Syracuse event blends hip-hop and STEM at Community Folk Art Center

A four-hour hip-hop and STEM cypher at the Community Folk Art Center was built around one clear idea: science outreach works better when it feels familiar, creative and worth showing up for.

Power the Future: Hip-Hop x STEM Cypher brought community members, creatives and education professionals together at 805 E. Genesee St. in Syracuse for an afternoon of networking, giveaways, interactive workshops, refreshments and a fireside chat with MC Lyte. Organizers framed the April 23 gathering as a way to reimagine how STEM is taught and experienced, using hip-hop culture as the entry point rather than a standard lecture or lab demo.

That approach fit the venue. The Community Folk Art Center describes itself as a cultural and artistic hub focused on promoting artists of the African Diaspora and on collecting, exhibiting, teaching and interpreting the visual and expressive arts. For an event aimed at making science and technology feel less intimidating, the setting gave the program a local identity and a built-in connection to creativity, history and community.

Dr. Tanisha Jackson, the center’s executive director, and Kahri Fuller, a program officer with the National Grid Foundation, described the event as a partnership with the Hip Hop Education Center. The collaboration gave the program both cultural credibility and an educational mission, pairing a recognizable hip-hop framework with STEM outreach that organizers hoped would draw in people who might not otherwise attend a science-focused event.

The emphasis on participation mattered. Promotional materials described the cypher as a teach-in, not just a panel, and the format was designed to be immersive rather than passive. That distinction is important in Syracuse, where schools, nonprofits and cultural institutions have spent years trying to broaden who feels welcome in science and technology spaces, especially among students who may not see those subjects reflected in traditional classrooms.

National Grid Foundation’s involvement added another layer. The foundation says it is an independent charitable arm established in December 1998 and that it supports STEM and literacy education in its service areas. Its parent company, National Grid, says it provides electricity and natural gas to more than 20 million people across New York and Massachusetts, underscoring the scale behind the local sponsorship.

By pairing MC Lyte with interactive workshops at a well-known arts center on the city’s East Side, organizers turned a familiar Syracuse venue into a test of a bigger idea: that hip-hop can do more than entertain. In this case, it was used to help pull STEM closer to the students and families who are often hardest to reach.