“The place My Bus At?” Louisville College students Protest Busing Cuts With Viral Hip-Hop Video
Throughout the nation, college students and households are struggling to regulate to busing modifications. From New Jersey to Arizona, college bus driver shortages are creating hours-long bus rides, delays, and different frustrations. Louisville, Kentucky, stories a comparatively easy begin when it comes to transportation for Jefferson County Public Faculties (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 line 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 pupil voices
Titled “The place My Bus At?,” the tune is the newest type of protest in opposition to 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 constructive change on native, state, and even international 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 mission does precisely that. The Taylors shared that the thought for the video got here from the scholars themselves. Over the summer time, JCPS’s new transportation plan grew to become a scorching subject within the native information. And within the midst of frustration, an thought was born.
“Our college students have been coping with busing points for some time now,” Clayton-Taylor defined. “A couple of months in the past, they determined they needed to deal with the problem in their very own manner. Take a look at “The place My Bus At?” right here:
Highly effective lyrics for highly effective change
The lyrics on this tune are undoubtedly price unpacking. They’re highly effective, sensible, 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 standpoint. This primary-person perspective makes viewers take into account the person human expertise in what might be tempting to dismiss as a mere bureaucratic setback.
These two strains particularly are too good to overlook:
“I’m child/I keep at school, too/lecturers need to me to succeed, however I can’t get to high school”
“It’s all on the information/However I don’t need to fuss/Don’t obtained 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 significant concern: Many college students have misplaced entry to their faculties of alternative as a result of bus-route cuts. In complete, 43 JCPS faculties have been impacted by the district’s determination. Based on JCPS, the hope is that if extra bus drivers grow to be obtainable, a few of these providers might 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 robust 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? Possibly a catchy beat and a few well-placed lyrics can be simply the factor to get the wheels turning—each actually and figuratively.
