You just can't tell the history of Detroit without music. In this city it lives in people's hearts and souls. You hear it pumping from bicycles on the riverfront, pouring out of churches on the boulevard, and popping out of clubs from downtown to 8 mile. 

The tragedy is where we often don't hear music: in the classrooms, auditoriums, and the hallways of our Detroit schools.

But we've been hearing it over here on the east side.

I began building back the music program at Southeastern High School when I arrived in 2018. At that time there were no opportunities for our students to engage with music or performing arts in the building. When I moved into my English classroom, I brought my keyboard. And within the first couple months, Real Love emerged on the pages of Trinity's journal. It starts: "I gotta be real/and I can't be nothing else but it."

It wasn't long before the floodgates opened -- the second semester saw the first choir classes at SE since 2009. We kept writing and collaborating. Soon we had written Body Language, which was subsequently performed by 40 students on stage for our winter showcase.

We picked up steam (and lots of gear) in September of 2019 with a generous grant from the VANS Gives a Band Initiative, and transitioning to online learning didn't slow us down: despite being physically distant, we wrote the songs If U Noticed, Don't Forget to Believe, I'm Right By Your Side, That's Why I Can't Sleep, Walk Down, and Food. The songs range in style and tone, but the realness of the words, melodies, and messages is undeniable.

Now the time has come to give these songs, and these kids, the treatment they deserve. We're going to workshop and finish these songs, then collaborate with Detroit musicians, sound engineers, producers, community leaders and organizations to bring the Sounds from the East Side to the world.

And when we're done we're going to throw an album release party here in the community, so the students can share their music and be celebrated by friends and family.

Donors at any level will receive a free download of the finished album and admission to the release party in the summer time.

This is the first large-scale project undertaken by Heartbeat Detroit, a 501c3 non-profit organization ensuring that students in the city have access to high quality music and performing arts education. Any funds raised above our project goal will be used for program development and to deepen the impact of our future programming. You can read more about the organization at www.heartbeatdetroit.org

With hearts full of gratitude and Detroit Love, thank you for your support!!