Gabriel “Asheru” Benn

Asheru, born Gabriel Benn, is a hip hop artist, educator, and youth activist. He is widely known for performing the opening and closing themes for the popular TV series, The Boondocks, as well as his pioneering and innovative efforts to forward the Hip Hop Education movement. Asheru collaborated with Aaron McGruder to write and perform several songs for the hit TV series, The Boondocks, including the show’s theme song. In 2006, Asheru earned a prestigious Peabody Award for Journalism in 2006—the first rapper (emcee) to win such an award—for his writing of the controversial “Return of the King” episode. Asheru has travel extensively throughout Europe, Canada, the US and Japan, performing alongside artists and groups like Common, Mos Def, Jill Scott, Bilal, Ludacris, Edo G, J-Live, Wordsworth, and The Roots, while collaborating and being featured on projects with Hip Hop greats such as Pete Rock, Talib Kweli and Jazzy Jeff.  In 2005, Asheru co-founded Educational Lyrics, LLC, an independent publishing company that creates culturally relevant cross-curricular teaching materials, the first of which being [H.E.L.P., or the Hip Hop Educational Literacy Program'.][1]. In an effort to bridge the gap between Asheru’s two passions — music and education, H.E.L.P. is a series of supplemental reading workbooks designed to HELP students of all reading levels through the innovative usage of Hip Hop lyrics for critical analysis, multicultural relevance, and effective literacy instruction.

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