Marching Up: An East New York drum line keeping kids off the streets by Jeanette D. Moses
Kenyatte Hughes keeps children safe in Brooklyn’s most dangerous neighborhood by teaching them to march. Hughes has led the Soul Tigers marching band for a decade, giving children in the gang saturated neighborhood of East New York an opportunity to excel.
[KH] “All you’ve got to do is listen to what I’m saying and do what I say. When I say your left, your left strike your left, your left, your left…”
KH: If I told you about East New York you wouldn’t come back. We got gangs all around us. Getting to school is an issue. Leaving after band practice is an issue.
KH: The park is the biggest space for us to practice in, but we cannot use it. When the shooting starts, I can’t protect that many kids. I’d just rather not go outside because I don’t feel like explaining to anybody’s parent why they got shot.
KH: We don’t have all exemplary students in the band, you know I take some of the knuckle-heads also. That’s my way of giving them something better and something you know that’s going to benefit them more than being on the street, having nothing to do, getting involved with gangs.
[Girl] “Symbols up in here”
[KH] “It’s taking to long to get situated with these instruments. I need two snares and somebody’s gotta go on symbols.”
[Girl] “The rest of them don’t have rags.”
[KH] Who got symbols? Two?
[kids drumming]
KH: Being able to play a musical instrument teaches you perseverance, teaches you responsibility you know. Everything you learn here at band you can take and you can direct it towards different aspects in your life.
[kids drumming]
KH: People should understand that the Soul Tigers is that conduit for the kids to introduce them to new things, let them see the world, we travel internationally as well as around the states just going through the toll booth to Jersey, believe it or not a lot of kids have not done that before.
KH: Given an opportunity these kids can do anything. Just someone to introduce them to something new, something different, is sometimes all it takes to change that kids life forever.
Kenyatte Hughes has marched the Soul Tigers into professional sports stadiums, the Macy’s Day Parade and even foreign countries such as Senegal and Gambia. For many kids, joining The Soul Tigers ushers in their first trips out of the East New York area.
“Things like that, that changes a person, so they know there is more to their world than what goes on in their hood,” says Hughes, 36.
Hughes originally launched the band as a way to keep kids off the streets and keep them away from gangs. But over the years he has pushed his students toward bigger things, like a college education.
The band practices inside an East New York public school four days a week until 6 p.m. A few years ago, practice stretched till 7 p.m., but building access and support from the D.O.E. has dwindled. Under Mayor Bloomberg public schools focused on systematic test taking, often at the expense of extracurricular like Soul Tigers.
“We don’t focus on music and arts that much. It’s one thing to have them in the school, but it’s another thing to actually produce students who are efficient,” says Hughes. “It’s just about the test. Nothing else matters but the test and passing the test.”
Hughes hopes he can relocate the Soul Tigers to a space outside of the school, but says a lack of funds is holding him back, until then the Soul Tigers will keep marching in East New York.
