Founded by Hip-Hop author and scholar Adisa Banjoko, is the worlds first scholar to teach how music, chess and martial arts can promote unity, strategy and non-violence. This award winning speaker teaches youth of all backgrounds risk assessment, emotional mastery and how to apply what they see on the chessboard to real life decision making. Follow us @realhiphopchess on IG! You can also listen to Bishop Chronicles podcast on www.bishopchronicles.com iTunes, Spotify and Mixcloud.
The Workout 2 by Stic.man is available now on iTunes and Amazon
"A warrior lives with integrity and honor/ Keeps his loved ones protected like armor/ Without even a word, you can feel the aura/ Respect is evident through his values and morals..."
- Stic.man , White Belt
The new album release The Workout 2 from Stic.man just dropped. It features amazing motivational music for those focused on health and fitness. He calls his lane of rap "Fit-Hop" as it stays focused on themes connected to vegan living, yoga, mental clarity and focus. His last album The Workout was a hit around the world in the urban fitness community. He is also the author of several books that deal with the art of rap as well as how to eat a vegan diet and still gain muscle. Stic.man is truly a groundbreaking artist and athlete in this respect. He is also one of the biggest and most consistent proponents of martial arts as a tool for personal cultivation and civilization.
The Workout 2 features not just raps, but up beat tracks with various slogans to keep you from quitting on yourself during your jog, or lifting session. On the song White Belt at 1:50 and 3:00 you will hear advice from HHCF Founder Adisa the Bishop on mindset a white belt should approach their training with. Listen here White Belt and share it with other lovers of positive mindsets and good living.Other great songs include Stay Ready, Run, and Put in the Work. This is a great album for parents to get their teens or kids who play sports or aspire to.
Albums like this prove why Hip-Hop has promoted the healthiest lifestyles on earth above any other music form in history. If you think I'm wrong, go look up any lyrics from heavy metal, rock, jazz, soul, R & B, you choose it and lets compare lyric for lyric. Congrats to Stic.man on dropping such a great motivational piece of work. It is currently the #1 album on Amazon for health and fitness!!
Many people often get confused about what we do. At the end of the day, we teach non violence through the fusion of art and logic. We pull wisdom from wherever we find it. But we mostly find it from blending concepts from Hip-Hop, chess and martial arts. It takes a lot more to explain how we do what we do and why it works. At the end of the day however, we teach peace. That is what HHCF does. The good grades, the scholarships, the trophies are just things some of the kids get on the way to a fruitful life.
The creation of our org, the lectures across the country, our exhibit at the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2014, our championship dance teams, the book Bobby, Bruce & the Bronx: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess are all tied to that endgame- nonviolence.
We recently announced our Chess and Jiu-Jitsu classes and I am happy to say it is growing. Each class is a fusion of chess instruction and gaming and jiu-jitsu or wrestling positions. Assistant jiu-jitsu instructor Sammy Teame and wrestling coach Andrew Swank ensure each class is technically on point and physically demanding. In every class we always return to the importance of emotional mastery, kindness and mercy. You always hope these things reach our students, but you are never sure.
The other day one of my students told me had gotten into a physical altercation. He is 14 and while off campus a bully (who was acting very immature) and hit my student in the face with leaves on the branch of a tree branch. My student told him to not do it again in a respectful, but firm way. The bully took it as a challenge and did it again and ran off.
He said to me “I chased him, and then as I got close to him he threw a fist full of acorns at me as he turned to face me.” From his repetition in training, after being approached he was quickly able to get to the bullies back and begin applying a choke hold. He said he felt the bully tense up from not being able to escape the hold. The bully could feel the dominance of the position as my student got ready to squeeze. Then my student remembered the talks on nonviolence I gave in class. Released the choke put one hand and put the bully's arm behind his back and pushed him away. He again told the bully to stop being childish and leave him alone. When I asked him specifically HOW he got to the kids back, he replied “I don’t know how. I just got there.” This impressed me.
After being pushed away, the bully got enraged and charged him. Again my student got to his back, and reset the choke. He was angry he said at this point. He let go of the choke again, and bear hugged the bully to prepare to suplex him. Then he said he thought about how dangerous it would be to slam him on cement. He also thought about how mad I’d be at him for seriously hurting a kid he did not have to hurt.
My student let him go. The bully, realizing the level of mercy being given him stopped harassing my student.
I was happy to hear a few things:
That he did not recall how he got to the choke. I was happy to see he was not bogged down in mechanical thinking.
That he did not fully apply the choke or slam the bully on the concrete. In a world where young men love to express rage and power as others film it I was proud of him for being his own man.
That the work I do to teach nonviolence had a tangible outcome that made this kid, his school and the world a little more safe. If only in a super small way, in a small city, with ONE kid- it happened.
His father took me outside and thanked me for teaching his son. I was thankful to him, for trusting me with his son and joining our chess and jiu-jitsu program. I feel good. This is not a scientific study. But it is real. A new student starts tonight. I look forward to helping this youngster grow on the chessboards, on the mats and in life in a similar way. I hope in the future, all of our children can learn how to return injury with kindness through the fusion of chess and jiu-jitsu.
Adisa Banjoko, author of the new book Bobby, Bruce & Bam: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess was recently interviewed on KPFA Radio by Davey D. The two talk about how the fusion of Hip-Hop, chess and martial arts came together through the work of Bobby Fischer, Bruce Lee and Afrika Bambaataa. It is the first radio interview the author has done. LISTEN HERE! For more about the book visit www.bobbybruceandbam.com . It is officially released April 10, 2016.
Innovative Book Connects Rap and Jiu-Jitsu to Stop Violence and Improve Education
Bobby, Bruce & Bam: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess Frame Impact of Bobby Fischer, Bruce Lee and Afrika
Bambaataa in a New Light
Oakland, CA 3/11/16-
Three Lions Press is proud to announce the release of a new book, Bobby Bruce & Bam: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess written by Adisa Banjoko, aka The Bishop. This extraordinary book outlines how the of rise of Bobby Fischer, Bruce Lee and Afrika Bambaataa unintentionally converged and influences Hip-Hop, chess and martial arts in America in unexpected ways.
It includes a workbook teaching the first 12 lessons people can use to embrace chess as a life strategy tool for school and business. The recently launched website www.bobbybruceandbam.com features a 29 page sampler of excerpts. Bobby Bruce & Bam: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess will be released April 10, 2016 in both digital and print formats. The book serves as a disruptive blueprint that helps urban kids shift their approach to education, entrepreneurship, and life’s possibilities.
Adisa Banjoko, aka The Bishop is a respected disruptor in the space of education innovation. Adisa began his journalism career while still a high school student interviewing Eazy
E shortly before the formation of NWA. Adisa went on to become one of the first west coast writers
for The Source, RapPages and VIBE among others. He broke some of the first profiles on artists like Tupac Shakur, Del and Hieroglyphics, Master P and many others in the rise of west coast rap in the early 1990s’. Adisa Banjoko is
a powerful speaker who has lectured at many universities across the country including Harvard,
Lehigh, Oberlin College, UC Berkeley and others. His ideas on chess, rap and martial arts have been seen in Forbes, Good Morning America, Black Enterprise, Ebony and the cover of Chess Life Magazine.
“This book is the product of more than ten years of research and direct experience helping kids escape the
violence of the streets” said Adisa Banjoko. I have helped teens graduate and live better lives using chess strategies fused with Hip-Hop. The connections in this book are very real and they work. The fusion gives teachers new tools to take STEM and STEAM
to a higher level. My goal is the help the children in cities like Oakland, St. Louis, Baltimore, New York, Boston and Atlanta use chess as a tool for self discovery and improvement. ”
In April of 1998 he released an article profiling the legendary
Gracie family for RapPages magazine. Not long after he penned an article on Ralph Gracie and MMA for Maxim Magazine. He has written extensively about Brazilian
Jiu-Jitsu, yoga, meditation and Eastern philosophy for the last 20 years. He is a purple belt in
Brazilian jiu-jitsu and currently teaches chess and jiu-jitsu classes at HHCF HQ.
In 2006 after visiting incarcerated youth in San Francisco he created the
Hip-Hop Chess Federation (HHCF). The HHCF is a 501c3 non-profit that fuses music, chess and martial arts, to promote unity, strategy and nonviolence. in 2015, the HHCF was invited to teach the staff at the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis on the connections between Hip-Hop and chess. The result was the Living Like Kings exhibit (which broke attendance records surpassing Bobby Fischer's). He and RZA of Wu-Tang Clan (who now serves on HHCF’s Board) spoke to high school youth and incarcerated youth in St. Louis during all off the rage and chaos after the death of Mike Brown. Their efforts illustrated a nonviolent narrative largely overlooked by both mainstream and
Hip-Hop media.
Bobby Bruce & Bam: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess outline how this unique fusion came to pass and the lives Adisa Banjoko has been able to change through it. The book highlights his his ideas while in teaching kids in St. Louis with Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, his experiences fighting inner city school violence in The Bay Area and how rap music celebrate chess more than any
other form of music on the planet.
Brian Coleman, author of
Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies stated “Adisa Banjoko writes with the same fire, intelligence and even-keeled wisdom that fans see in person, whether in a room full of Ph.D-holding scholars, or an auditorium filled with wide-eyed teens. His perspective is unique, essential and continually engaging, and listeners, readers and friends all benefit from each word he puts to paper. “Bobby Bruce & Bam” is a deep read, but it steers purposefully away
from coded academic language, presenting its points in clear, powerful tracts. No matter what gets you to the book (Hip-Hop, Chess or Martial Arts), you will walk away a better person as a result of diving in.”
Download the PDF sampler for Bobby Bruce & Bam: The Secrets of Hip-Hop Chess now at
www.bobbybruceandbam.com !
