Learning should move you.

Bavu
Blakes.

A teacher’s mind.
An emcee’s instinct.

Keynotes and workshops that make big ideas felt, remembered, and put to work.

Watch / ListenTEDxUTAustin The Breaks on KUTX “Education v School on PBS” Austin PBS / KLRU profile “Ants in Storms” on PBS

Language to laborAcademic to applicableHip Hop Grew UpEducation over schoolThe Scholar EmceeLanguage to laborAcademic to applicableHip Hop Grew UpEducation over schoolThe Scholar Emcee

01The thesis

Education is way more important than school.

School is a building and a schedule. Education is what happens when a young person recognizes themselves in the lesson — and a leader recognizes the lesson in their practice. Bavu has spent a career making those two things meet.

02Liner notes

21+

vinyl records featuring his voice

04.23.15

proclaimed Bavu Blakes Day

TEDx

Selected collaborations

Bavu is a collaborator with Grammy-winning producers including:

Explore collaborations on Media

Adrian Quesada
Gary Clark Jr.

03Side A / Side B

What he brings
to your room.

All offerings

SIDE A —

Keynotes

Theatrical, musical, lyrical, visual. A talk that is also a performance and a lesson — built so the room leaves carrying something it can use on Monday.

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SIDE B —

Workshops

Facilitated working sessions that move leaders from language to labor, and from academic to applicable. Less inspiration, more infrastructure.

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Educator professional learning

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Youth engagement

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Hosting & emceeing

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Performance & multimedia

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Testimonials

A lesson that
stays with you.

We learned that lifting each other up and offering support is far more beneficial than passing judgment based on individual performance.

Read the full reflection

Bavu Blakes, pictured at the center of a vinyl record

04Hip Hop Grew Up

Hip Hop Grew Up. So did the kids raised on it. Now they are the decision-makers.

Hip Hop Grew Up is Bavu's platform for treating the culture as the intellectual, artistic, and spiritual tradition it has always been — and putting it to work in classrooms and communities.

Read the story