Beatbox workshop brings youth, hip hop and public art together on Artsakh Avenue
A free beatbox workshop at No Easy Props shows how Glendale’s Artsakh Creative program is turning storefronts into spaces for youth, culture and community.
GLENDALE, Calif. -- A free beatbox class on Artsakh Avenue gave young people a chance to try something new, make some noise and learn a little more about hip hop culture in the middle of downtown Glendale.
The workshop took place at the No Easy Props Pop Up Shop and Studio, a hip hop arts space at 117 North Artsakh Avenue. The event brought students together with Middle School Beatbox Crew for a hands-on class that covered basic sounds, rhythm and a first group composition.
The event showed how Artsakh Avenue has become more than a walkway between storefronts. It has become a public space for art, culture and community programming.
“What’s great about being on Artsakh Avenue is that a lot of these stores have arts and culture,” said Silva Harapetian, journalist and founder of Inclusive Voices Media, also located on Artsakh Avenue. “That’s what they’re trying to promote. And there’s events happening here, and it’s free to the public all the time.”
The class came through Glendale’s Artsakh Creative program, a city backed pop up accelerator that offers short term use of city owned commercial space along Artsakh Paseo. The program supports artists, makers, performers, creative businesses and entrepreneurs who can bring arts related uses and public programming to the district.
No Easy Props joined the program as a hip hop studio and retail space. The organization offers classes, youth and adult workshops, open sessions and a shop with custom clothing, shoes, accessories, vinyl collectibles and vintage hip hop styles.
At the workshop, Asia One, curator of No Easy Props, welcomed the crowd with the energy of someone who sees the space as both a classroom and a home base.
“My name is Asia One, and I am the curator of No Easy Props,” she said. “We’re a hip hop arts organization, and we’re at our shop, the NEP pop up shop.”
She called the gathering “a great opportunity” and said the moment felt “like international Hip Hop day.”
One instructor told the students they would leave with a real skill, not just a quick demonstration.
“Today you will learn a few sounds,” he said. “You will learn basic rhythm, hip hop rhythm, and we will make our very first composition together.”
He said students could already beatbox by the time they left the shop.
Another instructor introduced himself as Tim from Belgium, a professional beatboxer who goes by the name Pochi. He said the workshop gave children a chance to learn through joy, effort and each other.
“You see kids trying to do their best in a joyful way and learning from each other,” he said. “They can hear other people beatboxing too. They’re like, hey, we can do this too.”
The workshop featured world beatbox champions Supernova and FootboxG, known together as Middle School. They guided participants through basic beatbox skills and helped turn the room into a shared learning space.
The workshop also reflected the broader mission of No Easy Props. The organization’s programs bring hip hop arts education to young people and communities across Los Angeles County through after school programs, teen mentorship, workshops, performances and family events.
Asia One said that kind of space matters because artists need places to practice and present their work.
“That’s something that’s really important,” she said. “There’s those spaces where we just come together and get a place to practice our art forms and then showcase them.”
She said hip hop teaches more than performance.
“It’s important,” she said. “I got to show up, and I got to try hard. I got to work hard.”
Then she connected that lesson to everyday life.
“All that stuff in hip hop kind of distills down to every other area in your life,” she said. “Whether you’re a parent, whether you’re a teacher, whether you’re in your job, but in life, you got to show up, you got to work hard.”
That message gave the class its point. The students learned sounds. They built rhythm. They performed together. But the bigger lesson came through the act of trying in public, with other people listening and joining in.
On Artsakh Avenue, that may be the real promise of the program. A storefront becomes a studio. A lesson becomes a performance. A group of young people discovers that culture does not only belong on a stage.
Sometimes it starts with one sound, then another, then the courage to keep going.
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