

Adisa Banjoko expands his Hip Hop Chess Federation program to Oakland high schools. Photo courtesy of Adisa Banjoko.

Adisa Banjoko


What do hip-hop music and chess have in common? The answer is simple according to Adisa Banjoko, the founder of the Hip Hop Chess Federation (HHCF), a non-profit organization that combines music, chess and martial arts to help young people promote nonviolence in their communities.

The art of rap and the game of chess are extremely competitive and difficult to master. In a game of chess, two people battle each other by making strategic moves on a board that has 64 squares. In a rap battle, two artists seek to display mental superiority, using similar survival strategies to a chess player, except that they duel with the wittiest rhymes to win.

Although Banjoko’s traveled all over the country organizing community outreach events, the Bay Area holds a special place in his heart. Banjoko once lived in Oakland and was a part of the ‘90s Bay Area hip-hop music scene. Currently, he is teaching chess and life strategies to students at Encinal High School in Alameda through a partnership with his friend John Fuentes, who oversees the after-school high school program for Bay Area Community Resources (BACR). From now to the end of this school year, Fuentes’ goal is to have Banjoko teach chess at several Oakland high schools as well.

In an interview with Oakland North, Banjoko talked about his love for hip-hop music, chess, and his hopes for healing Oakland from the violence that long has plagued the city.

Oakland North: If you could describe The Hip Hop Chess Federation in one word, what would it be?

Adisa Banjoko: Dynamic. We are dynamic because by fusing the art of logic and the logic inside the art, we are inspiring young people towards self-discovery — knowing themselves truly — and self mastery. That is something that America needs. We are doing it with a very unlikely group of methods.

ON: How many years have you been running the HHCF and why did you create it?

AB: The Hip Hop Chess Federation was founded in 2006. Basically, I created it because I realized that through the history of rap music, the art of rap has celebrated chess more than any other form of music. I used it because I went to give a speech on journalism at a juvenile hall in San Francisco. I was one of the first West Coast writers for The Source magazine and Vibe magazine. What I learned at the juvenile hall was that most of the kids didn’t care about journalism. They only wanted to know whether or not I met Snoop Dogg or this rapper and that rapper.

So  … I asked them if they knew how to play chess. Out of all of the kids in the room (there were probably about 75 of them), almost all of them knew how to play chess. In that moment when they raised their hands, I heard all of the rap lyrics that deal with chess just come down on my cranium at one time. I was like, there is something to this. This is something big. I saw white kids who weren’t getting any respect in the hall get respect through chess. I saw kids who were grossly out of shape, like obese kids that got laughed at, get respect because they won. I realized at that point that there was something very real and very serious about hip-hop and chess.

I started researching who exactly does play chess and how long have they been playing chess. These were things that I already had a personal fascination with since I heard Public Enemy say the line, “No matter what the name, we’re all the same pieces in one big chess game,” from the song “Rebel Without A Pause.” This was back when I was a teenager in the ‘80s…

As I went on to be a journalist in hip-hop, any time I would meet rappers I would often ask them after the interview if they play chess, and the truth was, a lot of them did. But it was about creating the formula. So I had to figure out the purpose. The purpose became nonviolence.

In my youth, I was a very militant dude. Anybody that knows me from the Bay knows that. I used to write for the Black Panther paper “The Commemorator.” It actually gave me my writing start. I had to change a lot to come to a place of nonviolence. My love for nonviolence came through martial arts, specifically, in training Brazilian jiu-jitsu. That path of martial arts helped me transcend in how I saw race, in how I saw power, in how I saw violence. I knew that the world needed to reengage the path of nonviolence that Dr. King, that Nelson Mandela, and that so many nameless blacks and Latinos and whites and Jews here in America had used as a way to thrive and teach humanity. I knew that the organization had to have that element.

ON: How did the idea for you to partner with BACR develop?

AB: John Fuentes is actually a very well-versed dude on hip-hop. One of my problems as an organization is a lot of educators are still afraid of rap music. Even more are afraid of martial arts. So when you say that we teach chess, music, and martial arts to promote unity, strategy and nonviolence, it confuses people. It quite honestly scares a lot of the educators because they already feel like violence is at an all-time high in their schools. However, John Fuentes understands hip-hop better than many people. He also understands the role of martial arts in promoting nonviolence.

Like, for instance, even though we instinctually think that people who like martial arts like to fight, the truth is that Shaolin Monks are Buddhists and they never fight. Nobody thinks about how it is because of their training that they stay at peace. So John Fuentes and I hooked up. He asked me to come speak at an event and the kids loved it. So I thought, how do I teach this beyond just saying, “Jay-Z plays chess, the Wu-Tang Clan play chess, Tupac talked about chess, or Drake and Lil’ Wayne talk about chess.” Then what? I had to build that and then I reached out to him and we started working together. So I’m very, very excited. Being someone who lived in Oakland, who genuinely loves Oakland, and is horrified by the violence and in the hatred towards women that comes from hip-hop, I want to come into Oakland and help heal Oakland through hip-hop. That is my goal.

ON: What was the selection process like when choosing where to begin teaching chess?

AB: The selection process is, do they understand me and want me? One of the things that we’re facing as a country is that the state of American education is crumbling. It is costing our children their lives. This crumbling education system is what has given growth and weight to the school-to-prison pipeline because our children aren’t learning. In HHCF, we teach the three C’s. We teach college, career and crime. We teach that college is good for you and your family. The more education you have, the more money you’ll make. The more money you’ll make, the more you’ll be able to protect your family in a way that is good for them and help expose them to beautiful things.

Read the rest of the story by Juan Antonio Martinez at Oakland NorthConnect with Oakland North on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

Oakland North