. Ellis started an independent recording studio, Studio-4 and worked with a variety of traditional and alternative educational programs.
Through musical work with a number of young black men who had dropped out of high school, David discovered these young artists would often ask questions about how to copyright and publish their work. Guiding them through the process, Mr. Ellis realized that these youths could engage in educational processes while pursuing their career in music. With that realization, the High School for Recording Arts, HSRA, was born.
David has been honored as an Oxford University Roundtable Fellow for his work with Studio-4 and High School for Recording Arts. While at Oxford, David presented his work before leading educators from around the world to wide acclaim.
Essential Learning at Hip Hop High — The Story of HSRA
Tony Simmons
While working with national recording artists as an entertainment lawyer, Tony met David "TC" Ellis and assisted him in the formation of Studio 4 / High School for Recording Arts. He cofounded Another Level Records, the first national student-operated record label. Tony is the Executive Director of the High School for Recording Arts, Co-Founder / Co-Director of the New School Creation Fellowship at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education, and Co-Founder of the Center for Love and Justice at the High Tech High Graduate School of Education.
Tony has served as board member to such leading national school reform organizations as Education Evolving, Reaching At Promise Students Association (RAPSA), Coalition of Independent Charter Schools and Edvisions, Inc.
His association with RAPSA lead to his contribution to the report, "Seizing The Moment: Realizing the Promise of Student-Centered Learning" and to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools report “Over-Age, Under-Credited Students and Public Charter Schools.” He was also a part of the working group that lead to the National Association of Charter School Authorizer report on alternative accountability and has been a member of the Black Alliance for Educational Options.
Tony has been a member of the Saint Paul School District Quality Review Team and a peer reviewer for the Minnesota Department of Education for Federal Charter School Program grants. Tony has keynoted or made major presentations to educators across the United States and internationally in Bangkok, Xian, Vancouver, Montreal, Oxford, and Copenhagen. He attended Howard University and Pace University and also earned a Juris Doctorate from Rutgers University School of Law.
Twitter @tonyminnieapple
Getting Smart (Deeper Learning 2016)
Learning Together (High Tech High Unboxed)
Michael Lipset
Michael holds a BA from the University of Minnesota, an EdM from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a PhD in education from McGill University.
His research focuses on Hip-Hop based education, collaboration between teaching artists and teachers, and ongoing school change. Michael is an award-winning MC, podcast producer and grant-writer as well as a qualitative researcher on high school pushout reengagement, critical digital media literacy, and education. He served as the Founding Executive Director of High School for Recording Arts Los Angeles (now Studio 4 LA) during the 2018-19 school year.
Named one of four top changemakers in the province of Quebec in 2016 by Urbania Magazine, he was also the Director of Social Impact at the High School for Recording Arts, a Faculty Lecturer in Critical Media, Technology and Education at McGill University, and co-author of Hip Hop Genius 2.0: Remixing High School Education.
IG @lastnamelipset
Personal Website
HSRA LA Keynote and Performance (Deeper Learning 2019)
Willie Adams
Willie Adams began his journey as an educator at the age of ten, when his teacher recognized his love for history and public speaking and encouraged him to create and lead a lesson for his peers. Since then his energy, love, and heartfelt dedication to education has set him on an amazing journey leading, coaching, facilitating and empowering learning communities all around the world.
In his over twenty five year career he has served as a teacher and administrator in a variety of schools, non profit organizations, and educational programs. He’s developed and created many innovative strategies and practices that have significantly improved student efficacy and family engagement.
Willie received his BA in Film and Media Studies from the University of California, Irvine, in 1996, and his MA in Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults from the University of San Francisco in 2008. In 2017, Willie became the Director of Education for Purple Playground (non profit music education program) and in 2020, the Co-President of PSPP (The Partnership of Schools with Public Purpose).
In addition to his work in education, Willie has been a professional DJ since 1988. He was an on air personality as well as a music director and mobile DJ coordinator at KUCI 88.9FM Irvine CA (1991-1996). He's now a freelance DJ providing music for events all over the world. He is also a vocalist specializing in Soul, Rock, Blues, Jazz, and Gospel music. Willie is excited and honored to bring his energy and expertise to the 4-Learning team!
Rab Bakari (In Memorium)
Rab has taken his experience as a DJ/Music Producer; Break Dancer; Graffiti Artist and Tech Geek in the heyday of New York’s 1980s/90s Hip Hop boom, around the world, mentoring and producing young, cutting edge Hip Hop artists in unusual places. Unafraid to push Hip Hop past the borders of the USA, Bakari has been a driving force in creating the sound that is African Hip Hop today. He is one of the architects of Ghana Hip Life and a participant of Hip Hop in many countries on the African continent.
He is now expanding into other areas of entertainment such as television production; music publishing; animation; mobile apps; video editing/production; strategies for digital workflows; social network marketing and webcasts. He is credited along with Reggie Rockstone for the birth of Hiplife music. He produced the first four albums for Reggie. All of his hits + other prominent Ghanaian music artists. He is also connected with other Anglophone artists in Nigeria, South African and Kenya. He has hosted/participated in panels at SXSW Music (USA); SMW (Nigeria); CMJ Music Marathon (USA); Cariforum EU Business Forum (Jamaica); Geekend (USA); ONGEA (Kenya); WOMEX; Music In Africa, Ghana DJ Awards, AFRIMA & Take Back The Mic || The Mic: Africa 2020/2021.
Rab does frequent business in West Africa with Accra, Ghana as his base. He also has a base in New York, USA. Besides working for Universal Music Group / Def Jam Records over twelve years, he has an entrepreneurial start-up called MixerPot. Rab is excited to explore 4 Learning opportunities throughout the African Continent, Middle East and Europe. Rab has a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Minor in Electrical Engineering from City College, NY.
TRY Bishop
Jeremy TryBishop Hicks Born September 19th, 1988 In Saint Paul, MN is an American musician, songwriter and a Grammy Award nominated & Dove Award Winning music producer. He has facilitated recording arts learning opportunities at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for Eleanor Duckworth, Steve Seidel and other internationally regarded arts educators. He has also presented at the Deeper Learning Conference at High Tech High in San Diego, CA.
Bishop is, perhaps, best known for producing and co-writing “On the Gospel Side Of Things” for Grammy-Nominated Artist Koryn Hawthorne and both her hit singles "PRAY" & "SPEAK TO ME," both of which were #1 On Billboard's Gospel Digital Sales and were awarded at The 52nd Annual GMA Dove Awards. TryBishop Produced Pooh Sheisty featuring Big $tunt "MONEY GANG" and has had his music licensed in the syndicated hit show "STAR." TryBishop Produced "Why So Serious" for Grammy Nominated artist Da Truth which featured Dove Award Winning/Grammy Nominated artist KB. TryBishop has produced/co-written/engineered/mixed and mastered music with Akon on "BENJAMIN." The Lead Single On Akon’s KONNECT album. He has produced alongside Childish Major on Jeezy’s Seen It All: The Autobiography with co-production on the second half of SZA's "Green Mile." He released a full-length project with the Grammy Nominated singer/songwriter Prince Chrishan and is featured as a producer with the legendary Erick Sermon on his album VERNIA. He has also worked with No Malice on "GO." Bishop also has placements on songs from T-Pain and many more.
Elyse Burden
Elyse Burden is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Real World Scholars, and is passionate about supporting and elevating the work of young people. A Forbes 30 under 30 listmaker, she is the architect behind the EdCorps model, which has launched over 625+ student-run businesses around the U.S. Elyse has presented and facilitated at events around the country, focusing on the entrepreneurial learning process and ecosystem mapping as a tool for project design. She also has contributed to various news outlets about the impact of entrepreneurial learning on 21st century skill development. Elyse holds a B.A. in Political Science from Pepperdine University, and lives in San Diego as the guardian of two teenagers.
Joey Cienian
Joey Cienian serves as the Director of Education at the High School for Recording Arts in Saint Paul, MN. High School for Recording Arts is dedicated to engaging dropped out, overaged, and under-credited students using a highly personalized, creative, and constructivist learning program. HSRA believes in Hip Hop Pedagogy and an Arts Engagement focus to provide a creative and therapeutic environment to re-engage students.
The focus of Joey’s work has been in building out HSRA’s advisory structure, a site-wide commitment to social justice programming, innovative pedagogy in the classroom, competency based assessment models, a portfolio validation system as a core vehicle for student learning, and dynamic project based learning. He is passionate about researching and implementing creative re-engagement techniques that help young people build positive relationships, resiliency skills, start to work through the effects of trauma, and learn topics they find provocative in ways that match their needs.
Joey has worked the last twelve years in education in the Twin Cities as a Paraprofessional, Teacher, and Administrator. The foundation of his work in social justice advocacy came in his years as a Community Organizer working with Greenpeace in Arizona and Minnesota. Joey holds an Honors BA in History and Political Philosophy from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a licensed Social Studies Teacher and has his Masters in Teaching from Hamline University.
Alice Cook
Activist. Educator. Researcher. Alice Cook is a K-12 educator, teacher educator and instructional coach, researcher, and committed member of her community. Alice is a math facilitator at the High School for Recording Arts where she is working with a team designing a Math for Justice project based learning curriculum.
Through her business, Solidarity for Justice Consulting, Cook is co-principal investigator on a NSF grant with the Baltimore Algebra Project, leading youth co-researchers investigating the mathematical identity and agency of African American youth. Cook is a PhD candidate in Minority and Urban Education at the University of Maryland.
Haben Ghebregergish
Haben Ghebregergish is the Lead Math Facilitator at the High School for Recording Arts. Haben is an alum of the University of Chicago and a current student at the Hamline University Graduate School of Education.
Haben has the pleasure of facilitating social justice mathematics courses at HSRA. She also coaches for Bridgemakers, a nonprofit, youth-led organization that works on issues such as education reform and economic justice for marginalized Minnesotans ages 14-25. One of Bridgemakers’ most recent victories was passing a law that made high school students in Minnesota eligible for unemployment benefits.
Alexis Gwin-Miller
Alexis is a change agent for education and an experienced leader with a proven commitment to educational equity and school development. She is a native Memphian and has a demonstrated history of working to improve student achievement with more than twenty plus years of experience in K-12 urban education. She has held leadership roles in school, district, and state level administration in Memphis, TN and with the TN Department of Education, primarily focusing on student achievement and teacher development.
Alexis is also a former New School Creation fellow from the High Tech High Graduate School of Education, a catalyst that has helped build her strong school design portfolio of experiences. She has consulted numerous design teams that tackle local inequities within their landscape. She has done work creating and leading new schools that use personalized learning, competency-based instruction, and advisory programs within project-based learning environments, and she led Memphis’ XQ Super school in its early years.
Alexis is an activist, educational leader, equity warrior, and community developer that fights for economic, education, and social justice. She co-leads the Education Equity Task force with MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope) while serving as the Executive Director of the Power Center Community Development Corporation, and the CEO of her coaching and consulting company, Momentum Edge. As a faith based leader she is passionate about producing opportunities for young people that disrupt multigenerational poverty.
Alexis holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Lemoyne Owen College, a M. S. in Educational Leadership and a M.A. in Curriculum & Instruction from Christian Brothers University, as well as a M.Ed in Education from the High Tech High Graduate School of Education. She has her doctorate in Forming and Growing Faith-Based Nonprofits from Memphis Theological Seminary, and she holds Administrative and Superintendent Licensure with the state of TN. Her passion is to shape learning environments that are transformative, yet authentic.
Scott Herold
Scott Herold is the CEO and Founder of Music nonprofit and Record label Rock the Cause. He is also the CEO and Founder of Hysteria Media, LLC a music management and social marketing company. In 2012 Scott departed from the corporate world to focus full time on Rock the Cause Records. Rock the Cause Record has sold over 400,000 charitable music singles, 50,000 records and their music releases have been streamed 30.5 Million times.
Concurrently, Scott Herold teaches the Business of Music and Media at the High School for Recording Arts (HSRA) in St. Paul, MN and Los Angeles, California. Herold also leads the innovative and high impact Vocational Discovery Job Squad program for High School for Recording Arts.
Timothy Jones
Timothy is a writer, trainer, educator, ordained minister, and pundit of Hip-Hop and youth development. His writing credits include the books Prayers Proverbs Parables and Where are We Going and contributions to various anthologies.
Timothy is the Chief Visionary Officer of HipHopEd www.hiphoped.com and the curator and moderator for the weekly #HipHopEd twitter chat presenting timely discussions on education, hip-hop and youth development.
Timothy is the owner of Techniques4Learning LLC, a company committed to supporting organizations and schools in the areas of youth engagement, youth development, staff training, and program content creation.
Twitter @tdj6899
Norbert Kreuzer
Norbert started as a successful recording engineer and producer in Europe in 1990, earning him two Platinum Record Awards in Germany. He ventured into higher education in 2003 and has worked for Full Sail University in Florida. Since then he has lead two creative career colleges as their Director – President/CEO: IPR – College of Creative Arts in Minneapolis, and the oldest recording school in the world, the Institute of Audio Research in New York City.
Mr. Kreuzer has recently served on the Executive Committee as Treasurer on the board of the largest national accrediting agency ACCSC (Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges), which currently accredits about 650 post-secondary institutions serving 150,000 students each year. He also serves on the board of Pathway College in Pasadena, California, making him an expert in regulatory areas. Mr. Kreuzer is leading DMI and is developing technology validation programs for HSRA.
Habib Siam
Habib Siam is a Lebanese-Canadian educator, writer, and stand-up comic.
He graduated with a Ph.D. in education from McGill University and served as the founding Executive Director of the October’s Very Own-backed “40 Foundation.” He has also worked with UNAC on increasing cultural representation in Canadian media and published a number of articles and book chapters on reimagining traditional approaches to education and schooling.
Habib has written and produced two shows for the Toronto Fringe Festival, and has headlined comedy clubs internationally. He is currently signed to Funny Business, Canada’s leading comedy agency.
A basketball junkie and sneaker collector, Habib is the only Memphis Grizzlies fan who resides outside of Tennessee and may (definitely) own more shoes than anyone you know. He is the Project Manager of 4 Learning’s first international school creation project, Studio 4 Mtl, a francophone version of HSRA.
Renee Swanson
Renee received her undergraduate degree in Genetics and Cellular Biology from the U of MN - Twin Cities. After working in the biotechnology field, she went back to school to receive her Master's of Arts in Teaching, with a license in 9-12 Life Science, from Hamline University. She has been a science teacher and Assistant Director of Education at HSRA for 12 years.
Renee currently is a lead teacher and instructional coach focusing on developing HSRA's hands-on inquiry based learning, blended learning re-engagement strategies in the classroom, art integration through Hip Hop Pedagogy into science and other core content fields, and student-centered competency assessment and portfolio process. Through these endeavors Renee has been able to offer students learning opportunities that extend beyond the classroom into community collaborations, travel opportunities, extensive field trips and site visits and offering a look into the careers related to the content students are learning about. The students at HSRA have received multiple awards and recognition for the work they have done creating environmentally focused hip hop music.
In 2018, Renee was a top 10 finalist for MN Teacher of the Year. Currently Renee is on the Leadership Team for the Minnesota Learner Centered Network, whose mission is to connect and empower educators and students to disrupt systemic racism and to transform learning environments to be student-centered; equitable, relevant, engaging and designed with and for all students.
To keep her work/life balanced, Renee spends most of her extended time off from school keeping life in perspective by traveling with her husband and two kids, mainly by bicycle, around the world. She also enjoys winter camping, trail running and just about anything that gets her outdoors.
Joel Thatcher
Joel Thatcher hails from the picturesque landscapes of Hilo, Hawaii, where he was nurtured amidst the rich cultural tapestry of the islands. With a career in music spanning from his teenage years, Joel's professional journey commenced early, honing his craft as a musician and delving into the intricacies of music production, audio engineering, and the broader spectrum of technological applications.
His multifaceted expertise extends beyond the realm of music, encompassing proficiency in photography, videography, and various facets of technology. Alongside his creative pursuits, Joel has dedicated himself to mentoring young minds, leveraging his experiences to empower the next generation.
Driven by a steadfast commitment to innovation, Joel endeavors to carve out spaces where technology serves as a catalyst for meaningful change. His vision for the future is one where creativity and technology intersect to redefine societal norms, leaving a lasting impact on the landscape of innovation.
Phil Winden
Phil Winden helped launch the High School for Recording Arts in St. Paul, MN with David “TC” Ellis and Tony Simmons as the original studio facilitator. Since then, he has managed the studio production and recording arts program at HSRA and is the Director of Studio Facilitation for 4 Learning.
Phil was born and raised in Minnesota. He has been working in music production for 32 years and specializes in audio engineering, song writing, studio design and installation. In 1997 David Ellis started High School for Recording Arts in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Phil was the studio partner, consisting of one-third of the founding team with the intention of educating youth that were dropping out of traditional Schools. Phil built the studio facility and curriculum for HSRA and collaborated with David Ellis to incorporate academics and HipHop music and culture. During his 26 years of teaching music production, he has consulted, designed and taught the HSRA model of education in several states, institutions and schools that support the arts and project based learning. His passion to work with youth through music allows him to foster child development and social behavior so that young individuals can develop transferable skills to support their ambitions in life and career development.
Scott Martin
Scott “Tenacity” Martin is a professional audio engineer based in Los Angeles with 20 years experience mixing and mastering projects for some of Hip Hop’s most notable independent artists.
Originally from Ann Arbor Michigan, Scott has had a passion for the recording arts since he was a child. In 2018 he began his Studio Facilitator work, serving the young people at the High School for Recording Arts LA. Since then he has mentored 16 - 24 yr olds in their journey to become music industry professionals. “I love what I do and love to see young people chase their dreams.”
Princeton Brown
Princeton Brown is an award winning music producer, recording artist, audio engineer, and educator. He has worked with Grammy and award winning artists such as world renown afro beat artist Davido, Yemi Alade, Jamaican dancehall artist Dexta Daps, and many others. Princeton is the recipient of a Las Vegas film festival award for best soundtrack song with his music collaboration on the motion picture film “Dual Mania.” Not only is Princeton musically gifted but has achieved a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, and has gone on to teach the science of sound to high school students through acoustics, recording, and project based learning. There’s nothing more powerful nor timeless than music in this world, Princeton believes. With this, he plans to live his life by inspiring positive change through music and sound.
Jordan Lyles
Jordan Michael Lyles (born July 28, 1999) known professionally as Jordan Lyles, is an American artist, musician, song writer and record producer. Jordan began his career creating songs in a broken down Ford Explorer and blossomed through the years; all while representing his family, city and most importantly God.
Marcus Porter
Madison, WI, is home to Hip-hop/R&B artist, Engineer & Producer Marcus Porter. Porter, born in Wisconsin, breathes music, which he believes can be uplifting and inspirational to those who make it and consume it. Using hues of Indie, Backpack Rap and hints of R&B, he began to create music for his own ears until he realized that his music also resonated with others . Porter has performed on many large stages, including Lifest, Cap Times Live, Festival Foods Lights The Isthmus, and has hosted many other intimate performances which are engaging and lively. When not creating his own music or performing, Porter spends his time recording out of Odd House Studio, working with youth, and networking to build his brand.