By Chris Faraone
The Boston Herald – the Edge
May 12, 2006

Scherazade Daruvalla King, executive director of Project: Think Different, has a crazy idea: She thinks she can persuade commercial media outlets to promote urban music that doesn’t shamelessly endorse sex, drugs and violence.

But maybe King and her nonprofit teammates aren’t bonkers.

Socially progressive rappers such as Common and Immortal Technique are moving significant units around the globe; Boston acts such as Audible Mainframe and The Foundation Movement have kids from the South End to Cambridge embracing positive vibes.

Sunday at Harpers Ferry, Project: Think Different will unveil its ‘‘emPOWERment: The Power to Break You Free” CD. It’s a compilation of some of Beantown’s most high-minded artists, including Lyrical, Soulfege, Sophia Snow, The Foundation Movement, MC Exposition, Iyeoka Okoawo, Velvet Stylus, Shuman and Sad Marvin & Heist. King’s objective was simple: promote local talents whose lyrical content answers to a higher calling than most contemporary hip-hop.

‘‘We really want to amplify the messages of socially conscious artists who have been doing this work since before we even started as an organization,” King said. ‘‘We need to popularize a culture of engagement and action versus a lot of things that are currently being popularized. We’re about shifting the pop culture. Making more mainstream the themes of activism, civic engagement. And empowering people to step fully into their roles as change agents.”

Some contributions on ‘‘emPOWERment” directly address the negative messages Think Different hopes to counter. On ‘‘Neva Go Platinum,” Boston rapper Mingo tells the story of an MC who compromises his gift to fit the thug stereotype. Trumpeting rhymesayer AfroDZak of the group Eclectic Collective takes a different approach: He smacks the powers that be for keeping kids ignorant and apathetic.

On ‘‘Thinking Cap,” AfroDZak rhymes ‘‘It’s testing my patience, this mess in this nation, Where our kids get more brainwashing and less education, they leave mad children behind, never searchin’ for a remedy, and even those who ain’t make it, ain’t taught to think independently.”

While looking to change the system, Think Different also maneuvers behind enemy lines. The organization measures its success by how many outlets air its message - even if some of those outlets are largely responsible for the unenlightened state of the music they’re combating.

‘‘We’re working with MTV and some other outlets that perpetuate the mainstream culture that we’re not for,” King said. ‘‘We’re demonstrating by working with them that there is a viable audience for this kind of music. We’re creating change from the inside out and from the outside in.”

Think Different program manager Melissa Krodman said that reaching young people who love negative, misanthropic hip-hop is the biggest challenge. ‘‘Socially conscious music proliferates in certain circles,” she said, ‘‘but it’s very difficult to get it heard outside of those circles. We get our message around through the Internet, by accumulating as many friends as possible through MySpace, by giving CDs out to various people in Boston, doing some street marketing and just trying to get the album as visible as possible amongst the youth.”

King said that while her short-term goal is to push the ‘‘emPOWERment” CD along with her organization’s message of engagement, the long-term objective is to eliminate the need for Think Different all together.

‘‘One day I would like to think that Project: Think Different will no longer need to exist,” she said. ‘‘Hopefully we’ll have a media that recognizes that it needs to be in alignment with our values for women, men, youth, respect and diversity.”

The ‘‘emPOWERment” CD release party featuring Foundation Movement, Lyrical and others, at Harpers Ferry in Allston on Sunday May 14, 2006. $5.

By Mike Smith
Boston Teens in Print (T.i.P.)

Asked to review a new CD from nonprofit organization Project: Think Different, I hesitated because usually CDs like this where people try to go out and do “something different” turn out to be horrible. The term “do something different” is like a cover up for when somebody is just bad at what they do and they’re trying to make a legitimate case. I reviewed this CD track by track on a scale of 0-5 with five being the best possible score. Here are my picks for the top 10 tracks.

02-Thinking Cap: AfroDZak. Sounds like somebody rapping over a soft jazz melody. If you can get past the weird way it sounds this is an OK song because AfroDZak is actually spittin’ something serious. 3.5/5

05-Healing the Streets. Shuman. This track was fire. I actually turned this track back on more than once. Get passed the jazzy rap feel and you’ve got a banga. 4/5

06-Neva Go Platinum. Mingo. This is probably the illest track on this CD so far. Listen to this. Mingo raps about how the industry sets up the artist from the start to the end. How the artist is actually pretty good and all his friends tell him so, then he meets the big record executive who tells him to change his whole style and rap more about cars, girls, and the rest of the commercial stuff. The reason he calls it Never Go Platinum is because if you have to change your whole rap style and flow, even though people told you you were good, then what’s the point of going platinum? The message is there, and the song is hot regardless. 5/5

07-This is Life. Iyeoka Okoawo featuring The Foundation and Bambu. This was a beautiful melody. They basically took a drum pattern and sung behind it to make a beat. This track is hot because it’s got a singing/poetic feel. This track sounds real smooth. I can bump this. 4/5

08-Get Free. Lauren Coen. This track is like a guilty pleasure. It’s just a piano and some lady singing but it was serious! 3.5/5

09-Freedom Song. Sofia Snow. Sofia speaks a long poem over some dark noise. If you’ve heard Sofia before then you should know she’s going to be good. Hot but could be better. 4/5 12-Here’s to You. Melissa Li. Sounds like some straight R&B. I was feeling this. 4/5

13-Across the Sea. Lauren Flaherty featuring Bio. This is a straight rock song and it confused me to death. 3/5

16-My God Can Beat Up Your God. Roger Miller & The Foundation. This is a rock slash rap song. They ventured out on this one and for me it was a hit. I don’t know who’s rapping but who ever is, is definitely killin’ it. As soon as I turned this on, I was bumping to the lyrics and flow. I was able to go right past the weird rock beat and listen to the lyrics because I was captivated. This track is for anyone who can listen to hotness no matter what. 5/5

17-Radio Down. Media Friend. Slow Melody to close out the CD. This song sounds like something I’ve never heard. I can’t explain it. The whole idea of this CD was to reach out and think differently, so I can’t knock this track. It was hot to me for everything it was. 4/5

Project: Think Different’s “Empowerment” CD tried new things with the music to tell everyone to do just that—“think differently, stop feeding yourself the garbage that’s on TV” But, when you do venture out like that, it’s a risk. There’s nothing wrong with being different but you might miscalculate with your audience and what they’ll listen to. With some songs it seems like they tried to use being different as an excuse and it’s not a good one. But, overall there are a lot of solid tracks on this CD so I wouldn’t pass it up. That surprises me since earlier I said I would be scared to review it because of my past experiences with people who try to “do something different.” 7/10.

“Empowerment: The Power to Break You Free” is available to purchase at www.empowermentrecords.com/empcd or by calling 617-557-9200.