DETROIT, MI. (Motown Center) - The following article written by Susan Whitall is rerun for Motown Center with permission from The
Detroit News.
For Jontash Green, the assembly last winter at Southeastern High School was just another excuse for adults to talk, and for kids to tune out.
The visitors were from Berry Gordy Jr.'s Motown Center, but to a 15-year-old Detroiter in 2006, the name Motown has a faded, old-school ring to it.
Doubtful teenage faces glowered from underneath hooded sweat shirts as the students listened to Tanya Heidelberg-Yopp and Brian Stevenson of Motown Center as they gave their pitch.
The plan was for an after-school program with veteran Motown producers like Brian and Eddie Holland and Clay McMurray giving inspirational talks. A staff of young producers would lead the kids through the process of recording a CD.
Even given Motown's history molding teenagers into recording stars and producers, what happened at Southeastern over the next few months surprised everybody.
The kids came up with a name: Young Dynasty Entertainment, and designed a logo. They recorded a lively, polished CD, half rap (the "street side") and half ballads (the "sweet side") that is good enough to be shopped to record companies.
Along the way, the 83 students who ended up in the program discovered hidden talents, were shown how to turn negative feelings into poetry, rap and songs, and had a crash course in Gordy Work Ethic 101.
The Motown After School program -- launched at Southeastern and Detroit School of Arts in February -- has been so successful Motown Center plans to expand it to more schools next year.
At the celebration party at Southeastern in June, the teens were so excited they were bouncing off the cafeteria walls. And on Aug. 8, YDE will perform a free show at 7 p.m. at the City Theater in downtown Detroit and show everyone what they've accomplished.
Program shares the magic
Eighteen years after he sold Motown Records, Gordy, 76, is obviously thinking about his company's impact on future generations.
"We were trying to figure out how to best celebrate the Motown legacy in Detroit," said Heidelberg-Yopp, a Detroit attorney and president of Gordy's Motown Center, a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation and celebration of the Motown legacy. "We wanted to share the magic, the family love, support and teamwork."
The after-school program that Gordy and Heidelberg-Yopp devised and launched in February was intended to not only teach the nuts and bolts of the recording process, but also to give Gordy-type motivation to drifting teens.
At Southeastern and the Detroit School of Arts, the kids were taught with some of the principles Gordy used to build Motown Records.
The producers used Gordy aphorisms like "competition builds champions," "respect the mike," and perhaps Gordy's most famous line, delivered at Motown's weekly "quality control" meetings: "If you had a dollar, would you buy this record, or would you buy a hot dog?"
The rules were clear: You had to attend class, or you couldn't come to the twice-weekly Motown after-school program.
Out of 1,200 students gathered that winter day at Southeastern, some 90 volunteered for the program and 83 showed up. Green was one of them.
He was determined not to get his hopes up. With 83 kids of a similar mind-set, the program didn't start with a bang. But the adults forged on.
Much of the program -- salaries for Heidelberg-Yopp and others and day-to-day expenses -- was funded by Gordy. Then U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Detroit, were able to help tap into U.S. Department of Education funds.
Putting the program in the Detroit School of Arts, with its population of creative high achievers, was a no-brainer. Southeastern High, which is in the middle of a struggling neighborhood, seemed a less likely choice.
Surface impressions can be deceiving.
Gordy learned that in the late '50s and early '60s, when he took working- class kids from high schools like Northern, Northwestern and Miller, many from housing projects, and honed them into world-class recording stars.
Students had hidden talents
There still was no warning in February that a baritone David Ruffin-esque singing voice was thrumming somewhere within the slight frame of Southeastern student Dartez Jones, 17.
When producers asked at an early session who thought they could sing, a voice piped up from within Jones' hoodie: "I can sing."
Because the Motown Center facilitators had stressed that nobody should be discouraged from trying, they listened.
The wiry youth, his face still obscured by the hoodie, suddenly unleashed a honey on sandpaper baritone: "Sunshine, blue skies, please go away, my love has found another and gone away."
Mouths dropped. Where did that come from?
Jones, whose teenage reserve drops as soon as you say hello, bubbled over: "Oh, that was my record. I used to watch 'The Temptations' movie (on DVD), and I'd see him do that."
Jones did so well on the Temptations song that producers constructed a hip-hop ballad around it for Southeastern's finished CD, "Young Dynasty Entertainment." Jones starts out the song singing, but then he changes gears and starts rapping, Tupac-style.
"It turned out to be a wonderful thing to do a Motown song, since this was a Motown program," said producer Marcus Devine.
By the time Motown veteran McMurray visited, the kids had shucked their initial shyness.
"These kids are hungry to be nurtured and to have their talent developed, and this program is so right on the money," said McMurray, who produced Gladys Knight's "If I Were Your Woman."
Not all the students could sing or rap; some were steered to administrative jobs like marketing (that was, after all, Gordy's path) or became part of the dance team. But several of the kids made the cut and became the CD's featured artists.
Green, who refused to have any expectations in February, is now "JT," a confident rapper, and has seen his grades rise from a C to a C plus average. The poems that 10th-grader Angelisa Walker wrote into a school notebook are now two beautiful ballads, "Boy I Love U" and "Two Tears" (and "Ask Me My Name," co-written with Amber Kindrow).
Walker sings with a youthful vulnerability that will remind older listeners of a teenage Mary Wells.
It's give and take
The rawness of the talent didn't bother producer Devine.
"Raw gives you something to work with," he said. "Sometimes when people are polished, it's hard to work with them because they feel they're already arrived."
To the kids' surprise, not only did the adults talk in the Motown in the Schools program, but they also listened. What the program directors heard was surprising, and sometimes heart-rending.
In an early session, spoken word artist Mike "Mike E" Ellis tried to get the students to open up. He told the kids how once, during a low period, he wondered why he was ever born.
When Ellis asked the kids to raise their hands if any of them had ever felt the same way, a flurry of hands shot up from at least half the room.
"We were surprised," Stevenson said. "Most kids are very guarded, initially suspicious of people in authority."
Jones was bored and struggled with anger, but he says the program helped him deal with those feelings.
"Mrs. Yopp gave me a good idea, she said every time I get mad, if I could just make my music, everything would be good," Jones said. "So I took that advice. Every time I get mad, I take a piece of paper, and I just write."
For his part, Motown's founder is pleased with the kids' progress. Gordy commented, through Heidelberg-Yopp: "I'm happy with the job Tanya and her team are doing with this exciting program. I'm glad to see young people growing in a positive direction."
At the party in June celebrating the CD release, far from being cool and sullen, the students were practically airborne. As the kids, parents and the Motown Center staff ate lunch catered from Lola's and played the CD, Green was happy to admit he was wrong.
"Once I started coming on a day-to-day basis I saw the progress, and how much it changed me," Green said.
After remarks by the Motown Center staff, the complete CD of six songs was played.
It wasn't planned, but a fiery confluence of teenage hormones and party atmosphere prompted first Jones, and then the rest of the kids, to leap out of their seats and lip-synch their songs.
As Jones enacted first his Temptations vocal, then a fluid, articulate rap, he seemed to lose his teenage awkwardness.
Once the show was over, the teen reverted to form. "Do you want my autograph?" he asked a visitor excitedly.
You can reach Susan Whitall at (313) 222-2156 or [email protected].
