R&B Artist Ciara Visits Norcross High School Tech Class

NORCROSS, GA - Recording artist and Georgia native Ciara surprised students at a Norcross STEM high school Monday, according to the Associated Press.

The R&B artist sat in on a class at Paul Duke Stem High, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and math education. Students there have been using computer coding skills to remix Ciara's songs “Melanin” and “Set.”

Ciara spoke to the class and watched students rework her music as they participated in a competition sponsored by Amazon’s future engineer program, according to the AP.

The teenagers used a platform developed by Georgia Institute of Technology, that teaches computer science through music remixing, research engineer Roxanne Moore told WSB-TV.

“I was just nervous,” Cedriece Allen said after Ciaria knelt down next to her laptop and listened to her remix of “SET," according to the Gwinnett Daily Post.

Ciara, a Riverdale native, said she was impressed by what she heard. Before she began to make her way around the room, she told students she was eager to hear how they interpreted her songs. Their knowledge of coding, she said, gives students an “extra layer of cool” in a technology driven world.”

“The cool layer of this is you can be creative,” Ciara told the class, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post. “When I was growing up, I was a thinker. But I loved to have a creative layer to what I was doing.”

The students will submit their creations for judging and could win Amazon gift cards or a trip to Seattle to present their work, according to the competition rules.

Ciara moved to Georgia as a teenager and after high school joined the hip hop group “Hearsay” and eventually beginning her career as a songwriter and solo performer.