J.U.i.C.E. recognizes and supports the peer-led approach inherent to hip-hop culture and combines it with contemporary arts instruction methodologies. As one of J.U.i.C.E.’s core values, young people and adults must be active participants in and responsible for their own learning and skill development.

At J.U.i.C.E., we promote and teach the following elements: 

The foundation of our work is creating an empowering learning experience, ensuring that all participants are actively engaged in building their own skills, receiving respect as valuable individuals who can add their distinct voice to the group process.

Mural Works is a project designed to teach participants basic art concepts such as line, shape, color, texture, and composition. In addition to understanding the basic elements of art, consistently attending youth are given hands-on opportunities to participate in workshops and murals projects with a breadth of artists who have contributed to the public art movement in Los Angeles. Throughout these sessions, the participants design a mural that, at the culmination, is painted on legal walls donated by local businesses. Participants are mentored and guided by professional artists.

D A N C E Bboy/ Bgirl Sessions provides a large, clean hardwood dance practice space that draws an average of 60-70 dancers per session alongside several trained J.U.i.C.E. facilitators. The young dancers mentor one another in various freestyle dance forms.

DJ/ Turntablism provides open record players for young people to learn deejaying techniques from our DJ mentors.

Music Production and Recording Workshops offers participants the opportunity to learn the basics of music production software and hardware, to create beats, samples and recordings of their own material.

Emcee Cipher and Rhyme Writing Workshops are designed to introduce participants to the art of spoken word, poetry, rhythm and rhyming, stage presence and microphone control. J.U.i.C.E. hosts a monthly performance night called "Coalescence". Check calendar listing for more information.

Our programming model supports young artists to develop their skills by encouraging them to clarify their needs and empowering them to dictate their learning experience under the guidance of a facilitator. J.U.i.C.E. ensures that each facilitator provides content knowledge, skills-instruction, artistic training and support, and mentorship for participants. Facilitators are expected to use traditional arts instruction techniques and tailor each session according to what participants want to learn and what facilitators feel they need in order to improve their skill-set. This unique approach is one reason that J.U.i.C.E. has maintained its popularity and efficacy: by creating an empowering learning experience, ensuring that all participants are actively engaged in building their own skills, receiving respect as valuable individuals who can add their distinct voice to the group process. Because of their nature, our weekly sessions are not identical, making each week a new and exciting opportunity to hone skills in a dynamic, challenging environment.

CULTURAL EQUITY AND INCLUSION

We are a non-profit Hip Hop arts organization and our mission is to create a safe and vibrant environment for the community to explore multiple aspects of hip-hop. We also serve a wider social cause by providing free public access to our programs, art performances, and other artistic endeavors.  We believe that art is important to cognitive, emotional, and physical development, and is important to building cross-cultural understanding and community development.  Hip-hop is a powerful vehicle to build community relationships, is continuously evolving, and must be supported. 

To carry out our mission, we integrate the following core values: 

Maintain a safe space to practice art free from emotional or physical harassment, oppression, repression, or aggression; respect for the space, one another, and the art we create; share talents with one another; and embrace the creative power of art. We embrace values, policies and practices that ensure that all people are represented and treated fairly, without regard to race/ethnicity, national origin, age, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizen status, genetic predisposition, marital status or religion.  

The intent of this document is to provide guidance for our organization to make cultural inclusion and equity a strategic priority, and to create a structural framework that supports this endeavor, including ways our organization can recognize and decrease institutional racism or oppression.  When considering inclusion, we incorporate the concept of “intersectionality”- a framework for understanding how multiple social identities such as race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and disability intersect at the micro level of individual experience to reflect interlocking systems of privilege and oppression in our analysis and work. 

(Source: https://www.americansforthearts.org/about-americans-for-the-arts/statement-on-cultural-equity)