A couple of years ago, Chicago emcee Psalm One got involved with a program through America SCORES, an after school program that promotes fitness and creativity amongst elementary and middle school kids. As it happens, each year they partner with ASCAP to send a recording artist to work with the kids. While she wasn’t the first artist to get involved, she was certainly pushed the program to the next level by recording and releasing a full length album with the kids, with all proceeds going back into the program. In a tour of Milwaukee, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Washington D.C., Atlanta, New York, Boston, and Chicago, Psalm One led intense sessions in each city over the period of about three days where the kids would help write and record a song. The result is a unique and exciting album that is hopefully just the beginning for America SCORES.

Child Support is a cool concept for an album, but it certainly does present some challenges along the way. First of all is the time constraints and the number of kids involved. Psalm managed this by coming in with some beats, allowing the kids to pick which beat they wanted, and then guiding them through the writing process. They finally got them in the studio on the last day to record it all. This is a tough process for veteran artists, let alone kids who are completely new to this. Fortunately, Psalm One is excellent at balancing her veteran know-how and encouraging the kids to get involved. She carries the heavy lifting on the verses (although its clear by the subject matter that the kids had input), and the kids usually join in on the choruses. There are points throughout the album where a few kids get to shine solo for a couple of lines as well. Psalm puts all of them in a position to succeed, and they all sound comfortable and confident on the mic. I am really hoping that I’ll hear at least one of these kids somewhere down the line, and we can all point to this experience as a turning point. Now there is the slightest bit of novelty that comes with hearing a group of kids shout the chorus, but Psalm does an excellent job of keeping the novelty to a minimum. She’s not here to exploit their cuteness or anything - she’s here to inspire kids to find their voices and to make good hip hop right now. My personal favorite song on the album is “Bubblers,” done with the children of Milwaukee, a song about hometown pride. It has the best moment for allowing several kids to shine on the mic, as they take turns talking about what makes Milwaukee special. Psalm also rounds out the album with a few songs that she recorded without the kids, but she stays on topic with “Regular Black Girl” and “Kids Right Now,” featuring Mikkey Halsted. Both songs really speak to what she got of the experience and what she hopes the kids got out of it as well.

This project was difficult from start to finish, and I have to give it up to Psalm One for even attempting such an undertaking. That she was not only able to pull it off, but to make the record sound genuinely good and to keep the novelty of kids rapping to an absolute minimum is really impressive. I’m sure that Child Support is just the beginning of some really unique projects through ASCAP and America SCORES.