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A weekly look at creativity, arts, and culture in southwest Michigan, hosted by Zinta Aistars.Fridays in Morning Edition at 7:50am and at 4:20pm during All Things Considered.

Art Beat: Fired up about social justice

Ed Genesis, arms raised in oratory
Gabriel Giron
Ed Genesis gives a presentation

Genesis may not be his birth name, but the word genesis means a new beginning. Ed Genesis tells the remarkable story of his painful past to his bright present. Today, Genesis, who lives in Kalamazoo’s Northside neighborhood, is a staunch supporter and proponent of his community as well as an instructor at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and co-director and community engagement director for Speak It Forward, an organization of outreach to youth.

A conversation with Ed Genesis

“My father was killed when I was two years old,” he says. “He was killed by off-duty police officers of the Gary, Indiana, police department during an unauthorized raid—there was a strong belief that the police were extorting the drug dealers inside. They shot him through a closed door. He was murdered. I didn’t know that story until my history teacher told me in 11th grade.”

Ed Genesis holding microphone
Serious Photography
Rapper Ed Genesis

It was a story that would change his own trajectory in life. As a teen, Genesis took to the streets and hung out with a local gang. Like so many of his peers, he got into trouble, got caught by the police, and found himself wearing handcuffs.

In high school, Genesis carried a gun for protection. By then, he was staying with an aunt and attending a different school in a different neighborhood where a rival gang ruled the streets. The firearm, he felt, meant survival. When the firearm was found on him at his school, he was expelled.

After a family meeting, Genesis, with his mother and his siblings, moved to Kalamazoo where they had family. They wanted a fresh start. That new start was not without trouble, but eventually would lead him to the straight and narrow and to help others like himself, youth with rough beginnings.

Genesis considered his interests. Rap music had long been a passion, as was drawing. The name Ed Genesis gained notoriety on the streets of Kalamazoo where rap and hip-hop music were fast gaining popularity.

The Ed Genesis of today—a music artist, co-director and lead mentor of Speak It Forward, Inc., and founder and director of the BLOCKS Club (Building Leadership Organizing Communities with Keys to Succeed), says all his experiences, good and not so good, have played a part in putting him on the path he walks today.

“We use hip-hop as a tool for community organizing,” he says. “We advocate for economic development as well as decreasing mass incarceration. One of our biggest things is working on anti-gun violence.”

To read more about Ed Genesis, see “Just Keep Pounding,” the cover story for the January 2025 issue of Encore magazine. Listen to the complete interview online for more.

Listen to WMUK's Art Beat every Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.

Zinta Aistars is our resident book expert. She started interviewing authors and artists for our Arts & More program in 2011.
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