For ten weeks, from 15 October to 17 December 2024, the city of Ghent hosted A School Called Tribe: an open, collective music school based on an idea by de Koer (vzw De Vergunning) as part of the European Soundroutes project.
Now that experience has been brought to life in a final video that recounts the journey, challenges, faces and voices of an artistic community in the making.
A different kind of school
A School Called Tribe is not a traditional school. It is an experiment in horizontal learning, where music becomes a common language for exploring identity, freedom and collaboration.
Rappers, spoken word artists, producers and students from the Ghent jazz-pop conservatory met every Tuesday to create together: writing, improvising, playing and exchanging ideas.
Under the guidance of four coaches, the group went through all the stages of the creative process:
- writing lab and lyric development,
- cypher and jam sessions for improvisation,
- rehearsals and recordings with a live band,
- culminating in a final performance open to the public.
The result? A fusion of jazz, hip hop and poetry that transcended the boundaries of genre and technique, becoming a laboratory of sonic and political freedom.
A tribe of voices and listening
At the heart of the project was peer learning: learning together, exchanging instruments, words and feedback.
Each participant brought their own world — some a beat, some a bass line, some a poem — and together they built something new, imperfect and alive.
Along the way, there were challenges: inconsistent attendance, coordination difficulties and the need to balance the roles between rappers and musicians.
But it was precisely these tensions that gave rise to the true strength of the project: the ability to listen to each other, adapt and continue to create collectively.
‘There was no single direction. Every meeting was a risk, but also a discovery.
That’s how you build a tribe.’
Beyond music
Gent’s journey has shown that music can be an instrument of connection and transformation.
A School Called Tribe brought together fifteen rappers and producers, four conservatory students, and two master’s students in music education, creating an environment where the process matters more than the result, and every voice contributes to the collective rhythm.
The final video captures all of this: the energy of the workshops, the vulnerability of the words, the sound of the group growing together.
A visual document that celebrates diversity, encounter and artistic freedom.
