"Code Beats Live!" & Dumi Right

Left: Dumi Right and VCU students in rehearsal (photo credit Taylor Barnett). Right: Prof. Taylor Barnett and Dumi Right in performance.

In March 2022 our students were treated to an open rehearsal of Hip Hop artist Dumi Right and members of the VCU Jazz Form & Analysis class, plus a later Q&A session, presented by the VCU Jazz Students Fund. Then the students and Right performed as part of the program "Code Beats Live!" at the VCU Institute for Contemporary Art, offering information about the Code Beats summer program for Richmond area middle school students (funded by a National Science Foundation grant).

Code Beats is an interdisciplinary research project led by Dr. David Shepherd (Associate Professor, VCU Engineering Computer Science) and Dr. Taylor Barnett (Assistant Professor, VCU Music) that aims to broaden youth participation in computing by teaching students to use fundamental computer programming terms and techniques to create authentic-sounding hip-hop beats. The project aims to particularly engage Black, Latinx, and female youth during the critical middle school years, when many students decide whether future opportunities in Computer Science merit consideration. For more information, visit <https://egr.vcu.edu/news-events/events/code-beats-live.html>, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGrxD8lJ2Kc>, and <https://codebeats.weebly.com>.

Dumi Right is a performing artist, MC, and songwriter who has been recognized as a standard-bearer in global and progressive hip-hop circles for many years. He was first introduced to audiences during hip-hop's golden age as a member of Zimbabwe Legit, one of the first hip-hop groups coming from Africa to gain widespread international recognition. In 2019, as part of the annual SXSW Festival, Dumi was the ultimate winner of a groundbreaking entrepreneur pitch contest, "Pitch & Flow." The competition paired six dope, socially conscious emcees with six visionary entrepreneurs to pitch a compelling story of social enterprise in rhyme form. He won convincingly with a message about climate change and how his assigned entrepreneur uses environmentally conscious "waste-to-energy" solutions to turn garbage into electricity in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Visit <https://www.facebook.com/DumiRightMusic/>.

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