ProQuo (Professor Lyrical & Jay "Quokane" Cruz)

This video was featured on Chronicle (multiple times) - Professor Lyrical interviewed by WCVB-TV-5 Anchor Bianca DelaGarza - ABC/HEARST MEDIA

This video was featured on Chronicle (multiple times) - Professor Lyrical interviewed by WCVB-TV-5 Anchor Bianca DelaGarza - ABC/HEARST MEDIA

Forever 29

Lyrical's birthday bash, Harpers Ferry, January 10, 2007

By: MATTHEW M. BURKE

With its tradition of blues and jam bands, Allston's Harpers Ferry isn't the first place you'd expect one of Boston's most promising hip-hop artists to celebrate his birthday. But times have changed, and a week ago Wednesday it indeed was Harpers Ferry that played host to the Lyrical birthday bash, a party/show to celebrate one more year in the life of the Lowell-bred rapper.
Clad in a sport coat and a button-down shirt, Lyrical took a break from mingling in the crowd to announce that he is "forever 29." The tall and skinny enigma of a rapper (a/k/a Pete Plourde, by day a business-management and mathematics professor) is the first to admit with a smile that he was also 29 last year and will still be 29 in 10 years. "If Sylvester Stallone can be 50 when he's 60, I can be 29 when I'm 59. I got an album called iNFiNiTi. . . it's timeless."
Inspired by hip-hop's golden era, Lyrical emerged as the voice of X-Caliber in the late '90s, and he did a stint in the group Invasion before going solo. iNFiNiTi (D.i.M.E.) dropped in '05 and was voted Album of the Year in last June's first annual Mass Industry Committee Hip-Hop Awards. He plans to keep pushing the disc (available on iTunes and Rhapsody, as well as at Underground Hip-Hop on Huntington Avenue) till August of 2008, when he'll release a follow-up.
At Harpers, Lyrical freestyled about the Big Dig and Saddam Hussein and performed only a couple of iNFiNiTi tracks with backing from the mellow jazz/funk quartet Velvet Stylus. But he shared the spotlight by inviting a group of racially diverse MCs to join him on stage for a freestyle symphony of everything from gangsta rap to suburban backpack rhymes before slipping off stage and back into the crowd. That left Rebel Love, Chaos, Doe Boy, Metaphorick, and Carbon on stage to trade bars over the Wu-Tang classic "C.R.E.A.M." and Capleton's "Wings of the Morning," with grooves by Velvet Stylus.
And Harpers Ferry general manager Andrew Wolan? The 27-year-old sat at the back bar working on his laptop. "I love hip-hop," he enthused. "We try to do a lot more hip-hop to help the scene grow." It certainly seemed to be doing the trick for 29-year-old Lyrical.

- BOSTON HERALD

Forever 29

Lyrical's birthday bash, Harpers Ferry, January 10, 2007

By: MATTHEW M. BURKE

With its tradition of blues and jam bands, Allston's Harpers Ferry isn't the first place you'd expect one of Boston's most promising hip-hop artists to celebrate his birthday. But times have changed, and a week ago Wednesday it indeed was Harpers Ferry that played host to the Lyrical birthday bash, a party/show to celebrate one more year in the life of the Lowell-bred rapper.
Clad in a sport coat and a button-down shirt, Lyrical took a break from mingling in the crowd to announce that he is "forever 29." The tall and skinny enigma of a rapper (a/k/a Pete Plourde, by day a business-management and mathematics professor) is the first to admit with a smile that he was also 29 last year and will still be 29 in 10 years. "If Sylvester Stallone can be 50 when he's 60, I can be 29 when I'm 59. I got an album called iNFiNiTi. . . it's timeless."
Inspired by hip-hop's golden era, Lyrical emerged as the voice of X-Caliber in the late '90s, and he did a stint in the group Invasion before going solo. iNFiNiTi (D.i.M.E.) dropped in '05 and was voted Album of the Year in last June's first annual Mass Industry Committee Hip-Hop Awards. He plans to keep pushing the disc (available on iTunes and Rhapsody, as well as at Underground Hip-Hop on Huntington Avenue) till August of 2008, when he'll release a follow-up.
At Harpers, Lyrical freestyled about the Big Dig and Saddam Hussein and performed only a couple of iNFiNiTi tracks with backing from the mellow jazz/funk quartet Velvet Stylus. But he shared the spotlight by inviting a group of racially diverse MCs to join him on stage for a freestyle symphony of everything from gangsta rap to suburban backpack rhymes before slipping off stage and back into the crowd. That left Rebel Love, Chaos, Doe Boy, Metaphorick, and Carbon on stage to trade bars over the Wu-Tang classic "C.R.E.A.M." and Capleton's "Wings of the Morning," with grooves by Velvet Stylus.
And Harpers Ferry general manager Andrew Wolan? The 27-year-old sat at the back bar working on his laptop. "I love hip-hop," he enthused. "We try to do a lot more hip-hop to help the scene grow." It certainly seemed to be doing the trick for 29-year-old Lyrical.

- BOSTON HERALD

Lowell native gives math -- and music -- a good rap

By Pete McQuaid, pmcquaid@lowellsun.com
Updated: 07/12/2013 08:55:35 AM EDT



Lowell native Peter Plourde, more commonly known to rap fans as Lyrical, is a calculus professor at Northeastern University in Boston. courtesy Photo/Raymond Jones

Sun staff photos can be ordered by visiting our MyCapture site.
Peter Plourde has lived a double life for a while now. By day, the Lowell native, who holds a bachelor's in business and a master's in mathematics from UMass Lowell, is a mild-mannered math professor and doctoral candidate at Northeastern University.

By night, he's a rapper named Lyrical. Or these days, he says, Professor Lyrical.

Lyrical is a veteran of the Massachusetts underground rap community. He's won numerous prestigious rap battles over the years and his group X-Caliber (which was based in his Mass Mills apartment in downtown Lowell) recorded in 1996 with the help of famed hip-hop producer Ski Beatz, who at the time was also working on four songs from Jay-Z's classic debut album, "Reasonable Doubt." Lyrical traveled back and forth to New York, where he saw Ski and Jay-Z work out the song "Dead Presidents" in Ski's apartment.

Lyrical will release his new album "Put Em All To Shame" and corresponding book on Aug. 6. His rapping ability that he demonstrated on the phone was too fast and complex to dictate for this story.

Q. What percentage of people actually call you by your birth name?

A. About 2 percent. My wife's parents called me Lyrical in jest just because everyone else does, but now they call me it seriously. My mom used to come to my shows and yell, "Peter!" and I'd say, "Mom, stop killing my vibe here."

Q. You grew up in Lowell?

A. I grew up in Lowell and went to high school in Chelmsford. Then I went back to teach

Advertisement
at Lowell High from 2000 to 2005 before moving to Cambridge.
Q. Where do you teach now?

A. Now I teach calculus and statistics in a first-year program at Northeastern University. When I teach adjunct at other schools, I usually teach music-related classes.

Q. How do you incorporate hip-hop into your curriculum?

A. I really want to find out how to make the STEM curriculum (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) interesting to kids that have never really been exposed to it.

Q. What do you want your students to get out of it?

A. I really want them to think and fight for a way to make what they love viable -- for example, if you love basketball, be a math statistician. If you're a good athlete and a good statistician, you're going to get that job. I want them to know it's cool to be an intellectual in the adult world, which is different from when you're in middle and high school where it's cool to be a rapper or a basketball player.

Q. How has your rap career affected your teaching one, and vice versa?

A. It's been an evolution. When I started teaching college, I actually started getting more shows because I was a teacher and a rapper -- people were interested because I was doing something else that was thought of as intelligent, which was at odds with what people may think of when they think of rap.

Q. What was it like working with Ski Beatz?

A. He was a mentor before I even knew he was a mentor. It was like watching Ray Allen shoot 3-pointers -- you don't realize how good he is until you watch him closely every day.

My mom kept asking me what I was doing wasting my time driving back and forth to New York and sleeping in my rental car. I said, "Mom, if anybody's going to change the game, it's these guys Jay and Ski. They're going to do something amazing." And they did.

Q. Which artists, old and new, are you a fan of?

A. In terms of new artists, I definitely like Kendrick Lamar. I love Pharoah Monch and Immortal Technique, who's a good friend of mine that I've done a lot of shows with. I love the classics like Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Lauryn Hill and AZ.

Q. What's different about your new book and album?

A. It's the first time that I've ever heard of in hip-hop where someone wrote a book to go along with an album. Each song is a loose extrapolation with the content in its corresponding chapter. And in the digital versions, there are hyperlinks to the actual song recordings, videos and all this other content.

Q. What's your ultimate goal with your doctorate research?

A. It's a higher-education doctorate, so my vision is to basically open a free-standing university or university program that uses hip-hop culture to reach kids and help make it the cultural background of the school.

My world view is a critical ideology, being critical of the societal and educational system we have. Hip-hop is a cousin to that in that the people in it have seen injustice in the community, - Lowell Sun

Professor Lyrical releases new, first of its kind, ALBOOK entitled Put Em All To Shame! - Invasion Entertainment

Professor Lyrical releases new, first of its kind, ALBOOK entitled Put Em All To Shame! - Invasion Entertainment

If local artists like Dre Robinson, Termanology, and Natural Born Spitters have anything to say about it, Boston is about to earn some overdue respect on the national hip-hop scene. And you can hear them first.
By Matthew Burke, Globe Correspondent | August 17, 2005

Talk to local hip-hop aficionados, and they'll tell you Boston is home to some of the best underground hip-hop artists in the nation. Artists like Dre Robinson and Slaine may not have the name recognition of high-profile local acts like the Perceptionists, and they may be all but unknown to mainstream audiences, but they're steadily honing their chops and building audiences for their material. This up-and-coming group of rappers is at the leading edge of what one local performer, DL, calls Boston's ''new hip-hop renaissance.''

They don't have major-label recording or distribution deals, but they've worked with national stars like Mobb Deep, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, DJ Lethal from House of Pain, Terror Squad, and others. Their stuff is getting played on both commercial and college radio, and local listeners are buying their CDs. It all adds up to a collective profile that's becoming larger and more sharply defined. During the next two weeks, Bostonians can see these emerging artists up close at a series of shows around town. Check them out, and you can say you saw them when.

DL, Dre Robinson, and Natural Born Spitters, with special guests Lyrical, and IroQ & John Doe
Sunday, Milky Way Lounge
DL hails from Roxbury and has had a lot of recent airplay on college radio stations around New England. His song ''Massterpiece,'' which samples the ''Cheers'' theme, has been the No. 1 requested song on WERS, the Emerson College station, over the past year, according to Kevin Dingle, a station DJ who hosts a hip-hop show under the name Kerosene. DL's smooth delivery and catchy hooks are supported by inventive, head-bobbing beats, and his lyrics are considered part of the emerging ''conscious'' movement in hip-hop, one that forgoes prevailing hip-hop themes of violence, misogyny, and materialism.

Natural Born Spitters — a pair of cousins, originally from Roxbury and now based in Cambridge, otherwise known as E'Flash and V-Knucks — attack the ears in a style E'Flash describes as an ''intellectual street movement.'' V-Knucks adds that ''the trials and tribulations of the streets are written in our scripts.'' Natural Born Spitters sold 1,000 copies of their album, ''In Due Time,'' in just four months following its completion in 2002. A year later they released their widely praised mixtape, ''Green Heist II,'' which included ''Come and Get It,'' featuring Big Daddy Kane. E'Flash says NBS packed the Middle East for a show last year, a rarity for an unsigned act. With their album and several mixtapes available, and a new album on the way — they've begun recording, but no release date is set — NBS is ''developing fast,'' says Pete Mazalewski, who DJ's under the name Mr. Peter Parker at Hot 97.7.

403-405 Centre St., Jamaica Plain. 617-524-3740. 9 p.m. $5. 21+ www.milkywayjp.com

''Beast Mode @ Night'' featuring Dre Robinson, with R Da Fact, IroQ & John Doe, Cekret Society, Survival Unit, Lyrical, and Slaine. Hosted by Kerosene.
Aug. 24, the Greatest Bar
Mazalewski describes Robinson as one of the most exciting artists in the Boston hip-hop scene. ''He has mass appeal,'' Mazalewski says. ''He's definitely going to make it.''
Robinson, from Dorchester, is a ferocious lyricist who attacks the mike with intense lyricism and catchy hooks. His song ''Get Right,'' off his album ''Starvin 2: Still Hungry,'' was remixed by Mobb Deep and has received considerable radio play on stations like Jam'n 94.5 and WERS. Robinson was recently approached by Universal for a nationwide distribution deal. ''I'd be happy to open the door for [Boston hip-hop artists] on a national scale,'' Robinson says. He'll release a new album, ''This Is Me,'' in the fall, along with a companion mixtape, ''Who Am I,'' and will support them with a national tour.
IroQ & John Doe are a powerful Cambridge-based duo that Dingle says ''deserves more attention.'' Their 2002 release, ''Brotherly Love,'' samples old Motown tracks for its hooks and has a decidedly old-school flavor. Their song ''Believe'' was the second-most requested song on WERS over the past year. Their latest project, a mixtape called ''The Uprising,'' features the hit ''Thugg Life'' with KJ. ''We just use music to talk about what we've seen,'' IroQ says of thei - Boston Globe (Sunday Calendar Page Feature)

If local artists like Dre Robinson, Termanology, and Natural Born Spitters have anything to say about it, Boston is about to earn some overdue respect on the national hip-hop scene. And you can hear them first.
By Matthew Burke, Globe Correspondent | August 17, 2005

Talk to local hip-hop aficionados, and they'll tell you Boston is home to some of the best underground hip-hop artists in the nation. Artists like Dre Robinson and Slaine may not have the name recognition of high-profile local acts like the Perceptionists, and they may be all but unknown to mainstream audiences, but they're steadily honing their chops and building audiences for their material. This up-and-coming group of rappers is at the leading edge of what one local performer, DL, calls Boston's ''new hip-hop renaissance.''

They don't have major-label recording or distribution deals, but they've worked with national stars like Mobb Deep, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, DJ Lethal from House of Pain, Terror Squad, and others. Their stuff is getting played on both commercial and college radio, and local listeners are buying their CDs. It all adds up to a collective profile that's becoming larger and more sharply defined. During the next two weeks, Bostonians can see these emerging artists up close at a series of shows around town. Check them out, and you can say you saw them when.

DL, Dre Robinson, and Natural Born Spitters, with special guests Lyrical, and IroQ & John Doe
Sunday, Milky Way Lounge
DL hails from Roxbury and has had a lot of recent airplay on college radio stations around New England. His song ''Massterpiece,'' which samples the ''Cheers'' theme, has been the No. 1 requested song on WERS, the Emerson College station, over the past year, according to Kevin Dingle, a station DJ who hosts a hip-hop show under the name Kerosene. DL's smooth delivery and catchy hooks are supported by inventive, head-bobbing beats, and his lyrics are considered part of the emerging ''conscious'' movement in hip-hop, one that forgoes prevailing hip-hop themes of violence, misogyny, and materialism.

Natural Born Spitters — a pair of cousins, originally from Roxbury and now based in Cambridge, otherwise known as E'Flash and V-Knucks — attack the ears in a style E'Flash describes as an ''intellectual street movement.'' V-Knucks adds that ''the trials and tribulations of the streets are written in our scripts.'' Natural Born Spitters sold 1,000 copies of their album, ''In Due Time,'' in just four months following its completion in 2002. A year later they released their widely praised mixtape, ''Green Heist II,'' which included ''Come and Get It,'' featuring Big Daddy Kane. E'Flash says NBS packed the Middle East for a show last year, a rarity for an unsigned act. With their album and several mixtapes available, and a new album on the way — they've begun recording, but no release date is set — NBS is ''developing fast,'' says Pete Mazalewski, who DJ's under the name Mr. Peter Parker at Hot 97.7.

403-405 Centre St., Jamaica Plain. 617-524-3740. 9 p.m. $5. 21+ www.milkywayjp.com

''Beast Mode @ Night'' featuring Dre Robinson, with R Da Fact, IroQ & John Doe, Cekret Society, Survival Unit, Lyrical, and Slaine. Hosted by Kerosene.
Aug. 24, the Greatest Bar
Mazalewski describes Robinson as one of the most exciting artists in the Boston hip-hop scene. ''He has mass appeal,'' Mazalewski says. ''He's definitely going to make it.''
Robinson, from Dorchester, is a ferocious lyricist who attacks the mike with intense lyricism and catchy hooks. His song ''Get Right,'' off his album ''Starvin 2: Still Hungry,'' was remixed by Mobb Deep and has received considerable radio play on stations like Jam'n 94.5 and WERS. Robinson was recently approached by Universal for a nationwide distribution deal. ''I'd be happy to open the door for [Boston hip-hop artists] on a national scale,'' Robinson says. He'll release a new album, ''This Is Me,'' in the fall, along with a companion mixtape, ''Who Am I,'' and will support them with a national tour.
IroQ & John Doe are a powerful Cambridge-based duo that Dingle says ''deserves more attention.'' Their 2002 release, ''Brotherly Love,'' samples old Motown tracks for its hooks and has a decidedly old-school flavor. Their song ''Believe'' was the second-most requested song on WERS over the past year. Their latest project, a mixtape called ''The Uprising,'' features the hit ''Thugg Life'' with KJ. ''We just use music to talk about what we've seen,'' IroQ says of thei - Boston Globe (Sunday Calendar Page Feature)

http://us-innovators.com/2010/04/09/the-education-of-lyrical/ - U.S. INNOVATORS, the online digest for business and education innovators

He's teacher by day, rap artist Lyrical by night

"It's all about communicating what you know effectively," Pete Plourde says of his two vocations -- teacher (top, at Middlesex Community College) and rapper. (SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF)





By Matthew M. Burke, Globe Correspondent | January 5, 2007



On a cool afternoon at the beginning of the fall semester, Pete Plourde walked into his classroom at Lasell College in Newton.

To the students in his advanced special-event planning and management class, Plourde, dressed in jeans, a button-down shirt, and a sport jacket, was just another teacher.

He joked with them as they entered, instructed them to open their books, then turned on the overhead projector. His flat-brimmed baseball cap, cocked slightly to the side, was the only sign he might be different.

His students call him Professor Plourde, but in the hip-hop community, he's better known as Lyrical. Involved in the local scene for more than a decade, he's among Boston's most established rappers. And over the course of his musical career, he's seen the inside of some of hip-hop's most elite circles, opening for everyone from KRS-One to Rakim .

A speedy lyricist with a large vocabulary, Plourde raps with old-school intelligence over beats that evoke the classic New York sound. In his rhymes, he takes on everything from world events to men respecting women to his hometown.

"Promoting Boston, I spit those rhymes," Plourde raps on "The Focuz Is Back," from his 2005 album, "iNFiNiTi." "With a logo that shines like the Citgo sign . . . Now throw your threes up, Bean, and show yo' hood some respect."

The album has done extremely well on college radio. Last summer "Focuz" and "Come With Me," another single off the independently released disc, reached the top 10 of the national college hip-hop radio charts onRapAttackLives.com, which collects data from college radio stations and various other radio programs.

The rapper is working on a mixtape slated for spring release, plus a book on throwing the perfect hip-hop event. He's also a member of Mayor Menino's Hip Hop Roundtable, which uses hip-hop to promote social change. On Wednesday, he celebrates his birthday with a performance at Harpers Ferry in Allston.

Though you're invited, he won't tell you how old he is. "I've always been a bit hesitant to speak on age as a rapper," Plourde says. "Recently Busta Rhymes echoed the same sentiments, saying that rappers get pigeonholed once they're over 25 years old to believe they're actually over the hill. Yet most of the highest-respected rappers out, such as Busta himself, LL Cool J, Jay-Z, Eminem, and Rakim, are all over 35 and some over 40."

Plourde is viewed by many as a kind of elder statesman of the Boston hip-hop community.

"He's about as committed to the culture as you can get," says local rapper Esoteric, "an MC that loves the art for the right reasons . . . and he's been in MC battles and word wars before most of these newer '8 Mile' MCs grew out of their Green Day phase."

Plourde's tales of the entertainment industry read like a who's who of hip-hop. In the mid '90s, he says, he had a freestyle battle with Damon Dash , cofounder of Roc-A-Fella Records , in a New York City living room. Dash had told Plourde he couldn't accompany the executive and a young Shawn Carter , currently referred to as Island/Def Jam CEO and president Jay-Z , to a club because he wasn't dressed well enough.

"I did get his point, even though he didn't make it with his horrible flows," Plourde says of Dash, who is a businessman and not a rapper. "[His point] was that image is everything in this business, and he was 100 percent correct."

On a separate occasion, he remembers being on the guest list with one of Jay-Z's producers, David "Ski" Willis , to see Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes perform. This time it was Carter who had a tough time getting into the club -- he didn't "look like a superstar" yet, says Plourde, who was also in the room when Jay-Z recorded some of the tracks for "Reasonable Doubt."

That's heady stuff for a boy from Lowell. Plourde spent his early years there, a smart kid so good at math (another subject he teaches) he could spend his time in class writing rhymes and still keep up. At home, he practiced rapping, creating bass lines on a guitar with missing strings.

Still, Plourde learned to value education. His father, a Navy veteran and strict disciplinarian, made an early impression on his son when he graduated from Fitchburg State College with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering after taking night classes. Plourde, then in his early teens, saw how the family's income increase - The Boston Globe

Hip-Hop Prof Peter Plourde is a math whiz and a microphone fiend
October 30, 2011

This Professor Can 'Spit a 16' and
Then Find Its Square Root
Photo: Kelvin Ma for The Chronicle
Peter Plourde, also known as Lyrical, is an accomplished Boston-area rapper with a surprising day job: He teaches mathematics at Northeastern U. and other local colleges.
By Dan Berrett
Boston
It is safe to say that few members of the math faculty get asked the kind of question that Peter M. Plourde did at the start of a recent algebra class here at Northeastern University.

"Plourde," a student, Behailu Abreha, said, "who's better lyrically, J. Cole or Drake?"

Mr. Plourde paused, taking in the question about the two rappers. "You put me on the spot," he said before analyzing each man's writing ability, weighing how such factors as their use of profanity complicated an evaluation of their skills.

Related Content
Listen to Two of Lyrical's Works in Progress:


"It's a New Thing" (3:52)
Lyrical says: "Certainly my philosophy of both hip-hop and the educational system."



"Poeteacher" (5:06)
Lyrical says: "As the name suggests, it sort of gets at both parts of my life."

Enlarge ImageKelvin Ma for The ChronicleMr. Plourde wants his students to understand "the power of math," such as the complex financial arrangements involved in a music contract.
"If I had to lock them both in a room, I think Drake would come out with the better lyrics," Mr. Plourde concluded, as a few students nodded enthusiastically. He clearly had settled a running debate.

That Mr. Plourde can speak with authority on a facet of popular culture that would perplex most of his colleagues derives from his background, and his dual passions for education and entertainment.

He is a full-time lecturer in mathematics for Northeastern's Foundation Year program, while also teaching general education at the New England Institute of Art and courses on topics as varied as statistics and the music industry at Bay State College.

And, for nearly two decades, he has made a career as a hip-hop artist. As his alter ego, Lyrical, Mr. Plourde has released albums and opened for heavyweights from rap's golden age. He still regularly records and performs around town.

In his teaching, Mr. Plourde has sought to bridge his two worlds, calling on his background to connect with his students.

Hip-hop, as both a musical genre and a larger form of cultural expression, is not new to the college classroom. Some 300 courses on the phenomenon are offered at colleges, according to New York University's Hip-Hop and Pedagogy Initiative. But most of them tend to be offered in music or black-culture departments. Sometimes such courses can be found further afield. Sujatha Fernandes, for example, an assistant professor of sociology at Queens College, has used hip-hop to teach Marxist economic theory.

Mr. Plourde is notable, however, not just for his dual identity but for using hip-hop to teach math, most often in Northeastern's Foundation Year program.

The program, now in its third year, was created in response to the findings of a longitudinal studyof Boston public-school students. Nearly three-quarters of the Class of 2000 entered college, but seven years later, only 36 percent had graduated from a two- or four-year college, the study found. "They'd solved the access question, but not the success and completion question," says Molly Dugan, director of the Foundation Year program.

Her program is "high-touch," as Ms. Dugan describes it, and pulls together successful aspects of similar efforts tried elsewhere. Students are grouped as a cohort (73 this year, out of 300 applicants), taught by a dedicated eight-member department, and given intense academic and personal advising to help them manage what she calls their "complicated lives outside class."

Most are first-generation college students and don't arrive on campus already knowing how higher education works. So students earn a year's worth of credits in their academic courses, while also getting a heavy dose of such college-going skills as time management and working with the financial-aid office. Some educators "say 'they're not college-ready,' and that's the end of it," says Ms. Dugan. "We say, 'let's teach them how to do it.'"

Making a Connection
The program is still too young to have produced graduation data, but early signs are encouraging. More than 85 percent of its students have enrolled in their second year of college, at Northeastern or elsewhere.

Hiring the right faculty is critical, Ms. Dugan says. Ideal candidates should know their subjects and, more important, how to teach it in several different ways. She looks for faculty, like Mr. Plourde, who have ta - Chronicle of Higher Education by Dan Berrett

Fight promter Zachary Tesler, president of the World Fighting League, left, with rapper Lyrical at Wai Kru in Allston. (Staff photo by Angela Rowlings)

REVERE -- When the final bell tolls at tomorrow's World Fighting League (WFL) Winter Brawl at Club Lido in Revere, the blood spattered on the mat will belong to leather-fisted gladiators. The fallen fighters will be the ones bleeding, but they won't be the only losers nursing bruised egos.

Rappers are also on the card. Those who get lyrically pummeled in the freestyle battles taking place between bouts may also see their hopes get rocked against the ropes.

In 15 WFL matches - six of which are Massachusetts-based WFL title bouts - athletes from a variety of martial arts backgrounds will attempt to pulverize opponents in their weight class. Imagine a homegrown version of pay-per-view TV's Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Or just think of it as an organized blood bath. With hip-hop.

For local fight fans, Winter Brawl is the closest thing to the Super Bowl or WrestleMania. But WFL combat isn't choreographed - and the half-time entertainment is rawer than Kid Rock's vocals or Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.

Since August, monthly fights at Club Lido have packed added punch with the addition of rap battles. The idea to incorporate hip-hop intermissions came from Boston concert producer MC Chaos, who was tapped by WFL founder Zack Tesler to furnish live entertainment. After several rock bands had little success engaging the testosterone-hyped crowd, Chaos contacted well-known Cambridge rapper Lyrical to flip the format.

"I was hired at first just to do a regular rap performance," Lyrical said. "Then I saw the ring, and I told Tesler that I was going to put a business plan together to do something even bigger."

Chaos found the right collaborator. Lyrical is Boston rap's most likable player. He united the local scene in June by promoting the first-ever Mass Industry Committee (MIC) hip-hop awards ceremony.

Though he's earned his reputation as a positive force, Lyrical also is known for flattening opponents on the battle circuit, where rappers attack each other nonviolently with verbal, often humorous jabs. He estimates that his record is 20-6, which includes notable wins at the notorious Onslaught Battle at Clark University in Worcester, the Brainstorm Battle in Seattle, and last year's Microphone Science Battle at the Bulfinch Yacht Club at North Station.

A lot of rappers retire from battling," Lyrical said. "But I started in the game battling more than 10 years ago, and I'll probably finish (my career) battling."

Tomorrow's Lyrical Chaos Battleground, as the freestyle component has been termed, will be Lyrical's biggest sideshow yet.

The headliner is Hingham MC Sullee, who's currently engaged in his own battle on VH1's "White Rapper Show." He'll perform after the eight rap contestants face off in three elimination rounds.

"Cats know that they have to come out swinging in the ring," Lyrical said. "You have to be quick, too. You only get a sound bite, so you'd better go for blood."

Tesler also has some tips for aspiring ring rhymers from the fight side.

"If a rapper knows his stuff about the league and is up on his fight lingo, and can use it when they're rapping, then that's awesome."

Lyrical said past victors - including Medaphorik, Pat G and Grime the MC - prevailed by speaking to the ultimate-fight crowd. He describes WFL fans as a mostly rock 'n' roll audience that's embraced his Battleground out of its lust for conflict rather than a love of hip-hop.

"The reactions are mixed," Tesler said. "A lot of people don't like (rap) and a lot of them do, but these people came to see fighting, and this fits better than a band playing on a stage outside the ring."

The action may be violent, but the rapping is not. Indeed, no off-color language is allowed.

"Believe it or not," he said, "it's a family atmosphere in there, even though people are getting their brains bashed in. There are people there with kids. There are guys with their girlfriends. Not too many of them want to hear someone swearing and cursing at them the whole time."

WFL Winter Brawl 2007, with Lyrical, Chaos and Sullee, tomorrownight at Club Lido, Revere. Tickets: $35-$100; 1-800-My-Seats.


- Chris Faraone -Boston Herald

Fight promter Zachary Tesler, president of the World Fighting League, left, with rapper Lyrical at Wai Kru in Allston. (Staff photo by Angela Rowlings)

REVERE -- When the final bell tolls at tomorrow's World Fighting League (WFL) Winter Brawl at Club Lido in Revere, the blood spattered on the mat will belong to leather-fisted gladiators. The fallen fighters will be the ones bleeding, but they won't be the only losers nursing bruised egos.

Rappers are also on the card. Those who get lyrically pummeled in the freestyle battles taking place between bouts may also see their hopes get rocked against the ropes.

In 15 WFL matches - six of which are Massachusetts-based WFL title bouts - athletes from a variety of martial arts backgrounds will attempt to pulverize opponents in their weight class. Imagine a homegrown version of pay-per-view TV's Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Or just think of it as an organized blood bath. With hip-hop.

For local fight fans, Winter Brawl is the closest thing to the Super Bowl or WrestleMania. But WFL combat isn't choreographed - and the half-time entertainment is rawer than Kid Rock's vocals or Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.

Since August, monthly fights at Club Lido have packed added punch with the addition of rap battles. The idea to incorporate hip-hop intermissions came from Boston concert producer MC Chaos, who was tapped by WFL founder Zack Tesler to furnish live entertainment. After several rock bands had little success engaging the testosterone-hyped crowd, Chaos contacted well-known Cambridge rapper Lyrical to flip the format.

"I was hired at first just to do a regular rap performance," Lyrical said. "Then I saw the ring, and I told Tesler that I was going to put a business plan together to do something even bigger."

Chaos found the right collaborator. Lyrical is Boston rap's most likable player. He united the local scene in June by promoting the first-ever Mass Industry Committee (MIC) hip-hop awards ceremony.

Though he's earned his reputation as a positive force, Lyrical also is known for flattening opponents on the battle circuit, where rappers attack each other nonviolently with verbal, often humorous jabs. He estimates that his record is 20-6, which includes notable wins at the notorious Onslaught Battle at Clark University in Worcester, the Brainstorm Battle in Seattle, and last year's Microphone Science Battle at the Bulfinch Yacht Club at North Station.

A lot of rappers retire from battling," Lyrical said. "But I started in the game battling more than 10 years ago, and I'll probably finish (my career) battling."

Tomorrow's Lyrical Chaos Battleground, as the freestyle component has been termed, will be Lyrical's biggest sideshow yet.

The headliner is Hingham MC Sullee, who's currently engaged in his own battle on VH1's "White Rapper Show." He'll perform after the eight rap contestants face off in three elimination rounds.

"Cats know that they have to come out swinging in the ring," Lyrical said. "You have to be quick, too. You only get a sound bite, so you'd better go for blood."

Tesler also has some tips for aspiring ring rhymers from the fight side.

"If a rapper knows his stuff about the league and is up on his fight lingo, and can use it when they're rapping, then that's awesome."

Lyrical said past victors - including Medaphorik, Pat G and Grime the MC - prevailed by speaking to the ultimate-fight crowd. He describes WFL fans as a mostly rock 'n' roll audience that's embraced his Battleground out of its lust for conflict rather than a love of hip-hop.

"The reactions are mixed," Tesler said. "A lot of people don't like (rap) and a lot of them do, but these people came to see fighting, and this fits better than a band playing on a stage outside the ring."

The action may be violent, but the rapping is not. Indeed, no off-color language is allowed.

"Believe it or not," he said, "it's a family atmosphere in there, even though people are getting their brains bashed in. There are people there with kids. There are guys with their girlfriends. Not too many of them want to hear someone swearing and cursing at them the whole time."

WFL Winter Brawl 2007, with Lyrical, Chaos and Sullee, tomorrownight at Club Lido, Revere. Tickets: $35-$100; 1-800-My-Seats.


- Chris Faraone -Boston Herald

Mr Magic's Rap Attack Lives

[[ July 10, 2006 ]]
weeks on charts/position/artist/song/label/

3 1 BIG NOYD All Out Coalmine
6 2 LYRICAL The Focuz Is Back Massive Records
5 3 SA-RA Nasty You G.O.O.D. Music/Sony Urban
12 4 KRS ONE My Life Antagonist
9 5 BUBBA SPARXXX Heat It Up Virgin
7 6 SLUM VILLAGE F. DWELE Call Me Barak
21 7 BELIEF Let's Go Belief Music
10 8 RAYDAR ELLIS Graffiti Rock Brick
11 9 BASIC VOCAB Come Get With It AVX Music Group
14 10 DL INCOGNITO Live In My Element Urbnet
15 11 SUMKID MAJERE Ninjas & Flies VJC
20 12 RESINATION Big Noise Verizum
13 13 RHYMEFEST Fever J Records
19 14 PSALM ONE Rap Star Rhymesayers
NEW 15 STORM THE UNPREDICTABLE Grown Folk Biz Ty-She
16 16 LORD JAMAR F/ RZA Deepspace Babygrande
NEW 17 VARIOUS ARTISTS Natural Selection Nature Sounds
18 18 EL GANT So Simple Nacirema
23 19 PLASTIC LITTLE The Jump Off Tone Arm
25 20 REMO CONSCIOUS Lies Soul Cipher
26 21 THE ROOTS Don't Feel Right Def Jam
1 22 GNARLS BARKLEY Crazy Atlantic
NEW 23 ALOE BLACC Dance For Life Stones Throw
- 24 7L & ESOTERIC Play Dumb Babygrande
29 25 CHORDS Knocking On My Door Empire
NEW 26 BIG MEG Italian Icy's Jambetta
4 27 THE REAVERS Shadows RMX Backwoodz Studioz
8 28 SPANK ROCK Sweet Talk Big Dada
NEW 29 BEYOND The Redaration XI Sounds
28 30 NATIVE GUNS Champion Nativeguns.com
- RAP ATTACK

Mr Magic's Rap Attack Lives

[[ July 10, 2006 ]]
weeks on charts/position/artist/song/label/

3 1 BIG NOYD All Out Coalmine
6 2 LYRICAL The Focuz Is Back Massive Records
5 3 SA-RA Nasty You G.O.O.D. Music/Sony Urban
12 4 KRS ONE My Life Antagonist
9 5 BUBBA SPARXXX Heat It Up Virgin
7 6 SLUM VILLAGE F. DWELE Call Me Barak
21 7 BELIEF Let's Go Belief Music
10 8 RAYDAR ELLIS Graffiti Rock Brick
11 9 BASIC VOCAB Come Get With It AVX Music Group
14 10 DL INCOGNITO Live In My Element Urbnet
15 11 SUMKID MAJERE Ninjas & Flies VJC
20 12 RESINATION Big Noise Verizum
13 13 RHYMEFEST Fever J Records
19 14 PSALM ONE Rap Star Rhymesayers
NEW 15 STORM THE UNPREDICTABLE Grown Folk Biz Ty-She
16 16 LORD JAMAR F/ RZA Deepspace Babygrande
NEW 17 VARIOUS ARTISTS Natural Selection Nature Sounds
18 18 EL GANT So Simple Nacirema
23 19 PLASTIC LITTLE The Jump Off Tone Arm
25 20 REMO CONSCIOUS Lies Soul Cipher
26 21 THE ROOTS Don't Feel Right Def Jam
1 22 GNARLS BARKLEY Crazy Atlantic
NEW 23 ALOE BLACC Dance For Life Stones Throw
- 24 7L & ESOTERIC Play Dumb Babygrande
29 25 CHORDS Knocking On My Door Empire
NEW 26 BIG MEG Italian Icy's Jambetta
4 27 THE REAVERS Shadows RMX Backwoodz Studioz
8 28 SPANK ROCK Sweet Talk Big Dada
NEW 29 BEYOND The Redaration XI Sounds
28 30 NATIVE GUNS Champion Nativeguns.com
- RAP ATTACK