Your Move MKE: Break Beats and Chess Meets Bring Peace to Milwaukee Streets

The Hip-Hop Chess Club of Wisconsin started four years ago, and operated out the back of a West Allis bar that was called Only on Tuesdays, then moved to Flip n Styles barber shop at South Eighth Street and West National Avenue until the pandemic interrupted meetings and events.

“Covid hit and we just haven’t been able to really get back to doing a weekly program,” Raquel Aleman (Rockz) said, Your Move MKE executive director. “Parents don’t want their kids to come out, and no matter how many masks we bought, how many sanitizers we bought, it was just really hard to get that up and running again.”

The chess club founders started Your Move MKE, Which is a non-profit organization that is committed to use chess, hip-hop music, skilled trades and writing to teach Milwaukee youth critical-life skills, give them opportunities to be off the streets, and show them how hip-hop lifestyle is a cultural tool used to build self-awareness, discipline and leadership.

Your Move MKE

The non-profit team developed four cornerstone themes for outreach, and those are titled The Hip-Hop Chess Club, Makin’ Moves Breakdancing, Urban Trade Skills and Open Forum.

“With Your Move MKE, what we try to do is, with these different projects, is empower the youth,” Cesar Cornier said, Your Move MKE media director and founder of Keepnitmil. “Giving them the tools to show them that are capable of doing far beyond what they might see in their environment.”

The programs are designed to show urban youth what opportunities are available and give them access to community resources and training. Luis Baran (Lui mann), Your Move MKE financial director and local music producer, said the future community members of Milwaukee will look back, remember being taught those critical skills and lead with that example.

“If we can help train the next generation, that helps us,” Baran said. “Because who is gonna take care of us? The next generation.”

Brandon Kitts (ego), a Milwaukee hip-hop music producer and Your Move MKE project director, said Milwaukee doesn’t fully address poverty, and that Southside neighborhoods particularly need community resources like Your Move MKE, and active community members to fill in the gaps for a lack of city-sponsored resources.

“I also want to bridge the disconnect between those that do live in poverty, and those that don’t,” Kitts said. “It seems like there is a lot of fear surrounding what people in the suburbs think about us.”

The Hip-Hop Chess Club Fostered Growth for More Outreach Programs

Your Move MKE started from within the Hip-Hop Chess Club of Wisconsin, which is a social-action organization, influenced and mentored by Road Island MC (Master of Ceremonies) Krook Rock, that taught people how to play chess and the fundamentals of hip-hop beat production.

Additionally, The Hip-Hop Chess Club showed youth how to use chess and beat making strategies to navigate complicated life situations by thinking about their next move, and Aleman said that helped connect with urban youth.

“I’m sitting at the same table with them, I’m sitting at the same board with them,” Aleman said. “It brings you down to the same level, and it’s a lot easier to build a rapport with them at that point.”

The Makin’ Moves Breakdancing program, with guidance from local B-Boy Antonio Vargas (Slim), was designed to teach people breakdancing and hip-hop lifestyle, and Aleman said that a lot of the elements of breakdancing can improve mental health.

“Hip-hop is deeper than what you hear on the radio,” Aleman said. “It’s really founded on knowledge of yourself, having a deep understanding of yourself and good self-awareness.”

With Urban Skilled trades, Alberto Vallejos (Blade), local music producer and Your Move MKE’s on-site coordinator, can teach youth building and construction related skills, and even mentor people through improvement projects, and Vallejos said that knowing how to fix little things goes a long way.

“A lot of people don’t even know how to change a doorknob or a handle,” Vallejos said. “You come over here, we give you some Urban Trade and show you how to fix a little handle, so you can learn.”

Open Forum was added to Your Move MKE to teach writing skills, scripting, and speaking, but doing so without negativity or other limitations.

“For the first hour, we’ll be writing and journaling,” Aleman said. “Then the second hour, we will have a microphone and allow them to have that platform to express as well.”

The open microphone concept will give people a creative outlet, and Kitts said flash writing and open words are valuable hip-hop skills.

“I love freestyle, I love being an MC, I’m a cypher sparker,” Kitts said. “I want to be able to instill that in other people, to be in the moment as the MC.”

Events, Fundraising and a Call to Action

Aleman said that to serve the community, Your Move MKE needs their own building on the Southside of Milwaukee, and that they started a fundraiser to help get that building, but until then, they will do monthly pop-up events.

“We’re just really a grassroots organization, so we are fine doing everything from the ground up,” Aleman said. “But we’re really motivated to buy our own building and have our own space.”

Your Move MKE scheduled their first networking event for Dec. 19, 2021, at Ms. Yesenias Creative Studio near South 29th Street and West Forest Home Avenue.

Last year, gun violence in Milwaukee claimed the life of Fabian Guzman, a legacy member of the Hip-Hop Chess Club and the nephew of Vallejos.

“That trauma, and that being so close, is the whole reason why we are doing this,” Vellejos said. “We are trying to stop that senseless violence.”

Struggles and outcomes in city life showed Vellejos how an individual’s actions make a big difference, and he said that reenforcing positive behavior in urban youth with his actions will make a full circle back and impact his future too.

“It’s your move,” Vellejos said. “I made my move.”