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The MixTape

Remix Your Roots. Drop Your Truth. Rise in Power.

"We are not one track-we are a whole mixtape. Layers. Vibes. Unfiltered truth. This is where we name it, remix it, and rise."

The MixTape was created in collaboration with Fly Economic Services, the visionary platform led by Lakeisha Lee. Together, we designed this experience for Brown youth navigating identity, voice, and power in a world that often silences their truth. Built around the metaphor of a personal mixtape, this program invites each participant to explore self-expression, emotional healing, and leadership—track by track, truth by truth.

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In a culture that frequently tells our youth who to be, The MixTape is a space to remix inherited narratives, reclaim joy, and rise into purpose on their own terms. It's not about fitting in—it's about turning up the volume on who they already are.

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The MixTape is a 12-week rites of passage journey rooted in cultural pride, emotional wisdom, and community connection. Youth engage in developmentally aligned tracks, each one grounded in lived experience, ancestral knowing, and creative resistance. Along the way, they build a collective soundtrack of resilience, truth, and possibility—because their story deserves to be heard.

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Learn more about our co-creators at Fly Economic Services and the transformative work of Lakeisha Lee.

12-Week Curriculum

SESSION STRUCTURE (each week)

  • 🎵 Track Drop – Introduction of theme and purpose for the session

  • 🎤 Mic Check – Emotional check-in using sound, metaphor, or music

  • 📓 Liner Notes – Journaling or grounding activity

  • 🎬 Feature – Core discussion, activity, or media prompt

  • 🔁 Remix & Reflect – Group dialogue and integration

  • 🌟 Close-Out – Affirmation, breathwork, or cultural ritual

The MixTape Works in Schools

Schools are one of the most influential spaces in the lives of Brown youth—and also one of the most emotionally complex. The MixTape offers schools a bold, restorative, and culturally grounded group coaching experience that can support students’ growth far beyond academics.

 

Whether delivered during the school day, after school, or embedded into an advisory or enrichment period, The MixTape helps students feel seen, supported, and equipped with real tools to navigate identity, emotions, leadership, and relationships.

 

This program can be offered as:

  • Co-ed groups with mixed gender experiences and cross-identity dialogue

  • Affinity-based groups (e.g. girls, boys, LGBTQ+ youth, emerging leaders)

  • Grade-specific or multi-grade cohorts, allowing for peer mentoring and inter-age learning

 

Benefits for Schools

  • Improves school climate through belonging and community-building

  • Supports mental and emotional wellness with trauma-informed tools

  • Strengthens student voice, identity development, and leadership

  • Helps educators better understand and support the needs of Brown youth

  • Aligns with SEL standards and equity goals

 

Let’s partner to bring The Mixtape to your school community—and help your students amplify the truth of who they are.

Why The MixTape Is Needed

 

Brown youth are coming of age in a world that often tries to define them before they’ve had a chance to define themselves. The MixTape was created to affirm their complexity, honor their creativity, and give them space to explore identity, power, and possibility—track by track.

 

Below are the reasons this kind of coaching is essential:

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1. Identity Formation & Expression

  • Overexposure + Misrepresentation: Brown youth are often hypervisible in media but underrepresented in power, nuance, and truth.

  • External Labels: They are named by others before they are known by themselves.

  • Authenticity vs. Survival: Many have learned to silence parts of who they are in order to fit in or stay safe.

 

2. Emotional Literacy & Healing

  • Unprocessed Pain: Experiences of racism, loss, generational trauma, or displacement often go unnamed.

  • Emotional Policing: Brown youth are often punished for expressing emotion—and praised for suppression.

  • Coping Without Tools: Many haven’t been given culturally relevant tools for emotional regulation, healing, and reflection.

 

3. Belonging & Boundaries

  • In-Between Spaces: Youth may feel like outsiders in both dominant and home cultures.

  • Performative Inclusion: Schools or programs may tokenize their presence without affirming their full identity.

  • Boundary Confusion: Youth are navigating consent, loyalty, and friendship in a world that offers little guidance on emotional safety.

 

4. Systems Awareness & Leadership

  • Inherited Inequity: Brown youth live in systems that were not designed for their thriving—and they feel it.

  • Silencing in School and Work: Their ideas are often undervalued, appropriated, or ignored.

  • Untapped Power: With the right coaching, Brown youth can become the most visionary leaders—ones who bring nuance, compassion, and clarity to change work.

 

5. Strengths that Deserve Nurturing

  • Cultural Intelligence: Brown youth are often natural bridge-builders, community connectors, and translators.

  • Creative Brilliance: From music to movement, they hold genius often unmeasured by traditional metrics.

  • Resilience: Their ability to thrive under pressure is extraordinary—but they deserve more than survival.

 

The MixTape exists to help them turn the volume up on who they really are.

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