Our Mission
How we do it:
1. We use music as a common language to engage students in collaborative, cross-cultural, student-centered projects.
2. We equip young people with tools for engaging in and leading conversations around race, identity, bias, and social justice.
3. We produce professional quality digital content and live performances in order to amplify student voices.
What’s Happening Now?
We’re currently in our 5th season and are working hard to write and produce our first musical. The kids spent season 4 developing storylines and characters, writing music, and learning from some amazing mentors including Dice Raw (The Roots), Kash Goins (Arden Theatre), and Angela Hunte (Grammy winning songwriter). Season 5 is when we start taking our music/story into our schools and engage the larger student population in conversations around race, identity, and connection. Stay tuned for updates on our 2023 school tour!
Docuseries – “Growing Flowers”
Visual Album – “Flowers”
Vans Footwear Commercial
Our Impact on the Community…
Developing Allies
We believe that if young people can develop strong positive racial identities they will be better able to interrupt cycles of racism. White people will become more effective allies and People of Color will combat internalized oppression and develop skills to lead mixed-race groups.
Unlearning Biases
We believe that when young people spend time collaborating with people outside of their own Racial/Ethnic/Cultural group they can begin to unlearn biases they’ve often unknowingly developed. If we can decrease the implicit bias in young people they grow up to be more inclusive, equitable, and aware adults.
Courageous Conversations
We give young people a public voice in these conversations through our music/video content. Most of the dialogue around race is dominated by adults and we believe that the voice of our youth should be included in the conversation.
Professional Skills Development
Our students are developing real-world job skills in production, project management, and session facilitation, in addition to songwriting, performance, and recording. Our hope is that by developing a strong core of student leaders we can expand our reach in the first three areas.
Featured on 6ABC.com
The Philly Sound Exchange pairs music with social justice terms for highschoolers as reported during Action News at 5:30 on September 14, 2020
