Lyrics to Life: The Workshop!

Denise ‘Sincerity’ García received a OneBeat Accelerator for her project ‘Lyrics to Life: The Workshop!‘, which brought hip hop and poetry workshops for teenagers in NYC in the Spring of 2021. The goal of these workshops was to use creative expression as a tool for empowerment, while becoming part of a collective to support and develop these skills. The workshops included a total of 11 participants, who met three times a week over the course of several weeks (a mixture of in person and zoom meetings), plus opportunities to meet one on one with Denise for individual development sessions. The workshops were supported by the actor, writer and hip hop artist Nastyelgic, who volunteered to contribute his knowledge on building a career in these fields, along with a special appearance from Peke La Maravilla, a Lyrics to Life alumnus from Ecuador who motivated participants with his own story as an artist and demonstrated his freestyling skills. Over the course of the workshop, participants created and wrote original songs and poems with topics ranging from Covid to social justice to Japanese mythology. The pieces are being recorded and collected to be published, hopefully to be shared at a reunion in coming seasons.

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Denise ‘Sincerity’ García, is an Ecuadorian-American artist hailing from Brooklyn, New York. She is a core member of Rhyme Like a Girl, a collective dedicated to creating spaces and opportunities for aspiring and established female MCs and hip hop artists to develop. An emcee with experience teaching and peforming throughout Latin America and Africa, Sincerity spent two years in Ecuador building Palabras A Vida, a youth-focused poetry and workshop series. Dedicated to using global hip hop culture as an educational tool, Sincerity is currently developing a new project with Colombian producer Alexis Play.