Reading between the Rhymes: Sage Salvo’s Literacy Revolution

What if your favorite lyrics could help unlock a child’s ability to read?
This episode, I sit down with Sage Salvo, the visionary behind Words Liive, to explore how hip-hop, innovation, and purpose are fueling a national literacy revolution.

We talk about:

The moment he realized lyrics are literature

How the Opus App turns music into classroom-ready content

His ambitious Literacy Moonshot to bring 2/3 of students to grade-level reading by 2045

And the role swag, tech, and community play in disrupting education for good


🎧 This isn’t just an episode — it’s a blueprint for how we teach, reach, and reimagine what’s possible.

Tap in. Turn it up. And let’s read between the rhymes together.

Before you go if this episode gave you value, I need you to do three things:

🎯 Subscribe to the podcast
📨 Leave a review and tell me what resonated
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That’s how we grow this community and keep these conversations going.
You already know the vibe: strategy, growth, and excellence.

I’ll see you in the next episode. 💚✨️

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome to WebClass. The podcast will be with Live Physical Moments and the defeated after. I'm your host at the Chief Library. And each week, I sit down with inspiring individuals with 50 years, with a 50 careers, relationships, or personal work. Together, we'll uncover their stories, challenges, and lessons to inspire your own journey. So are you ready to find out what's next? Come on now, let's go dive in. The podcast where purpose meets preparation and vision gets a voice. I'm your host, the Chief Librarian, and today we're diving into the future of literacy with a revolutionary approach that blends beats with books. My guest is the incomparable Gil Perkins, also known as Sage Salvo, educator, innovator, and founder of Words Live. Through a patented algorithm and a bold literacy moonshot, Gil is using the power of lyrics to rewrite how students engage with reading. If you've ever wondered how hip hop, pop culture, and education can collide for real impact, this is the episode you've been waiting for. Let's turn the page, tune in, and find out what's next. Say it.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Tiffany, I'm good. I appreciate this platform. I appreciate you giving rise in space for educators, educators of color, black male educators to speak about something that we oftentimes aren't invited into conversation about, which is literacy. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Of course. You know, I'm not gonna have it any other way. That's what I do. And no, it's serious, it's all my heart, it's always who I've been, and I cannot have a platform where I am not big enough my brothers. So thank you. I want to start with what moment made you realize that literacy support was a need in schools? Because it had to be a moment for you that it was like boom.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

You know what's ill is it actually was as a student, and I was in it was I think it was 10th grade, 10th or 11th grade. And I had an interesting, I had an interesting K through 12 experience, and I grew up northeast DC, DC public schools, right up through middle school, and then partly because of how I had performed, but how it was a behavioral issue, the administrators encouraged my parents to move us out to Fairfax County so that I could get a better education, read what that meant. This is the 90s, and uh I remember we were reading some book, it may have been like The Great Gatsby, it was like one of the unit books we're supposed to read in class, and I had just listened to It Was Written by Nas, and I became obsessed with that album. And at that age, I remember like, how is he doing this with words? And then he started talking about this life of aspiration and kind of coming from the street culture, getting into like the music mogul culture, like kind of this duality, this life that he's leading. And I just saw the same thing in the Great Gasp, I believe it's the book it was at the time. But Nas was speaking so much more pointedly and compellingly and colorfully, and it's just this beautiful use of language. And I literally became obsessed to the point where I tried to introduce the album to class, and my teacher was like, you know, yes, I know that's no place in here. Like, you know, he saw no correlation, right? But I'm like, no, no, I'm trying to explain it, I'm trying to break it down, and no place for it. And I think that moment right there is where I was like, I'm seeing something. I'm sharing this experience with my peers. We're seeing something that the teacher's not, and he's trying to get me to a place. Maybe I will follow you, but you're not allowing me to take like what I'm interested in to that place. So I'm gonna check out. And so I think that's the moment where I realized, no, that actually might be the process by which we get more kids to tap in. And so I really think that was as all adulthood and going to grad school, I think that was the moment that actually sparked that.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

No, that's powerful, but not to mention the fact that you were already there, you were trying to get your teacher there at that moment. So that's when you know, I'm loving that we're having this conversation because it also reiterates to me as a parent, you have to listen to the youth. So they don't just have to listen to us, we need to listen to them.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

You know, I'm the teen librarian of me is like ping ping-ping right now. I gotta pull back a little bit and let's stay focused. Song lyrics are an unexpected literacy tool. So you talked about how the idea came to you. How well no, well, talk about how you formulated this idea to use it as such.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, so it's another interesting story. So this is now years later. So if that was mid-90s, we're now in like 2012 or so. And I had started a PhD program at Howard, Howard University, DC. And part of the scholarship or award was that I had to teach freshmen, and so I was teaching freshmen, and I had no teaching experience whatsoever. I was just in grad school, and and grad schools do this from time to time, you know, they're asking to teach. And so I had to pull everything to get pull the curriculum together, do the assignments. I had some other faculty that helped, but you know, I was a fish out of water. It was my first teaching experience. And I remember I went to assign some essays and then assign a list of reading as you know, customary and higher ed. And I got into the discussions with the kids about the reading, about some essays about their own writing, and I found like this huge, it was just like a disconnect. I wasn't seeing the level of writing that I wanted, I wasn't getting the level of comprehension that I wanted. And so, again, the way my brain works was okay, if I want them to read whatever it was, a Shakespeare sonnet or a set of New York Times articles, whatever it was, my brain would always map back to songs. Again, it got set off by Nod at that age. And so if I wanted them to examine like unrequited love, or examine what a real criminal is or criminality in the law, or if I want them to examine, you know, a literary device, a technique, the use of analogy, my brain would map to music to do it. And so I just began to literally start making like a little list, like, okay, I gotta teach this unit on the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. I need a slave narrative. Okay, first I gotta do it a bio narrative. I'm gonna go with you know, the unauthorized biography of Rakem by Nas. Like I just began to pair it. So whatever it was, whether it's a literary device, a theme, a unit, my brain just mapped over the music. So I started the list got longer and longer and longer. And before I knew it, it turned into a thing. Like I was the guy that could like present a curriculum through song and through music. And that it kind of naturally shot out, like uh Cardoza High School, right by Howard. There was a teacher, Miss Z, over there, who brought us in or brought me in, I guess at that time it was just me, to teach a unit. It was a theater unit. I can't exactly remember what the play was, but we taught that through like Kendrick Lamar and like so it became a thing. So, and then I was going to DC public schools, and then the teachers and the faculty were like, you need to incorporate, like you have to be an actual vendor to keep coming into the schools, and so that's how it kind of started in earnest. So, my apologies. I don't know if you can hear that, but something's going on downstairs.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

We cannot hear it, okay. We hear you clearly, and I okay, good. We can just keep rolling with so the it that we are referring to is words live, and talk to us a little bit about words live, what it is, what it means, and what you do.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, it's intentional, you know, to place the literary art form of songwriting. And I gotta be careful here too. So I also dabbled, right? Like I became obsessed with music. So I began to write. I would try to write for other artists, and I wrote myself into the position of hosting a real popular open mic in DC at Bus Boys and Poets. Okay, and this was the same time, same time period that I'm teaching at Howard. So now it's like I'm really deep in it, right? Like I'm interfacing with all the poets who come into town to perform. I'm writing myself, like I'm really in it. And so naming the company and giving it a direction, it was very intentional because I wanted to say, like, the literary arts art, like it's rich, it's meant to be performed. Like, even if we're looking at some of the older text and literature, those were oral art forms. It was performed. So this is something I wanted to have like that kinetic type of energy to it. And so just like words alive, and I wanted the students to see themselves and be able to participate in it. So that's kind of how we thought about the direction of where we wanted to go, and we wanted to have an impact on the curriculum. I used to say that I think my goal and something I was planted here to do is to expand the canon, right? In K through 12, there has been an old, antiquated reading canon. And I just knowing both from what it takes to compose and craft really compelling songs, I know the rigor that goes into that, and I know that it's a great vehicle to teach skills through. And so my and our, because it's a team at this point, our goal became to expand the reading canon, include music, include movie scripts, include series, because today's literary artists, that's what they're writing through. It's not just the old school way of a novel. There's some great urban graphic novelists as well, but it's also through these multimedia compositions, and so that's really where that whole beginning kind of started came.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Yeah, and no, you are connecting so many areas for our youth in particular that they attach to naturally on their own. Music is a thing for us. You know, we hear a song, don't hear a song at the barbecue, and everybody, I mean young, old, different, is up there doing an electric slide or before I let go, you know, there's just certain melodies, there are certain things that you hear that trigger joy that trigger hurt. They trigger, they're a trigger, right? And so right, and so for you to be able to make that connection, and especially, you know, I just want to keep digging into young black males for them to have a space, yep, and to feel seen, be seen, heard so important.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Some of my favorite moments on this journey, it's been when young black boys get up and begin to assume more leadership in the classroom. So they know that they know the music, they got background in the artist, they have contextual expertise, like they're able to lead the discussion, answer follow-up, and clarifying questions. You just see their participation rates rise. And some teachers, beyond to you, some teachers can't handle that. But you see that, and that's something that I love when I see that thing activated because I know that they're now independently motivated to study that thing or to go deeper. And that to me, that's really what you're doing as an educator. You're trying to light a match. You can't look at them as like a repository to just dump everything in your brain to their brain. You're trying to light a match so that their curiosity will take them further, and that's why I love when I see that when they get it and they start standing up, they start speaking up. Like that's when I'm like, all right, yeah, we lit that match. Oh, yeah. And they have to black boys a lot.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yeah, because you planting that seed. And see, that there's a theme even in some of the episodes that I've talked about about, you know, faith of a mustard seed. We start, you have just that faith of that small mustard seed. You know, we know a mustard seed is tiny. So if you're able to plant that and it oh is mind-blowing and able to expand, that's what to me, what Words Live is, especially to youth and not just young men, but I say primarily because we need to motivate them in a different way. You know, young girls, they're motivated by lashes and you know, crocs and hair and the edges. You know, they have the things, right? And even if they're sassy, they are intelligent, they can maneuver, but young men often feel like they're not seen in many spaces. I mean, I live in Baltimore and I talk to young black men, I say hi, and they look often surprised that I'm just they don't know me, like, what's going on? Am I she can see me? Yeah, I can see you, young brother. Almost suspicious, like nobody ever talked to me like this, right? Like, and then I'll say hi. Oh, hi, and now I see them and they like hi, miss, right? Like before I can get a chance. But just planting that seed of safety, planting that seed of you can do this, planted that seed of you belong here is what we need to do more. And so another thing about the app, right? You have an app, the opus app, if I'm saying it correctly, and as you do lessons, you want to talk a little bit how that connects to the work and what's special about your patented algorithm. I want to hear it all.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, I want to download all of the it's interesting stories on interesting stories over here. So I was kind of to extend where we started. We were this was no technology when I started. I didn't have an ad. We were just going into classrooms, remixing curriculum with our you know, music and media. And so I did this for a while. Yeah, it was vibe. We were changing the culture, like the school and classroom culture. I think like the local news stations, they ran a couple stories on us, and so people started hearing about what we were doing around DC and Peace County. And I got to have, it was either lunch or dinner. I want to say it was dinner, with a gentleman by the name of Jim Shelton. Jim Shelton at the time had just left President Obama's administration, I think is the deputy secretary of education under Arnie Duncan. And people had wanted us to meet, or they wanted me to get some guidance because they thought, you know, there was some potential here. And he told me, he said, listen, what I'm hearing about you is good. What you're doing in classrooms is good, but there's no way you're gonna be able to reach all the kids that need this intervention by just you and your, you know, two or three member crew going from school to school and classroom to classroom, right? So I said, all right, facts. You can't really scale, like it's you know, it's only a couple, a small team. So you said you have to figure out how to do this with technology, and that was a challenge he put to me. And so, you know, I'm someone who likes to challenge, especially if it's like, man, like this is good work that deserves to be scaled. Yes. And so that set me on the path of can we design technology to do what we were doing as just you know human interactions? And although even with AI, I maintain that you can't fully like, you know, duplicate what you're doing when you bring real human beings and real mentors and tutors into a classroom, what part of it can you, you know, copy, you know, duplicate to some degree? And that's what the Opus app is trying to do. So we designed that Opus app to say any teacher in any classroom can at least develop some lessons or some lesson plans based on integrating music that their kids listen to. And so the the way we designed it was that it's super easy, independently used. Any teacher can just take literally the information in. Your kids listen to 21 Savage, they listen to G Herbal, they listen to Gunner, whoever they listen to. You can either look through the database to see if there's something there or someone similar, or write us a ticket, and we'll do the work via our algorithm to make sure that that music or something similar is able to speak to certain kids. You can build lesson plans there. The reason you want to start there is because we know that's when we get engagement. And we know the students begin to feel like they're co-creating those lessons. Like, okay, I know the unit is subject-verb agreement, so that's my anchor. Can I find examples? Or can I find anti-examples that I can get them to correct in stuff that they have already come into the classroom with consuming? That's the key. That's being responsive to them, and that's really what the opus is designed to do. Make it so that anybody can respond to their kids and not have to be like, no, we have to teach this some kind of way, or I myself have to come up with the most perfect lesson plan. No, put the parties together, let them co-create that lesson plan with you, let them tell you what they're listening to, what they're consuming, and then you put that in to the learning process. So that's all the opus is is designed to do.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

Yeah, and I love this. While you were speaking, I was thinking about how every year, and you know this, so I'm just speaking out loud. Educators have annual professional development. So they have a big one right before the school year starts, and then they have smaller ones throughout. I hope that they are inviting you, and that if whether it's annually, that semi, by whatever it is that you quarterly that you are able to penetrate the system and go and show people because I, you know, even though we're educators, you know, in different ways, we still need to be taught. So I'm hoping that you're penetrating that market, you know, participate in professional developments and share your information with educators.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

We have been fortunate enough to do a couple of those beginning of the year, uh, professional development kickoffs. And those are great. But what I found, and we started doing this like two years ago, what I found is a little more impactful when you get to the departmental, like bi-weekly or monthlies, because that's when you get to the nitty-gritty of like, okay, y'all, we gotta teach Lord of the Flies, and I know half the class gonna check out what we're gonna do. That's when you actually have what I think is the most effective opening to say, all right, I got you. You know, here's the remix curriculum here. We're gonna start them off on these five songs, exactly this thing. We're gonna talk about the way that it's written. We're gonna have these examples in this song. Like this, we're gonna prime them to get up to the point where they actually do want to read Water Flies. That's where I found PD can be much more impactful. It's a crowded space. I've seen that a lot. Like, you know, you're competing against some major publishers and folks that do PD all the time. So it is a crowded space. But I found that a lot of educators, and that they'll have survey and research about this, 90% of the time, they can't stay in their PD. Like they're like, oh God, I gotta do PD.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Oh, they're checking up for box. I'm just here that's just like. They're just checking the box.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yep, I attended. Yeah, man. I was on my phone the whole time, but I attended. And I think just the way the same way we think about engagement in the classroom, we're beginning to think about that with teacher PD. Like, how can we make PD more impactful and make teachers actually want to be a part of it? So that's that's something we started thinking about and started experimenting with like two years ago. And for me, it looks like yeah, the kickoff is cool, the beginning of the year stuff is cool. But what it really looks like is give us about 30 minutes for your departmental meeting. Like, let's schedule those touch points throughout the year. So I'm trying to get school districts that think differently about it. Think differently.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Well, you know, you could tap into a school media specialist, aka school librarians who you know sometimes have to host these things in all seriousness. So talk to them, and I can connect you with a handful of them that I know in DC.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

That does make a lot, I actually hadn't thought about it that way. So now I can got a question for you. One little question for you, though. So, like the school librarian role, I feel like is morphed and expanded as tech has come in. Do you think that role becomes more pivotal in teacher training and like facilitating resources? Because I hadn't been thinking about it like this. You put a little mustard seed in my mind about it. I didn't see that role. Yeah, yeah. How do you see that role evolving? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

So it's so interesting. We've always done it. So, as librarians, we've always aligned with educators, and curriculum has always been a part of, while a small part has been a part of our work. And so, school media specialists and school librarians have the unique opportunity because they're actually in the space of education to host. They usually have a library with so they have the space and they have some time, right? Because they're taking classes and, of course, accessing, you know, we're introducing children to resources or youth to resources so that they can learn how to engage. But we have an opportunity to help and support our colleagues in that way. And so that is how we can continue to do that with technology, not just electronic resources, but now apps are more prevalent. So being able to know what types of apps can work that may be interchangeable, you know, like how you can get an app, let's say we work with different vendors similar to yourself, to provide maybe an iPad at my agency. And then they have different apps that go on that iPad so that people are in their discovery phase, are tapping on, oh, what's this? Because they see it. So that that's how they can do that, right? So if they have an iPad or a tablet or a computer that they can access that your app is on and is ready to go, somebody taps it intentionally or unintentionally, then you have you getting more drivers. You don't want the youth are gonna do it, but then they can take that opportunity to use that tablet iPad technology to do a PD with some of the the teachers. Absolutely, absolutely. So I see it's similar to what you're talking about, but that's the connection, yeah. So, you know, we can talk more offline for sure, but that gem right there will be helpful for you to even expand, you know. Like whether it is um PG, Virginia, Northern Virginia, and DC, that's another way to tap in. It really is. You know, I'm here for it. I see. We can talk all day about this. This is my jam. So I like that. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, when I say it, I mean it like with my whole heart. I love this. Listen, we want to talk about how you participated in top accelerators and received major awards. So this is okay. So, how did you shape words' lives? Words lives, um trajectory. How did you shape that? I mean, you talked a little bit about meeting with people, but I mean, people are paying attention and you're being awarded, and that's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

It's this old saying, um, necessity is the mother of invention. So, you know, when you start out and you're like, okay, I gotta build an app now. Hmm, I'm not an engineer. How am I gonna do this? And then where are the resources gonna come from? And you get into this technology world, this startup world, and they're like, oh, you know, go raise a friends and family round. Like, what's a friends and family round? It's like, oh, when you go hit up your friends and your family for seed money. I'm like, all my friends of my family broken in 10 commandments, right? I'm not gonna be able to raise no kind of money from my friends of my family. So uh, all right, what's option B? Option B is accelerator programs. So I'll say, okay, start to get information on these accelerators and incubators. Sometimes they're connected to a university, sometimes they're connected to like a rich, wealthy philanthropist. For me, the first one we did kind of right within each other was Halcyon, which was in Georgetown, and Camelback Ventures, who Camelback is my fam. They're based in New Orleans, their social impact accelerator program, but they pride themselves on being the first check for like budding entrepreneurs and you know, people in the social impact space that have great ideas how to help help society out. And so that was our first check. That was Camelback Ventures, that was our first investor process and like going through the idea who's gonna be the customer, how you're gonna sell, where are you gonna get the engineers from? Do you have a blueprint for the engineers? Like, make you go through all of those details, craft up a business plan, shrink the business plan. Like it was trial by fire, but it was the education you know that I needed as someone who didn't have previous entrepreneur experience. I didn't come from an entrepreneurial family. My family just like hardworking folks, and they came from popping themselves, and so it's that was the starting point for me. It was like, okay, there are wealthy individuals who are willing to invest in promising entrepreneurs that are trying to do good. And so that's where I started, and that's what put me on that circuit of getting into those programs, and then it's usually, and I'll say this because this is an interesting part of it. There's like a default to like a business competition with these programs. You know, I don't know if you follow some of like the series like Silicon Valley, HBO, the Shark Tanks, you know, those programs. So there's like that element of it. So they they kind of coach you up in how to present the idea. But when you do that, and you know, you kind of get it to a point where it's like, all right, it's starting to resonate, you can win money. And so, yeah, we were able to go through. I want to say, when I went, so when we when we did those programs and went through, it's like right before COVID, it's like into 2018, 2019. I was able to get a good like five awards. So, and in startup world, we call it pre-seed money. I was able to get about 200, 250k at that point. So now I was able to like hire engineers and actually hire a team and actually build a real product. And that via those programs and that seed money, that's how we got off the ground.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Oh man, I love that. I love that you know, you shared a little bit of your journey for somebody who may be listening and thinking about how they can do it. The accelerators do help, and that is an important piece, especially to your point. When you are not an entrepreneur, you don't know where to start. And sometimes it's a matter of who you meet, but most times it's us just having to figure it out for ourselves. So thank you for sharing that. Yes. So your goal is to get to two-thirds of students to grade level reading. What's your roadmap to get there?

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Yeah, so if you the way I look at this data is we have an early childhood literacy problem. We do, but we also have a lot of energy in that space. And I think we've slowly been able to kind of move the needle towards more to most kids, being able to be on grade level, and this is early childhood literacy just looks like phonetics, like being able to say words audibly, letters audibly, encode, put letters together in words, decode, deconstruct a word from its parts, put a sentence together, like that basic literacy. But where I really feel like the challenge is, and this is especially with where we're going economically, is around comprehension and writing. And if you look at that, that's usually like that middle school era up to early high school, is we're dealing with comprehension. And so, all right, why do we have comprehension problems? A little bit of it is a lot of kids at that age just aren't spending enough time. Like they might be able to sound out words, read through a sentence, but they're not spending enough time reading. So, like that muscle is just atrophy over time. Like you give them a paragraph, they read the first sentence, maybe cognize the first sentence, but after that, like my mind is drifting. I might be sailing off the words, but I'm I'm not paying attention. So a little bit of it is just repetition, but a lot of it, I think, is in what's called verbal reasoning. And that is as you're reading, are you making structural sense about what you're reading? So if I'm reading, I'm going sentence to sentence, do I understand that there's a paragraph that had this topic sentence, is gonna have a conclusion sentence, and everything in the middle. Trying to support that topic sentence before it goes to the next paragraph. Do I know as I'm reading in real time, I'm transitioning from one paragraph to another? That little pocket, that space right there, that's where I think the game is. And that to me is all about structural skills. So one thing I love to do is go through literary structure. And a good way to develop that muscle is through structures that kids already know. Back to the music. Yeah. So our kids know all right, break this song down. And they can identify verse one here, hook here, bridge here, the theme is repeated through the hook. They're starting to connect these literary ideas. And but more importantly, they're starting to see structure and see that structure repeat over and over and over again. That's when you get that, you develop that muscle to identify structure. And to me, when we're talking about comprehension, that's the game. And once you then start doing the fun stuff about breaking down lyrics, figurative language, use of analogy, making arguments. Once you start breaking that down, the kids get hooked and they start to develop that muscle. And that's why I think we're leaving a lot of meat on the bone. And my two-thirds of our kids are not at their grade level when it comes to literacy performance. And if you look at some of the standards, we see them doing it. It's just not on the content that we ask them to do it for. You know, you'll see a standard in middle school is like cite evidence for the main idea, you know, of a short story. And the kids aren't doing it. But if I say, what's the main idea of this song? And they read three verses, by the end of a few sessions, they're able to do it. That means they have that muscle. It's just not being translated over to that source text. And so that's what we're trying to build. And we think we can do that through exercising that muscle, the content that they actually like.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

Oh, that's amazing. Oh, I love this. I absolutely I get more excited the more I hear about it. So, with that being said, there may be listeners, teachers, parents, donors who want to support the mission. How can they do that?

SPEAKER_00 32:08

I'm so easy to find. Um, anything on social media at Saint Salvo, at WordsLive, you can always contact me on directly as a very small team. And we are always in um raise and deploy mode. So, you know, we're in programs now, we're saving investment, roll up into the product, roll back on the programs, back out to the streets. Like we're always in that mode. So if you want to support that work, very easy to find. Words live with two eyes or sage salvo, all the social media stuff we're on. Beyond that, I would say if you have relationships with school districts in particular, find out what their literacy needs are. Find out if they're struggling with anything in particular. I know like everybody got teacher turnover issues and lack of resources, but ask them what they're struggling with. You know, like try to get it like a level deeper. Is it the kids just aren't reading? Is their reading time? They're not turning in homework, they're not participating in class, try to get a level deeper to see what that problem is. And if you think there's something that we can help to solve, then please reach out and make that warm intro. That would be some of the most effective ways to support.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Yeah, absolutely. And so do you travel? So, do you want to talk a little bit about the area, your focus? Like, so if somebody in Pennsylvania or Delaware, maybe New York or Connecticut is interested, you'll travel to do what you're saying. Absolutely. Oh, New Orleans.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

We're actually we're just in New Orleans, actually. So, and I'm co-located in DC and St. Louis now. So we are part of another, another, I guess it's not quite an incubator, but incubator type program with arts grants. So we're one of the current fellows of the arts grants in St. Louis, and we have been looking to do work with KIP St. Louis and the Ferguson Floriston School District there. I don't know if you guys remember a couple years ago with Mike Brown and some of the the you know the uprising there. That's the school district Mike Brown was in. Another thing is, you know, I'm coming from DC, but I travel all the time and I just see the same type of behavior, the same problems in classrooms all across the country. Like this is it's almost it's not unique anywhere, it's just everywhere. And one thing I love to do, and it's another funny story actually. We did an early partnership with Teach for America in Alabama. And uh Mobile or Montgomery? I want to say Montgomery. I'm gonna say it's Montgomery, Alabama, and they brought us in, kind of same, you know, same thing. I need you guys to remix this unit, class isn't performing so well, and you know, teachers need some help. So we come in, and this is when I thought I had everything together. So I came in with a whole package of like Atlanta and Southern artists, and gee, I'm so excited because I hadn't done like a fully southern package yet. And so uh man, I mean, we had like Outcast, T.I., Gucci Man, Jeezy. I'm hype. Like, I'm like, man, we're like two hours outside Atlanta, it's gonna hit. And I get there, and the middle school kids looking at me like, yo, who is this? Well, I don't listen to him. What are you talking about? You know, I'm looking at my team like, what? Like, Atlanta's two hours away. What do you mean? This is like the hottest music in the whole industry right now. Atlanta has been running the urban music scene. And they're naming artists I had never heard of, but they were like very hyper local. So it taught me a good lesson. I said, yo, as experienced, thoughtful as I think that I am, I can never be truly responsive unless I actually ask the question. And that's when our whole process changed. Before we go anywhere, we receive information from the kids. We have a cultural study that we give every single student. I want to know what you're into, what you listen, what you eat, what you dance to, what you watch. I have to make cultural profiles of who I'm going because that informs me about how I package those lessons. So now when we travel, it's still hyper-customized to that specific student population. So yeah, we love to do it. It helps us learn, you know, because I love being introduced to new things as well. So it really that's our approach, every school district, everywhere we land. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

That part, that part sounds like you pivot well, you know. But I do appreciate you sharing that story because oftentimes that's how you know, we think maybe as adults, we think as experts or whoever and whatever field that we are going to tell you and teach you. And that goes back to our earlier conversation that the youth will teach us, they will humble us every single time. But you have to be prepared to be humble, right? And not use that ego, don't work from ego. My daughter at 15 years old, and sometimes she'll say something and I'll just stop. And then I say touche. And she's like, Oh, I want her to be able to speak her mind. I want to be able to do it, but I'm like, touche, you know, because I'm usually on it. But when she has a point, I'm like point taken because I want it to be received in that year for you know, like I do, you know, we don't that wasn't, and I tell her also, that's not how I grew up. My mother would be like, before I could even open my mouth, shut up, dang, I didn't even say it.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

I didn't say nothing. Yep. And like Tiffany, this is something I've been thinking a lot about. This is not developed, so I'm saying this in real time with you. I haven't developed this thought, but I have a friend, a close friend, who's a college basketball coach. And we were talking one day, and he was just telling me about the mentality of the kids now. He can't coach them the same way he did 10, 15 years ago, right? And it's just something that I think like teachers, it's the same way in the classroom. That hierarchy about like, I'm the expert and I'm the teacher, and you know, listen to me. I just don't think this generation of kids that they just don't operate that way. And so we got to change our tactic, and it might mean allowing the kids to have a little bit more authority in the classroom and co-present and co-collaborate and co-develop. It might look like flattening out that hierarchy. Now that's gonna make a lot of teachers uncomfortable, and I think that's some of the pushback that I've seen and some of the hurdles. But uh, to your point, I think that might be part of the problem we see in the classrooms, is we're not giving the kids enough authority, you know.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Yes, and that's why when they think they have it, it looks negative, right? The authority that they're trying to obtain doesn't come across the same way that they may even intend it, and it turns a corner that we don't want them to turn. So and I'm challenging, you know, I say I'm 47 years old, so I'm on that borderline of see be seen but not heard, but then I was like still pushing the, you know, you if you listen to the Mother's Day episode, my sisters will tell you I was the one who's always, as my sister Ebony said, I was running to the smoke, she was running away from it, and I was all bringing the smoke. So I was that borderline, right? Um, and so because of that, I understand. And you know, even like I said, like in parenthood, I have one teenage child, and because of that, I feel fortunate that she has wonderful teenage friends, and my space is the space for them. So, like, can pick up uh yesterday. They went to Afram. Why were they still here this morning? Oh Miss C, no, Miss C nothing. Y'all knew y'all were gonna do this, right? But but again, I'm the safe space. They know they can come be who they are. You know, we talk, we chat, we laugh, we watch a movie, we do whatever, and then they can be teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Yes, that is so important now, and not to get up too much of a tangent. I know of a it's a young lady actually was at our church, but she gave a testimony about having a friend whose mom was their safe space, and that was her way to get away from her abusive home. And we they're just people like you have been, and we've always, you know, our community has always, I think, done that. Not so much recently, not so much recently, and so what you're providing, I think, is so much more needed now because of what kids are dealing with. Like, it's not just a safe space for your daughter, it's a safe space for your daughter's friends as well. That actually goes into a lot of reinforcing. What goes on in the classroom? They pick up good habits when they go to a home where they feel safe to do things, they can just big different patterns.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Like they're like, bruh. And I'm not like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, I just and then they'll they'll auto-correct. They're like, oh, sorry, Miss T. But where they killed me, like, bruh, and they talk and they're telling their stories, and I'm like, Well, what did that feel like? Like, we went to see sinners together, and then I'm in the car on the way back. I was like, I'm gonna just take a few minutes and try to pick their brain. I said, Well, what did you think about that? And they were like, Well, and you know, and then they start, and I was like, Am I just so proud? But I was like, Oh, okay, that's cool. I kept it cool. I wasn't trying that because you know, you get too excited, they like, okay, okay. But yeah, then they then they too cool for you, right? Like, yeah, uh, all right, all right, cool. You know, but they were engaging, they were talking about it, they were giving their perspective, and that's all I wanted. It didn't matter. I just wanted them to give their own perspective and know that they had that time, you know, and so just creating those spaces, I think, are important. That's a space that my parents did create, my aunts, and like I said, I would be told to shut up before I said certain things, but I also did have the space to be who exactly who I am, and so that is one of the things that I do want to push forward, and so you know, with that, I'm saying, what's next for words live?

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Man, so my I just spoke about this in New Orleans, like I said, I was just there at Camelback's 10-year summit that they had like two weeks ago. And one thing, so I've there's a few like real strong barriers in public education. One of them that I've encountered through this work is the procurement and partnering process, and everyone knows, like, man, it takes like a long time, a year and a half, two year cycles, you gotta get in. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I've experienced that, it's cool. It makes it hard to change. And then I began to ask this question, like, man, why hasn't public instruction with all the technology, all the research, why hasn't like when I go into a class, why hasn't it changed? Like, why I'm still looking at the same five publishers of all the materials, I'm still looking at very similar processes. I'm just like, why hasn't it changed? And a lot of it for me was that new people like me, people who have gotten some stuff, gotten some research behind them, got a little traction, but getting out is always kind of these glass ceilings, and it's procurement. And I thought deeper about it. And so, what I'd be like all challenges, put a challenge in front of me. I'm gonna noodle on the thing for a minute, I'm gonna try to figure it out. And so, one thing that we think, one solution that we think can be powerful, we put this together, is assembling a bunch of the tech companies in the education space. So I'm a literacy guy. One of my partners, he does some phenomenal work with math, especially algebra, using music as well. I have another partner who uses comic books and creates original comic books to reteach historical events, and just there's so many principal and Compton, my guy, Principal Amin Ra, they do an anti-truancy program by linking attendance with school with rewards and incentives at the mall and at retail stores, and for Jordans, it's just they there's so many creative people. And I said, listen, y'all, we're not competing against each other, but what we are doing was cannibalizing each other's time at the school district level. They can't meet with Sage and then meet with Tiffany and then meet with Ra. Like, they're not set up to do that. That's right. So I've been saying, if we created one platform that literally housed every all the innovations around every deck, then did stuff like parent engagement, truancy, shiverten, like all the little things that's out there. And a lot of times it's us building them because we're the ones closest to the problem. We see it more you know intuitively. We come from that same classroom that we end up helping. If we put all of us on one platform, could that cut through some of the procurement issues? And so we I've got I'm very, very excited about this next phase, literally starting this summer, where we got eight companies now, all together, one unified company, one unified platform to do larger, more impactful work in school districts because now it's a single point of sign-on, a single point of contact, and we can customize it. Like we go to Baltimore from DC, Baltimore might say, Hey, we're cool on middle school literacy. We need middle school math. Okay, cool. I got markets right here for you. Y'all need parent engagement, we got raw, like we can customize that thing now. And so that to me is one way to kind of cut through and really get to the partnership a lot quicker and more effectively. And so that's I'm really excited about us coming together. You know, it's the old adage again, you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, have a deeper impact, go together. And so I'm glad that my peers, we aren't looking at each other as competitors, we're looking at each other as collaborators. And so I'm really excited about doing this work. And we didn't get to do cool stuff, which is like work together on newer solutions, right? Like, I got my stuff over in my little silo, but I got something to say for math too. Like, let me try to build something out with Marcus over there with math. And so now we get to do that kind of work. So that's what I'm really excited about that that we're doing now.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Yeah, I love that community. I mean, is again a common theme. We can't do anything alone. We the village and the community are so important. I'm gonna end this on. Yeah, we well, no, we're getting back to it. So you and I, as like we're back to it, we're getting back to it. We are. This is the work, and I'm gonna offer myself here to say that I love working with that team, that pre-teen and teen population. So if there's any way that I can support the work, we got it. You got me. I'm in. But what song lyric sums up your mood for today?

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Ooh, good one. Sums up my mood. The first thing that came to my mind was uh Nipsey Hustle grinding all my life. That's the first thing that just came to my mind.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

I mean, there we go. Literally, we just listened to that this morning.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

That's the first as the first thing that just came out. I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna give you a Nas one too. Nas got this line, it's a song that's not very well known at all. I'm trying to remember what album it's on. It might be part of his King Disease series, but he got this line that imagination is uh greater than knowledge. That's Einstein. And like it literally was an Einstein quote. Like, you know, you think of the most intelligent people in history, Einstein pops out, and he even said, imagination is greater than knowledge. And so I what's possible, right? Like that, I'm always again. How do we cut through the system? How do it's that thought about what else can we do? Like, what can happen if that's one of my favorite ways to just orient myself in this work, and as I think about going to next week and next month, is that it's that Einstein quote. Let me give you another good one. Who can I pull on? Let me do a non-hip-hop one. There's uh John Mayer quote. Uh John Mayer is actually one of my favorite songwriters. That's a whole different tangent we can go on. But he has this line and it's this concept about half of my heart. And he's uh in a song, he's saying, like, basically, anything that I've ever done with like half-heartedly has always fallen short. And it's like when I recognize that I gotta check myself. And I think that's also sums up the mood is this work is taxing, like dealing with other people's children is taxing. And so if you're not all the way like I really, really, really, really, really believe in what I'm doing, I think it becomes very difficult to do this work. So those kind of sum up my mood right now.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Oh, I love it. I love it. Thank you, Sage, again for being on This Sealed My Soul. I'm sure that's good discussion. The passion, it is a very good discussion. I mean, your passion, your commitment, your love, your innovation are prevalent, and I'm just thankful for to be in a space with someone like you who is, you know, working with our youth and just trying to get them where they need to be. So I just want to say thank you at Words Live for coming on to the show, and we're gonna close out. That was a powerful conversation. Huge thanks. Of course, of course, huge thanks to you, Gil, for showing us what's possible when innovation meets intention. Words Live is more than an app, it's in a movement to make literacy relevant, joyful, and transformative. If today's episode lit a spark, don't let it fade. Tap into Words Live, explore the Opus app, and see how you can be a part of the literacy moonshot. As you already know how we close this out, I'm the chief librarian, and I ask you what I ask every guest, what's next? And whatever it is, make it excellent. Until next time, keep growing, keep leading, and keep showing up in your purpose. Bye y'all.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

Beautiful. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

Thanks for tuning in to What's Next with the Chief Librarian. I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas and gave you a fresh perspective on life transition. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who might need a little inspiration. For more stories and updates, follow me on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn at the Chief Librarian. And until next time, keep exploring what's next for you. Bye.