Wantagh Native Teaching Through Hip-Hop

Louis Camacho is a lot more than just a permanent substitute teacher at a Queens elementary school.

The 23-year-old Wantagh native is finding a new way to instill knowledge in his students: he uses hip-hop.

Camacho recently completed his first full year of teaching as a substitute teacher at P.S. 76, where he worked every single day of the school year. P.S. 76, strangely enough, happens to be the same elementary school the rapper Nas attended when he was a student.

The "permanent sub" certainly did a lot more than most substitute teachers would do in a year. Camacho managed to start the "Rebound With Sound" program.

The program uses poetry, song and dance to teach and build knowledge, as well as confidence, in his students.

"Rebound With Sound is a program I started at P.S. 76 in Queensbridge where students collaborated to write verses and create dances for their own original song which they perform and I rap," Camacho said. "The name of the first project ever created by Rebound With Sound is 'This Is How We Schooling.'"

"The goal here is to help children -- I'm just looking for the platform," he added.

Camacho, a licensed physical education and special education teacher looking for a full-time position, recently released his first video on YouTube [see featured video].

"The purpose of this video is to show that it is possible to approach hip-hop in a positive fashion, in a new light," he said. "... The video was not for fun, music is definitely my life and I'm proud to say it."

The video, according to Camacho, will not be his last. He has assured his audience, along with his students, that many more are on the way.

"I rap because it's therapeutic for me," Camacho said, "and I believe in something different -- a hip-hop celebrated in school classrooms with a wide variation of rhyme schemes used to better children's understanding of [classroom] material and themselves."