Beans-N-Frank

There are few professions that impact the next generation as much as educators. The struggle for all educators, no matter what socioeconomic background, has will and will always be getting through to children. So that's why this week's interview is so important. Not only is our interview with an excellent educator but he and his partner have found a way to reach children and make them enjoy learning. Beans-N-Frank have perfectly combined hip-hop music and education in a way that not only speaks to children that entertains but also comes across as authentic. Brownstone is happy to present Beans-N-Frank.

KP: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I have to be honest I just spent the last hour on your website rapping along with the songs. And, this is coming from a kid who hated Sesame Street.  I think honestly, it may be the most fun and educational thing I've seen. To be honest with you I normally find a lot of educational things aimed at children a little corny, and this is far from corny. So I guess the first question I have is, what led to this?

MARK: Well my partner and I were both emcees of four years so you know that's our thing. We were emcees first and we were professionals second. We both became education professionals; we were educators we taught school and just being who we were that's how we engaged children. We met at a summer camp and I had an idea to start a at the summer camp because we were looking for unique programming to engage the kids in the afternoon. So one of the things I said we were going to do was have a rap class. And this was back in the 90s this was before all of the children shows started rapping. It was an original thing because hip-hop was [beginning]. You know that was the golden age of hip-hop.

[So] we engaged the kids with raps and positive raps back then in the 90s and Beans-N-Frank just kind of came out of that. Out of teaching children positive raps that we noticed they really liked when there is a real nice boom bap on the beat and they really like when the rhyme scheme…when they could say it and feel like they were saying something slick. So that's what it came out of, and we were doing it for kids for so long that we just said "you know what? We might as well make our own cartoons and make them modern-day hip-hop version of Schoolhouse Rock"

KP: Now one thing I noticed that was different from the kind of what you see on TV and cartoon shows or even and I gave the key bring them up Sesame Street. The beats almost... and I don't know how better to say this… the beats feel like real hip-hop music. Who's responsible for the beats? Is that something you produce yourself?

MARK: We actually don't produce beats ourselves. Me or my partner we don't make the tracks. We produce in terms of, because a producer is the one who oversees the sound, so when producers submit their tracks to us we'll never pick tracks for kids. We just want good music. All of them aren't hard hip-hop; some of them are pop beats. We try to pick a nice instrumental track that we feel like would make a great song. Not a song for, but just a song. A good song, because you know kids are people too.

And I think that's what makes… that's what adds to the corny element of people trying to make stuff for kids. "I need to make this real light…" Nah, kids want the same stuff they hear on the radio, you know? They're sing-along to songs on the radio. You don't need to change the sound of the music for children. You just need to change the content. The content needs to be something appropriate that you want children to say or repeat. Because they're sponges, they're going to repeat anything you give to them.

To answer your question we get most of our music from one producer, one beatmaker. His name is Larry "Pop" Somerville. But then we get tracks from other people too. I don't think we've gotten anything from outside of Baltimore. So if you enjoy the tracks then you're enjoying the original Baltimore production. Those are original Baltimore cats that are putting down the music for Beans-N-Frank right now.

KP: Speaking of Baltimore I think it would be very hard to ignore the Baltimore has been in the news a lot recently. Have you done anything in your shows recently or as educators and spoke with the children. What's mind state of the youth as they are being in some ways blamed for what has happened in the city over the last three or four weeks?

MARK: Actually we haven't done a show since the uprising of Baltimore. We do have a couple of big shows coming up. We have the art outside on the 17th and our summer schedule is getting booked up. But, as someone who lives here in Baltimore city (in West Baltimore)...the world needs to know that the media covered that Baltimore riot in such a shady way. It really wasn't the whole city tearing things up. It wasn't all of the youth. What I personally did on the day of the so-called riot… I took a picture of some kids playing basketball next door to this house near Park Heights. (Park Heights is a really tough neighborhood.) If you watched the news you would think that all the kids were down there throwing rocks at the police; when it was really just a small group.

So basically, what I'm saying to you is, don't believe the hype. Don't believe that Baltimore [had] everyone in Baltimore going crazy and turn things up. It was a small group of kids that got agitated first by the police and then it was a small amount of adults or opportunists. When they saw that the kids were facing off against the police they said "Oh were going to use this as an opportunity to steal something!" And they did. That didn't represent the city. It didn't. Because, what you saw was the city… the whole city come together on North Avenue…on Pennsylvania and North… it was like a festival…how do you get that the very next day… if there's a whole city this upset…how do you get them together in love? The very next day!? That doesn't happen, bruh.

It's because the media didn't cover and wanted to sensationalize the incident that happened with the kids, with a couple of things being on fire. The kids then said that CVS on fire. The investigation will tell you that it was an alarm in there that something on fire. The police threw teargas added hit their own car, and that's what set the car on fire. I don't really mean to get into the all that.

KP: No, that's fine because that's a perspective that a lot of people don't have.

MARK: yeah, they need to understand that! It wasn't the whole city… The whole city was never, NEVER going that crazy. If you saw on the news the gang members were together Bloods and Crips and the Black Guerrilla Family (which Fox News loves to repeat Black Guerrilla). That mean the gangs came together on that day! On the day they were talking about we were rioting they came together like "look, come on y'all we need to chill out!" You know what I'm saying? The gangs were on that tip!

So, all where you're going to do on these next upcoming shows [for] Beans-N-Frank is just continue to spread the love. Because that's all it is here man, it's not a lot of kids upset. Now, in terms of kids being frustrated with the police? Our fan base, because we mainly target young children, they don't feel anything about the police. But, when you become a teenager in Baltimore or any urban city around this country you realize that you are a target. You dress a certain way, you live in a certain neighborhood and you're black then you're targeted by the police. You're harassed. Our fan base doesn't feel that. The young children that love Beans-N-Frank. Maybe their parents do but, all we can do is continue to spread the love. Because that's all we're about is about love and positivity.


KP: Now I was looking at the website and I was noticing that you have a lot of pictures and a lot of places that you guys have been.  How do you decide the where the next Beans-N-Frank show will be? How does someone say I want Beans-N-Frank to come to my school?

MARK: The email addresses right there on the site all you have to do is send an email inquiry then we will work it out. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Kinderman?

KP: No, I'm not…

MARK: Kinderman was a children's entertainer based out of Columbia, Maryland. But everyone in Baltimore knows him because he had a TV show back in the 80s. He was awarded three Emmy awards. He is now in his 70s but he still doing shows and he's like a mentor to us. One thing that Kinderman told us early just giving us advice was that "I go wherever I'm invited".  And we try and to do the same thing. What I realized is that sometimes we do a lot of free things. There's a lot of impoverished areas in Baltimore so we try to do free shows as well. We try to spread the love wherever were invited to [perform]. That is taking us to many places in the country: Baton Rouge, Atlanta, Boston, New Jersey, and of course DC, Maryland and Virginia (DMV).

Teachers hit us up online from all over the world! We have fans all over the world. So we're really planning for this Fall to really try and touch our fan base all over the country this year. And then stretch out overseas in 2016.

KP: Where can our readers get more Beans-N-Frank music?

MARK: Our music is on iTunes, it's on Spotify, its on CD Baby, we're on Amazon.  Ready for School and Multiplication Division. If you're at any of our live shows then you can get the black history EP, and the Fit For Fun CD which is an exercise CD. We've been recording a lot of new music as well that were looking forward to putting out.

For more information on Beans-N-Frank go visit their website..Click here