Hip hop as a music genre has spanned five decades and counting. Its message has ranged from descriptions of the gritty realities of urban life to the way Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five described them in 1982’s “The Message.” And it’s come as far as the declarations of power Glorilla celebrates in 2024’s “Hol’ On.” But hip hop can do much more for Dr. Olajide Williams, Vice Chair of Neurology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Professor of Neurology. So he’s set out on a mission to connect the culture, the people, and his vocation: health.
In 2006, he teamed up with legendary rapper Doug E. Fresh to launch Hip Hop Public Health, a nonprofit that promotes health education messages through hip hop culture and interacting with the community, meeting them where they are.
Now Dr. Williams says his group has expanded its message to 42 cities and has set its sights on the mental health space as well as continuing to spread learning about stroke, diabetes, and heart disease, all major killers of people who live in urban areas.
He gave an example of how hip hop resonating with children helped improve results with stroke patients, who had only a short window to recognize symptoms and get the necessary treatment.
“If three hours had lapsed, we could no longer give them clot-busting medication. And, at the time, we had less than two percent of our patients who had strokes coming in within that three-hour window in Harlem.
“We tested the efficacy of utilizing children as what we call proximal targets,” he continued. “We make the kids stroke literate and empower them with the skills required to communicate that information effectively to their parents and grandparents. Those are the folks who are at risk for stroke. And we found that these children are incredibly smart. It shows that they can actually take up the responsibility of educating their entire families. And that’s what these kids did. They were able to transmit that information to their parents and their grandparents.”
Dr. Williams said that Harlem saw a quadrupling of treatment rates, from less than two percent to more than eight percent.
“And the magic, the secret sauce, was not so secret, but it was hip hop,” said Dr. Williams. “Hip hop could teach. To engage these children and their families. Hip hop ability, hip hop’s ability to build enough confidence and self-esteem in the children that will enable them to communicate that information effectively.”
Prior to that time, hip hop had not been used in a manner that supported and promoted health care in such a way: making it fun for kids to learn about symptoms of an ailment like stroke to save lives. The project Williams and Fresh started was called “Stroke Ain’t No Joke” and featured animated characters learning the symptoms of a stroke while dancing to a hip-hop beat rapped with Fresh’s lyrics.
“A lot of people don’t realize that music occupies twice as much real estate in our brains than language itself. You know, music is a powerful tool for learning,” said Dr. Williams. “So we basically stumbled across this incredible ability of music to save the lives of stroke victims in Harlem. And then we decided that we were going to take the model and build a whole organization around the model and use it across multiple disease domains from obesity, through heart disease, through dementia.”
The success of using children to communicate the warning signs of stroke led to other collaborations with artists like Daryl McDaniels of Run-D.M.C., Chuck D from Public Enemy, Styles P, and others. Although these artists resonate with middle-aged and older adults who remember them from their youth, Hip Hop Public Health is still open to working with more contemporary artists, said Williams. One song, “U R What U Eat,” featured work with Travis Barker from Blink 186, Matisyahu, and Ariana Grande.
Another “Veggie Luv,” had Monifah and J-Rome. Others, including Ashanti and Jordin Sparks, joined them on the “Songs For A Healthier America” album.
Tony Drootin, co-founder of the We Are All Music Foundation and manager of Sound on Sound Studios in Montclair, N.J., sat on Hip Hop Public Health’s board for a decade and understands the growth the nonprofit experienced because of how it crafted its message.
“It’s really an amazing concept of what they are doing, which is taking research with everything from stroke prevention, weight loss to drinking sugary beverages and writing lyrics and lyrical content that portrays their messaging, which is health literacy in various areas,” said Drootin, whose organization grants funds to groups like Hip Hop Public Health.
“It’s a different method of getting the messaging across to children, and it’s utilizing hip hop, which they can relate to. They have proof of efficacy in research which showed the kids were retaining what they were hearing and learning.”
The concept of meeting people where they are with a trustworthy voice has been proven to work for years, according to Pamela Garmon Johnson, National Senior Vice-President of Healthy Living & NextGen Programs at the American Heart Association. She says it’s one of her organization’s guiding values.
“There’s been research on using different music modalities to deliver information,” Johnson explained. “We have to assess how people want to receive information. So we have to find how to package our information so that not only can it be delivered but action is taken.
If individuals are saying this is how we receive information, it’s incumbent upon organizations to determine how from a health literacy standpoint to deliver it so communities take action.”
How Hip Hop Public Health will approach delivering its message to its target audience as a new administration takes over in the White House will remain constant, said Dr. Williams. The nonprofit put out specific messages about vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic with a literacy series produced in English and Spanish that garnered nearly 1 billion social media impressions.
“For us, politics doesn’t play a role,” Williams explained. “We are here, regardless of the administration, to continue promoting our scientific belief, science, and health for young people, especially those disproportionately affected by these conditions.
“Health, to us, is not political,” he continued. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or an independent, you can get COVID, you can be struck down by diseases. As a physician, I have been trained to prioritize life, not political stripe. And that is the same vision we bring at Hip Hop Public Health to the table.”