Positive poetry

A group of young hip-hop musicians who call themselves the
Renegade Soldiers met last Saturday afternoon in a well-furnished
apartment on Selby Avenue off of Little Santa Monica Boulevard.

Inside the turntablist’s bedroom, they convened to
rehearse for a Hurricane Katrina benefit show that will take place
Oct. 8 at 14 Below, a Santa Monica bar.

There were three turntables lined up along Matt Seigel’s
wall, with stacks of vinyl records, recording gear and various
percussive instruments. His instrument of choice Saturday, however,
was a cardboard box.

Seated on the floor, Seigel had his legs splayed around the box
that he knocked his drumsticks against. In a chair facing him was
acoustic guitarist Carl Stoeber, who has a penchant for playing
jazz chords in funk rhythms.

Rapper Noah King stood between the two with his short Bob
Marley-style hair and a hyperactive, boyish presence. He spoke a
mile a minute, with an awkward tendency to juxtapose profound ideas
with random observations: One moment he was talking about world
peace and a revelation he had while performing in Taiwan, the next
he announced, “This chair is interesting. Woo!” and
flipped up the foot rest of his black, leather La-Z-Boy.

Opposite King, both in placement in the room and rapping style,
was Steve Moseni, who attends UCLA and goes by the stage name
“Nieve.” Lying sideways with his left arm perpendicular
to the bed, the fourth-year English student spat rhymes in an
aggressive, self-assured way.

Here in Seigel’s bedroom were the nuts and bolts of
hip-hop, and yet it was hardly how most people view the medium.
There was no crack cocaine, no iced-out rappers, and no nasty
attitudes. In fact, all four musicians seemed comfortably middle
class. All have been to college except for King, who graduated from
Beverly Hills High and whose father played trumpet alongside Lionel
Richie in The Commodores. Seigel and Stoeber are alumni of Loyola
Marymount University.

“We’re trying to be the opposite (of stereotypical
rappers),” King said. “We’re not trying to be
hard. We’re trying to be intelligent.”

Upon meeting Moseni, you would never expect to hear his booming
rap voice. Soft-spoken, courteous and humble (his rap moniker is
pronounced “naive”), Moseni studies poetry because he
loves language: He spells his stage name “Nieve”
because it’s the Spanish word for “snow,” to
represent purity. His favorite poets include e.e. cummings, John
Donne, Mos Def and Nas. Poets and MCs, he says, are one and the
same. His favorite class at UCLA so far has been creative writing
with Professor Stephen Yenser, because he loved how he could
perform his rap lyrics in class and get immediate feedback from his
classmates.

While his education has supported his rapping, rap groups such
as NWA and The Fresh Prince have similarly helped him stay in
school.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think I would be in
college if it wasn’t for the hip-hop artists that I grew up
on, because I knew that, if I wanted to be a better MC, I would
have to do more than just work on my flow,” Moseni said.
“I would have to work on making myself smarter, because these
people were smart in my mind. Not just street smart, but they were
smart human beings.”

This weekend’s benefit concert reflects Moseni’s
belief in the ability of rap to be a positive influence in
people’s lives. His professors have also recognized
rap’s potential as a positive force: Many of them have
incorporated rappers such as Rakim into their poetry classes.

“It’s funny, because I used to think that professors
would look down on it,” Moseni said. “But every
professor that I’ve had in English so far has nothing but
good things to say about rap, especially poetry teachers. Poetry is
pretty much a dead medium, and through hip-hop, it’s become
alive. Kids nowadays, they can’t name you one modern poet,
but when it comes to hip-hop and rap, it’s affecting
them.”

With his own lyrics, Moseni aims to reverse the negativity most
people associate with rap. With the Hurricane Katrina benefit
concert, the Renegade Soldiers hope to bring their uplifting
message to the people most affected by the tragedy, including a
fellow musician.

Seigel has not heard from his friend John, a prominent New
Orleans DJ, since Hurricane Katrina hit the region. John and Seigel
learned to DJ together at the University of Arizona. Seven years
later, Seigel now teaches turntabling at the Scratch DJ Academy of
Los Angeles, but still feels connected to the city where he visited
his friend so many times.

“We all care about humanity,” Seigel said.
“But it’s a little more personal for me.”