New Bronx High School of Hip Hop will use music as ‘vehicle for learning’ for public school kids A new public high school in the Bronx will be turning every lesson into music class this fall. The Bronx School of Hip Hop is set to open its doors in Claremont in September as the first-of-its-kind city public school that uses the genre music famously pioneered in the borough as a “vehicle for learning.” “It’s a rigorous, future-ready New York City public school that is innovative and responsive to the community’s needs and really exposes our students to different pathways to really show their intelligence,” said incoming principal Jason Reyes. While its name might conjure up a different idea, Bronx School of Hip Hop won’t be going to rap class in the morning before heading to a DJ session. Instead, educators will teach the standard state curriculum through the lens of five core elements of hip hop culture. “M-ing, DJing, Graffiti, Breaking, and Knowledge of Self — these connect directly to literacy, mathematics, science, technology, entrepreneurship, media and then cultural leadership. It’s not like we have these music electives. It’s more like hip hop is embedded through the academic program as a rigorous framework,” explained Reyes, a born-and-raised Bronxite. “So MCing is still the English language. We’re talking about the analysis of rhetorical language, storytelling, literary analysis,” he continued. “When we talk about how math relates specifically to DJing and production, you’ve got sequencing ratios, algebraic expressions and pattern recognition within that, as well as the whole financial modeling side of math with statistics.” There will still be plenty of interesting classes that a regular public school might not offer, including audio engineering, beat production, video and graphic design and more. The idea for the Bronx School of Hip Hop had