Throughout the nation, college students and households are struggling to regulate to busing adjustments. From New Jersey to Arizona, faculty bus driver shortages are creating hours-long bus rides, delays, and different frustrations. Louisville, Kentucky, stories a comparatively easy begin by way of transportation for Jefferson County Public Colleges (JCPS) college students—however that’s solely due to the choice to chop bus routes to lots of its conventional and magnet faculties.
As you may anticipate, the transfer hasn’t come with out its justifiable share of backlash. Protests, complaints, and even a lawsuit are underway. And now, in accordance with WAVE, issues have taken a inventive flip with the discharge of a hip-hop protest video that includes Louisville college students.
“The place My Bus At?” and the ability of scholar voices
Titled “The place My Bus At?,” the tune is the most recent type of protest towards JCPS’s busing cuts. And it’s making waves for extra causes than one. The Actual Younger Prodigys are the artists behind this hit. They’re a bunch of JCPS college students who’re additionally a part of HHN2L—quick for Hip-Hop Into Studying, created as a platform for Black youth to make use of hip-hop, music movies, and journey to spark optimistic change on native, state, and even world ranges.
The group, co-founded by NyRee Clayton-Taylor and her husband, Antonio Taylor, is all about giving college students a voice. Clearly, this newest undertaking does precisely that. The Taylors shared that the concept for the video got here from the scholars themselves. Over the summer season, JCPS’s new transportation plan turned a sizzling matter within the native information. And within the midst of frustration, an concept was born.
“Our college students have been coping with busing points for some time now,” Clayton-Taylor defined. “A number of months in the past, they determined they wished to deal with the problem in their very own manner. Try “The place My Bus At?” right here:
Highly effective lyrics for highly effective change
The lyrics on this tune are positively price unpacking. They’re highly effective, good, and convincing!
“I want that it was again prefer it was earlier than/I miss it when the bus got here straight to my door.”
“Fairly woman that’s educated/getting straight As I’m motivated/Catch a rebound on the playground/Why y’all take my transportation?”
The scholars of The Actual Younger Prodigys do one thing nobody else can: inform their story from their viewpoint. This primary-person perspective makes viewers take into account the person human expertise in what could possibly be tempting to dismiss as a mere bureaucratic setback.
These two strains particularly are too good to overlook:
“I’m an excellent child/I keep in school, too/lecturers wish to me to succeed, however I can’t get to high school”
“It’s all on the information/However I don’t wish to fuss/Don’t acquired nobody to drive/Maintain up, let me whip the bus”
Somebody get these youngsters a document deal!
Artistic options and the street forward
The video highlights a serious concern: Many college students have misplaced entry to their faculties of alternative because of the bus-route cuts. In whole, 43 JCPS faculties have been impacted by the district’s determination. In accordance with JCPS, the hope is that if extra bus drivers grow to be accessible, a few of these companies could possibly be reinstated.
However within the meantime, the scholars of HHN2L aren’t ready round for change to occur by itself. They’re utilizing their skills and voices to maintain the dialog going. “Music is their language,” mentioned Taylor. “That is how they inform their tales, and we couldn’t be prouder of them for expressing themselves in such a strong manner about actual points that have an effect on their lives.”
So, whereas the buses won’t be rolling for everybody simply but, the scholars’ message is obvious: They’re not sitting quietly on the sidelines. And who is aware of? Perhaps a catchy beat and a few well-placed lyrics will probably be simply the factor to get the wheels turning—each actually and figuratively.
