T.C (David) Ellis, Rap protégé who appeared in Prince’s movie “Graffiti Bridge.” Ellis rapped the hit songs “Twin Cities Rap” and “Bat Rap.”

TPS: So, we’re just catching up on all of our friends and acquaintances from
 ”back in the day.” I understand you’re living in Vegas now?

TC: No, I still live in St. Paul, but I TRAVEL and work quite a bit in Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. I spend enough time there, it seems like I live there!

TPS: What has you doing all that traveling?

TC: Well, I’m very excited because this Fall we’re opening a brand new High School for Recording Arts in Los Angeles. I’m the Founding Director. Also, I helped to develop the Explore Knowledge Academy in Vegas. That’s what I’ve been doing these days–working to develop programs and schools like the one I started in the Twin Cities. I do technical consulting for innovative educational programs.
 
TPS: How did that start?

TC: I used to see a lot of High School-aged kids cutting classes. They’d hang out around my recording studio in the St. Paul skyway. These kids had no real interest in school, but boy, did they have a lot of interest in rap and recording. They’d ask me all kinds of questions and would try to talk me into letting them record. So finally, I let some of them–and they were good! And they were motivated and passionate. That’s when I realized there was a real need in the community to help these kids–a lot of them at first were “at-risk youth,” but over the course of 9 years that we’ve been up and running, we’ve been attracting kids from the suburbs who just didn’t “fit” in the traditional school system.

TPS: Do the students learn academics alongside recording arts?

TC: Oh yes, my program must meet 12 areas of validation. HSRA combines Academics with Projects of Interest. The students learn all kinds of things,
 and have various arts-related interests; drama, art, music. The kinds of classes offered are: Music, copyrighting, marketing, promotions, sound production, engineering, graphic design. It’s a full-range of courses to help students succeed as performers.

TPS: It sounds as though you find teaching to be extremely rewarding.

TC: I’ll tell you what–I stood on a stage performing with Prince on one side of me, and George Clinton on the other, before thousands of fans–and I thought I was on top of the world, and that it didn’t get any better. I was wrong.
Seeing a mom and an auntie crying their eyes out on graduation day, because their child is the first in the family to graduate from High School–that’s incredible.

TPS: I also read that you were given a special honor…

TC: Yes, I was given an honorary diploma from Oxford University, after participating as a Roundtable Fellow on Innovation in Education.

TPS: So all the music and work in your past has really prepared you for the work
 you’re doing now–how has your time with Prince influenced your life?

TC: I was friends with Prince from the time we were early teens. I played the drums. in a band, at the time, he was a member of Grand Central Band–this was before he ever had a contract. Prince recruited my sister SueAnn to sing in his original band (The Revolution). But, she wound up with her own deal at Warner Brothers, through Prince’s management. The continued to work together on his albums, though. I was doing my own thing. Rapping and that–Prince wasn’t really interested in that at all. Funny story–a couple years later, when Prince got his Warner Brothers contract and was starting to gain momentum, he was attracting a lot of girls, he was messing around with this girl named Nikki. Well, she had an ex-boyfriend who was still in the picture. One night, I ran into them all at the FoxTrap, and this boyfriend wanted to fight with Prince. I stepped in–see, I’d had some boxing background and had been working towards the Golden Gloves. I know I kept my friend from getting his behind kicked. Later, when I tried to see about working together to produce some of my rap stuff, Prince just wasn’t having any of it. I’m sure probably everybody he knew was coming at him, because he’d “made it.” Miko Weaver, Prince’s guitar player (formerly with Sheila E.) had kept me in the loop on the Batman film, which inspired him to write the music for the Bat Rap, and I put together the lyrics. I was telling Miko how I was trying to get Prince to help out my music, maybe to get Rap into his music, and Miko suggested I remind Prince of that I was his friend, and had even helped keep him from getting his butt kicked at the FoxTrap…so I did. Prince just said “that was then, this is now.” He told me to stop bothering him, and that if I didn’t watch it, he’d send Hucky and Gilbert after me. “To do what?” I asked. “To break your legs or something” Prince answered. It was just ridiculous–I knew those guys and knew they wouldn’t do something like that. It was just big talk–later, when I finally got him to hear “Twin Cities Rap” he was all into it.

TPS: Maybe partly because the rap was about him? I’m Just Sayin’

TC: (Laughing) Yeah, that’s probably true. Anyhow, I came up with “Bat Rap” and Warner Bros. got wind of it, and things started to happen. All of the things I learned–being on stage, managing my career, recording in the studio, dealing with labels and marketing, and all of it–are things I can teach young people now. Our students are extremely motivated–last year they even raised $75K for programming from the Minnesota State Office of Education. They have their own radio show on B-96 “The Fo Show.” The kids also operate their own record label, called Another Level Records.

Visit http://www.hsra.org/ to learn more about David Ellis and how you can support the High
School for Recording Artists.

Don’t forget to check out the Wrecka-Stow