Sound engineering program offers hope to at-risk youths: ‘I had many male band directors who were like second dads’
Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Omari, left, and Jaylen, center, watch sound engineer Johnny Rayborn record and adjust settings while Zell raps during an Acclivus youth employment program at Fort Knox Studios on June 14, 2023. The last names of the program participants have been withheld by request.
Program director Xavier Williams seeks to engage some of the most at-risk teens around the city of Chicago, he said. He recruits youths for his program from alternative schools and juvenile detention centers. Williams has a 9-year-old daughter, but he said the men who participate in the program are his second responsibility. They call him frequently, confide in him and lean on him.“I try to engage with them,” Williams said. “I say to them, ‘Hey, man. I’ve done this. Yeah, I’m old now. I want this to be you, but there are a lot of prisons waiting for you out there.’”
Lunch is served every day. Wednesday, Williams passed out Popeyes and paper plates to the group sitting in class. Williams also tries to do two home visits a week. Every day, he drives around to pick up his students. He has relationships with their families. He raps off the top of his head using his own experiences and things that he’s heard or been thinking about, he said.In the studio, all eyes watched as Zell rapped along to the beat Rayborn created for him. The studio is warm and inviting, with bamboo plants, a ProTools soundboard and Genelec speakers. Hundreds of records are stacked on a bookcase leaning against the wall, and electric guitars are mounted in the front of the room.
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