“soldier boy off in these hoes, watch me rock, watch me roll, crank me up and watch me go now supa-man dat hoe, now watch me doooooo…”

More than half the room of high school teens raised their hands when asked if they knew how to “soldier boy”. When asked what “superman dat hoe” meant, only the boys raised their hands—some shaking their lowered heads and some with crooked grins. Finally one young man stood and explained to his female peers that the #1 song and dance in the country, recorded by a 17 year old, is about ejaculating on a girl’s back then slapping a towel on her like a superman cape.

Mother's Day Radio, led by executive director Shaunelle Curry is a community driven initiative to create a space in mainstream media that provides a balanced and more accurate depiction of womanhood. Through MDR's engaging initiatives, communities take direct action in challenging and expanding current media portrayals of women and girls. Their goal is to promote images that significantly acknowledge the beauty, strength, character, vision, leadership, and love of the women of the world.

On October 13, 2007 at Culture and Language Academy of Success, in Inglewood, California MDR launched their What’s Real?-- Media Literacy & Social Action Campaign. On a Saturday morning, over 150 students from five L.A. high schools attended a screening of Hip Hop Beyond Beats & Rhymes and panel discussion with filmmaker Byron Hurt, teen activists, recording Hip Hop artists from the Take Back the Mic Tour, and yours truly, Monifa Bandele.

In most cases this would be all that an organization would attempt to accomplish with young people in one day. But MDR took things a step further conducting a community roundtable on next steps/actions and then having teens break-up into small groups for three concurrent workshops on media literacy.

Each group of high school students requested a school-wide screening of Hip Hop along with boys and girls only workshops. The students requested training so that they could conduct the workshops with their peers themselves. MDR and Firelight Media will train the teens and work with them to coordinate these upcoming events.

The afternoon ended with a Hip Hop listening session by SoulGenesis. SoulGenesis is a media lifestyle company geared toward exposing and promoting more socially conscious and responsible living to a broader audience. SoulGen online exposes viewers and members to under-represented, high quality Hip-Hop and Soul artists.

And finally, that evening MDR supported the launch concert for the Take Back the Mic Tour. Take Back the Mic is an international youth cultural movement ignited by critically acclaimed underground Hip-Hop/Afropolitan Fusion band Soulfege. The mission of Take Back the Mic is to harness the power of Hip Hop music to spread a message of youth empowerment and civic action to youth across the United States and around the world.

Whew, MDR kept it crunk all day. Now, Superman dat!!

This report was written by hip-hop activist Monfia Akinwole-Bandele, Executive Director of Change the Game, and recipient of the 2005 Essence Women Who Shape the World Award.