Hip-hop in the 1980s, 90s and 2000s is the big bad wolf that parents, politicians and powers-that-be demonize much like the adults of the 1950s and 60s did with rock n' roll. These days they point to hip-hop as the cause for anything that goes wrong in the inner city. Shooting at a nightclub? Gang activity in schools? Drug use? Drug selling? Blame it on hip-hop - which in a lot ways is the equivalent of blaming a school for a kid not graduating. It's not the school's fault. The school is merely a concrete structure where the students, teachers and influences that have attributed to that child not graduating congregate.

Hip-hop- like school - is a vehicle to learning, expression and personal growth. When examined closely, hip-hop may be the genre of music that exercises the very principle this country was built on: Freedom to be who you are. Like the immigrants that sailed into Ellis Island, N.Y., the only requirement in hip-hop is that you bring your dreams and yourself to hip-hop.

A few months back, the Downtown Tacoma Public Library branch gave me the liberty to host a teen hip-hop workshop at the StoryLab; a program funded by a Paul Allen Family grant that awarded the library with top-of-the-line computers, software and other hardware that allowed kids to explore their creativity. While I did the best I could to educate the 10 to 20 kids who attended about the art of hip- hop, how to record your own music and even covered hip-hop theory and business, there was something bigger at play. These kids weren't here just for the hell of it. This wasn't a hobby or something for them to do after school. These teenagers saw hip-hop as a way out.

One of these kids was a 19-year-old named Teeler. Teeler has been rapping for about six years and as he put it, "As I grew older, hip-hop went from a hobby to a career choice." Teeler grew up living poor and bounced around the state's foster care system.

"Hip Hop was always a way to escape the madness of reality," he said. "Even after leaving the system, life is still crazy and hip-hop is my go to."

After the workshop was done, I helped Teeler shoot a music video at the library to a song he wrote called "Own the Night," which he won a national contest for. He states the biggest thing he took from the workshop was learning the business, and that influenced Teeler to enroll in business management classes.

Hip-hop, for all it's worth, is the voice of several generations and a positive catalyst in Tacoma. Now, if only the powers that be, politicians and parents are able to understand enough to embrace like TPL did instead of trying to diminish it.