Wil Seegars was a nine-year-old Detroiter when Run-D.M.C. blasted the R&B music charts with its first hip hop-styled album titled, "Run-D.M.C." He watched the trio perform on MTV and mimicked the break dance moves as a foray into an entirely new African-American culture. His later scholarship endeavors would trace their roots to this funky beat.

"This is a form of music that evolved in my lifetime, its history is my history, its poetry is a part of who we are," said Seegars, 36, a teacher, entrepreneur and youth mentor.

To capitalize on the music's appeal, Seegars, who graduated from EMU in 2000 with a bachelor of arts degree in education, developed The Hip Hop Game of Skillz, a board game that introduces the varied styles of hip hop to educators and others as a way to embrace hip hop's vocabulary, rhyming patterns and enduring contribution to culture. The game is produced by Generations to Come, LLC, a Detroit-based company of which Seegars is the chief executive. The company also offers educational entertainment about hip hop culture. (More information about the company and game is available at www.hiphopskillz.com.)

"The whole concept of the game is to prove you are the ultimate emcee – to be the first person that makes it around the board," Seegars said. The game sells at the Charles Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit and The Planet in Ann Arbor. Additional sales come from his featured appearances at educator conferences around the nation.

One of his career's most stellar moments was serving as a keynote speaker at "The State of the African American Male in Michigan: A Courageous Conversation," held at the EMU Convocation Center in June. Seegars urged attendees to open their ears – and hearts – to the musicians with flashy gold chains, baggy pants and baseball hats.

"Many of us don't necessarily embrace what young people are listening to, but that creates a gap between you and that generation. If you get caught up in the ostentatious showmanship of the artist, you do yourself and your musical palate an injustice," Seegars said. Hip hop songs reflect contemporary issues faced by young people, from high incidents of crime and incarceration to limited access to jobs.

An early consultant for his hip hop dream was Dr. Melvin Peters, an EMU professor of African American Studies. Because Dr. Peters incorporated hip hop into his music appreciation classes, Seegars spoke to him about the course syllabus and an idea for making cultural sound an academic pursuit. Seegars decided to create a teaching unit based around the hip hop culture theme. Among the exercises were having students translate hip hop slang into standard English.

The hip hop project created such a stir among his friends that they encouraged Seegars to speak to community and church groups about young culture. Requests now arrive monthly for speaking engagements, including one asking him to attend the Hip Hop Summit in the New York area later this fall.
If older individuals complain of harsh and violent lyrics, Seegars tells them to "listen up" because the songs reflect a reality found in urban communities such as Detroit, where Seegars lives with his wife and two children and where he teaches at a charter school.

Young African-American men are searching for manhood and identity in a world where many face nearly insurmountable obstacles, he said. To help break that cycle, Seegars spends much of his spare time volunteering with young people and listening to their dreams.

"I never had aspirations to be a rapper, the main element of hip hop," Seegars said, leaning back in a comfortable chair and chilling with the music of T.I., an Atlanta-based rapper. "I'm a person who is into the culture, into the music. It's my thang."