“Layers” rapper Archie Green is teaching Black teens how to manage mental health through music with the Cope Dealer Initiative. Students of Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Ohioan city of Kent are participating in the inaugural workshop.
Over the course of ten weeks, the high-schoolers dissect songs by Green that deal with mental health issues before diving into the process of making original music at a recording studio.
“These young Black men can look at me or another Black male talking about these feelings. It gives them permission to be vulnerable, permission to really tap into those emotions that are inside,” Green told News 5 Cleveland. “It’s about bringing out those types of emotions that lead to creating or bringing out something that’s been there the entire time. And that’s the power of music, the power of art, but also the power of communicating to someone that looks like you.”
A social worker assists the students with mental health needs during the program, which will wrap up next month with a performance at the high school and a mixtape of their work.
Teachers and counselors at the school connect upperclassmen struggling with anxiety or behavioral difficulties with the Cope Dealer program, designed to help those students express their pent-up emotions through creativity.
“The program provided more than just a male figure,” said K’vyayer Hill, a high school junior in the program, in an interview with Spectrum News 1. “It has provided a huge listening ear that I didn’t get much of.”
If all goes well, Green will be able to reach more youth with Cope Dealer programs across several schools. The Ohio rapper has been in the music game for decades and founded “Peel Dem Layers Back” in 2016. The nonprofit created mental health-centered programs including the Cope Dealer
Initiative, the hip-hop and classical music-infused My Violin Weighs a Ton, the open mic-style Let That Ish Go and the fundraising festival The Root Of It All. The 36-year-old artist received a depression diagnosis in 2014, inspiring him to write the song “Layers.” He caught the attention of Vice magazine for his work as a rapper who is outspoken about mental health. From then on, Green was synonymous with hip-hop and mental health.
