Whiz Kids: Brothers Make Music the New-Fashioned Way: Digitally

Each week, Bloomfield Patch features students doing amazing things in their schools and in their communities. This week's Whiz Kids are teen beat-makers earning popularity on stage and on YouTube.

Mark and Paul Stewart

• Ages: 15 (Mark) and 17 (Paul)
• School:
• Achievements: Now that anyone with talent, electronics, production skills and audacity can be a recording artist with direct access to audiences, these brothers are doing just that from a Bloomfield Hills home studio. The Stewarts, a sophomore and senior duo, have recorded 15 rap songs and two videos with Paul's words and Mark's synthesized beats and guitar licks. Mixing and editing happens at FoursquareProduction Studio, as their sophisticated basement setup is dubbed. "It's mostly done at a virtual mixing board," Mark said. "The only other equipment we have is a microphone and my guitar."
  They also have a video camera, used imaginatively last year for Forest Lake Rap, a five-minute production starring both brothers and also featuring friends and staff at their . The result was slick enough to serve as a marketing promotion for the Bloomfield Hills business.  
• Key to awesomeness: The teens, who also are DJs at school events, adopt a mock gangsta rap swagger and stage names. Paul calls himself Padlock DJ, while his younger brother uses Continental Breakfast. Lyrics mix playfulness with occasional elegance:
  I’m drillin’ it over the net and never breaking a sweat
  I’m ambidextrous, I’m a double threat
  Language don't get raunchier than "crap" and a three-letter word for butt, and sometimes serves as a vocabulary lesson for schoolmates – as when junk-filled cargo pants "rain some pocket detritus." The newest number, Grammar Rap, sets writing rules to a beat. "I do lots of songs for class assignments," says Paul, who sometimes performs them at Andover.     
  Their MP3s and four cell phone ringtones are available for free downloads at the pair's extensive website, which they created. A CD compilation costs $5.
  Mark learned to play guitar on his own three years ago, then amped up his skills with instruction at Axis Music Academy in Southfield, and musical theory lessons with Ken Andreoni of Troy. For his part, Paul is operations manager at the award-winning school district radio station, WBFH, and carries a 3.6 grade point average. He has Albion, Kalamazoo, University of Michigan and Michigan State atop his list of potential colleges.  

Do you know our next Whiz Kid?

Bloomfield Patch welcomes suggestions for students, youth groups and even sports teams who wow us with their accomplishments. We want to hear about amazing children and teens and select one each week as Whiz Kid. Submit your nomination in our comment box below or email the information to editor Art.Aisner@patch.com. Please include all these details:

• Nominator's name
• Whiz Kid's name and age
• Whiz Kid's school
• Whiz Kid's accomplishment
• What makes him or her successful