Pearl-Cohn student's 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot' rap song takes off
Awakened in the middle of the night, Queen McElrath flipped on the television and found herself gripped and troubled by the news coming from Ferguson, Mo.
She began hearing a beat and did what she knows best — she wrote down rap lyrics.
She kept writing into the morning.
"I couldn't go back to sleep," McElrath said.
Days later, the 16-year-old Pearl-Cohn High School student, whose passions include English, history and politics, cut a track for her song "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" inside the school's own recording studio. She then helped put together a music video, filmed on the streets of the school's surrounding North Nashville neighborhood and featuring friends and classmates, to accompany the tune.
The shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, by a white police officer struck a nerve. She turned to rap, she said, as a way to get youth involved and paying attention — "I feel like my calling in life is to speak to people."
By last Thursday night, McElrath, a Nashville native, was performing her song before Nashville mayoral candidates, politicians and a thousand or so others inside a packed Mt. Zion Baptist Church, site of a community-wide discussion on the Aug. 9 shooting of Brown, which has exposed widespread distrust of law enforcement along racial lines.
The crowd raised hands in unison as she and friend and co-singer on the tune, Destinee Anderson, led them through the chorus: "Hands up, don't shoot. Hands up, don't shoot. We innocent. Hands up, don't shoot. We don't have no guns. Hands up, don't shoot. We don't have no drugs. Hands up, don't shoot."
Not bad for a couple of juniors in high school.
How did it all come together in just four days?
Pearl-Cohn leaders point to the school's Academy of Entertainment, which features a student-run record label that kids coined Relentless Entertainment. Students take different tracks: recording, broadcasting and media publishing, for example. The program's crown jewel is a recording studio that opened two years ago thanks to generous donors through Metro's Music Makes Us initiative.
After her short night of sleep earlier this month, McElrath came to school and pitched her song to two teachers who run help run the record label and studio. She alerted Pearl-Cohn principal Sonia Stewart. Soon, the ball was rolling.
"We've just got a lot of hands-on opportunities," Pearl-Cohn's academy coach Yolanda Jackson said. "With those hands-on opportunities, the students know that that tools are available."
Stewart, entering her third year at the predominantly black high school, said McElrath's song is an example of youth feeling more empowered — and finding an outlet.
"When you have youth that have an opinion and an experience about what's going on and you partner that in an entertainment magnet, then they have the opportunity to produce that song," Stewart said. "It's the mirror of both.
"The thing about her song that I most respect is that every turn where you could have a negative message, she went positive," she said. "I said, 'People need to hear this.'"
McElrath, who has two brothers and three sisters and is active in the Boys & Girls Club, began rapping in the eighth grade while she attended LEAD Academy. She performed at a school talent show, and she won first place.
Her favorite lyric in this song: "Mike Brown has a family that really cares. He graduated high school, but that picture — they didn't air on the news."
Her music video on YouTube has grown to nearly 2,400 viewers as of Tuesday. Teachers have shown it to classes. The past week has made her a popular kid in the hallways, she acknowledges with a smile.
So what's next after graduation? She'd like to continue rapping, but she also wants to attend college, with hopes of becoming a high school teacher.
"I want to be an entertainer. I want to be a songwriter. But I honestly want a plan B, too."
Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236 and on Twitter @joeygarrison.
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