By Maya Liquigan

September 24, 2024

Around 16 students joined Columbia’s Hip-Hop Club at The Hive on Thursday, Sept. 19 for the Love & Lyrics writing session led by guest speaker Kyla Turner, a local creative writer.  

The event invited students to an intimate writing workshop focused on incorporating storytelling into their creative work. Turner, known by stage name Ms. Mamas, is a local writer with experience in poetry and journalism. She is also a contributing writer for Whats The Word Media – a media platform focused on arts and culture, including hip-hop news and culture. 

I’Ja Wright, the president of the Hip-Hop Club, said that one of her goals for the club is to connect the Columbia hip-hop community to the hip-hop community in Chicago. She brings guest speakers, like Turner, to introduce club members to the greater city hip-hop community. This is the second event of the Love & Lyrics writing sessions. The first session was in January of this year.

“This is a series,” Wright said. “It’s about love and lyrics, and also finding out and tapping into the time you first found love in your passion.” 

Before the event began, Cameron Sorrell, a transfer acting major, said he was hoping to learn tips on developing his writing process as a rapper. 

He heard of the event after attending the first Hip-Hop Club meeting earlier this month, where he performed on stage to a live audience for the first time. He said he was excited to learn about storytelling in music and embrace his creative side.

“I would say that I have components of what can make a great storyteller, but I don’t have all the tools yet,” Sorrel said. 

Turner started the session by reading a poem to the crowd as an introduction. She then explained her thoughts on storytelling through art and invited students to share their passions and motivations with the group during the discussion. 

“Every writer, every poet, every creator, we’re trying to fill a void through art,” Turner said. “A piece of us that wants to be heard, a piece of us that usually isn’t seen, a piece of us that’s trying to spread light.” 

Throughout the session, Turner encouraged students to write down answers to different prompts related to their creative work. Students reflected on what their artistry is geared towards, why they are passionate about creating and what audience they want to reach. Turner said  that in “storytelling and art, you have to be vulnerable.” 

“We’re going to take some time and figure out what we love and why some of these things are the reasons why we’re creative,” Turner said. 

The main writing session came after Turner’s discussion, where she prompted students to write about one thing they love and one thing they hate. Attendees were given 30 mins to free-write as the instrumental loop played throughout The Hive. 

Wright was excited to see the students passionately writing around the room, some bopping their heads to the music or rehearsing their songs quietly under their breath. The hip-hop club was reinstated a little over a year ago by Wright after it dissolved during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Since then, she has been devoted to connecting the hip-hop students at Columbia. Wright is also a First Year Experience leader and the student representative of the Board of Trustees for the college where she said she constantly connects and advocates for students. 

“What fuels me to keep going is to be able to see the students that I see every day, being able to speak on the behalf of students who can’t speak,” Wright said. 

She smiled while watching as students gained the courage to present their work to the room after the 30-minute writing session. Students took turns on stage rapping or singing on the same instrumental beat about a variety of topics. Some participants wrote about love, inspiration and passion and others touched on heartbreak, addiction, family trauma and mental health struggles. 

CJ Young, the event manager for Hip Hop Club, said that since reviving the club, the focus has been on “redefining what Hip-Hop Club was meant to be.” As he participated in the writing exercises with the group, he said he was having a creative block and the purpose of the event was to help students overcome those struggles. 

“Being able to have that space where you can sit with yourself and create solely because of the fact that you can, not for the sake of having other people hear you,” Young said. “Just being able to get those emotions out and that on paper so that way you can just be who you’d like to be.” 

Joseph Franco, a transfer sophomore video game design major, was the first one to present to the group. Franco said his biggest takeaway from the session is to write about yourself and your personal experiences. 

“It was cool to meet other people who are also kind of in the same place as me,” Franco said. “Everybody’s really talented here.”

First-year animation major, Elijah Price, is part of the Hip-Hop Club and said that the event gave him a chance to listen to other students’ creative lyrics and stories. He said that Turner created a safe space where everyone could “truly express themselves.”

“Sometimes the best thing for you to do to express yourself is to write a few things down, get them off your chest and help yourself heal,” Price said. 

Turner ended the event with her final thoughts on storytelling and left students with a reminder to connect love and art. 

“Whenever you write a story… you start off with you,” Turner said. “Be fully authentic and vulnerable, because that’s how real art is always going to be showcased.”