- My name is Lewis Edward McCaleb IV, AKA Lewiee Blaze I'm born and raised in the Twin Cities of Minnesota and I solve problems.

That's what I do, just to keep everything short ♪ Each and every night ♪ ♪ Each and every night ♪ - I always tell people that I'm just a multidimensional entity.

Like I said, I entertain, I educate and I empower.

There's many different ways that I do that but I know that music is my heart though.

Music is my top love.

A lot of my community activism and community engagement, where it is things that I do also as a passion and being able to intersect two where I can actually use my music as a teaching tool.

(melodic piano music) - [Speaker] As the voice of the people speaking out.

Speaking out as a role call, calling our people out of their darkness and bringing them into the light.

Telling them to embrace themselves, Embrace their greatness.

Finally come up out their darkness, Embrace your greatness.

The revolution will be televised this time around and it's our obligation to stand up and fight for our rights, to fight for our freedom, to fight for our people.

- Aight.

(melodic piano music) (Lewis hums) I grew up in a household of music.

My father, my mother.

My mother is the reason why I got so heavy into hip hop, where I even started rapping and started writing, which became my strongest instrument, was my voice.

And she always told me to always speak how I feel.

♪ I got soul.

♪ ♪ Soul.

♪ ♪ I got soul.

♪ ♪ I got soul.

♪ - My mother was was always somebody that kept it real with you.

No matter how you felt about it and always spoke her opinion.

She was also very healing.

Very understanding, compassionate.

Took in a lot of people was very selfless.

Just a huge caregiver.

(Lewis plays piano scale) I feel like that's the reason why I've gotten into the work of healing as well, in education and creating space for others to be themselves and express themselves and share stories with each other and heal.

The world would tell you that you just gotta do one thing.

You know, like just focus on this one thing.

And I'm always somebody that like being different.

So, you know, yeah.

I don't think I ever focus on one thing.

It's a lot of fires to be put out.

It's a lot of problems to be solved.

When I very first came here I was fresh from my little situation I spoke about earlier after I got locked up.

And I was really at a point in my life to where I needed to find my purpose.

So I knew about this school and everything and it has studios and chances to get into art.

And my passion just drove me here.

So here's been very, very transformational in my life.

That's my father with Jimmy Hendrix.

To my father, he was the grand master that's like my Tupac Shakur.

Tupac is my main idol.

That's my father's version of Tupac.

Yeah, they have college counselors here.

One thing that I really love about this school is the intentionality around their relationship building with the students.

See it's one thing to say students are dropping out or students are failing and putting the blame on those kids.

It's another thing to actually understand the student, to learn more about their story, so we can fix the circumstances.

and we can be able to better assist that student on graduating.

I like to use a quote saying, "When a flower doesn't bloom we fix the environment in which it grows."

I was in this class called get on the money train.

And it was my first day in this school at all.

And the teacher, Dan Fry, very energetic charismatic guy.

He was like, today's lesson is going to be storytelling.

So I'm gonna play a storytelling, hip hop song.

And then the task for you all is to go home and write a story.

And then when he played the song, my mind was blown because I'm looking at this white guy in a school setting where we're being educated and he put on Eazy-E Boyz-n-the-Hood, the dirty version though.

♪ Cruising down the street in my '64.

♪ And he didn't block out any of the cuss words or any of that.

Now from the school I just came from, that's unheard of.

And then I went home, I wrote a storytelling song called Decisions that same night, came back, showed it to him.

And he put me on stage to perform like the next day.

- [Dan] I remember that day because I left you alone in studio B with Aliyah Jackson.

And I came back like 45 minutes later.

And you guys had recorded Decisions, which won, that year won the best song of the year award.

And you and Aliyah Jackson took care of it.

And she maybe had a beat, kind of, - Yeah.

- But you laid it down in like 45 minutes.

And I had never seen anything like that.

In post-production, you can maybe add that song right now or something.

(keyboard note playing) ♪ It's just another day.

♪ ♪ La, la, just another day.

♪ ♪ It's just another day, yeah.

♪ ♪ Woke up early, just around 9:30, ♪ ♪ Missed my bus, so I had to get to school in a hurry.

♪ - I'm a all around writer.

I write poems, songs, movie scripts, TV shows, Any creative idea.

Really, at the core of it's like storytelling.

How can we put a story together?

And at the end of that, how can we create a narrative or or create a message that we could send out into the world?

And the message is always a message of empowerment.

Give me a 3, 2, 1, action.

- No?

- Oh, do it over, do it over.

- All right, there we go - Here.

- And y'all say it.

Y'all say the 3, 2, 1, action.

- Yeah.

- [Camera Operator] Okay, ready?

3, 2, 1, Lights.

♪ I swear, our reality is a nightmare.

♪ ♪ The dreams are being crushed because we don't fight fair.

♪ ♪ We end up in a system from shooting at rivals ♪ ♪ that hit a innocent victim.

♪ ♪ That could have been my brother right there.

♪ ♪ That could have been me and you, or a mother right there.

♪ ♪ The father went away, ♪ ♪ imagine what the kids will go through.

♪ ♪ The daughter had a daughter at 16 ♪ ♪ and the son was shooting a .22 way before he was 22.

♪ ♪ Million dollar thoughts and a pocket full of change.

♪ ♪ I took so many losses, but we all go through things.

♪ ♪So when life got you down, try to stay up, ♪ ♪ Bow my head and I pray the Lord save us.

♪ ♪ 'Cause before we change the world, we must change us.

♪ ♪ I hope to see a better day when I wake up.

♪ - Wake up.

Ahh.

Keep that one for the bloopers.

- And I know this was one of your favorite spots, too.

- [Lewis] Oh, yeah, this is one definitely my favorite spot.

'Cause when you come in there, everybody just walk right in.

- Yeah.

- And I like to get a little more exclusive.

You feel me?

- Yeah, this is off to the side.

- Yeah, this is off to the side.

- Sure, if you don't know about Lewiee Blaze I don't know where you at.

Your heads in the clouds.

- That's love, that's love, you feel me?

It's always being a reflection of others, too.

Like being in- - Oh, yeah.

- I remember when we very first met.

- Raw.

- Mm hmm.

- Fucking raw.

- Thanks, though.

- Thanks, though.

I'm proud of you though, Heather.

- Thank you, I appreciate you, man.

I'm proud of you, too.

Look at you, man.

- Yeah.

- Always making different moves.

- We gonna keep making it happen.

- All right.

- [Mama] Come here.

- [Lewis] Hey, what's up Mama Shot?

- Hey, how are you?

- I was hoping we would see you.

I am doing well today.

- Where's your brother?

- Oh my brother.

He was just out, he was taking care - Hi.

- Of his family right now.

- He is?

- Yeah, yep.

- Look at you.

Well, I love your shirt.

- [Lewis] Oh, thank you, thank you.

I just wanna stop by, hey.

To say hey.

- Hey.

- I got TPT with me today.

We're doing the emergency artist project.

- Okay.

- Yep, yep.

- I'm so glad you came by to see me.

- Of course, of course.

- Absolutely.

- I told them, no, we have to stop by, see Mama Shot.

- And everything and you guys got a whole lot of work ahead of you.

And I know that I took a turn out there on the battlefield.

And I'm not done, but I'm not able to do the same things that I had been doing, it's y'all's turn.

And I want you to know I got your back.

I'm gonna keep you guys lifted and cook you some food and bring you some stuff out there.

And do whatever it is that I need to do to be supportive to you, because we have got to continue to fight.

We really do.

We gotta fight and pray.

You know what they said, but we gotta do.

We gotta do what we gotta do.

Justice is just something that we can't give up on.

- I got this tatted way before all of this happened.

I've always been revolutionary.

In my life I've always been one to stand up for justice.

I'm very inspired by the Black Panthers.

Tupac Shakur and his mother and his history.

Being coming from the black Panthers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther king, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer.

So many amazing ancestors who have paved the way for me to be here today and do what I can do.

It's only right that we keep going until we are all free.

So shout out my man, Kevin Reiss, 'Cause he young Malcolm in a flesh in today's age.

And we got the vision, we gonna keep cooking.

We gonna keep blazing.

(Crowd shouting on TV) (hip hop beat playing) ♪ Each and every night, ♪ ♪ Each and every day, ♪ ♪ For freedom Imma fight ♪ ♪ In each and every way.

♪ ♪ Each and every night, ♪ ♪ Each and every day, ♪ ♪ For freedom Imma fight ♪ ♪ In each and every way.

♪ ♪ Each and every night, ♪ ♪ Each and every day, ♪ ♪ For freedom Imma fight ♪ ♪ In each and every way.

♪ ♪ Each and every night, ♪ ♪ Each and every day, ♪ ♪ For freedom Imma fight ♪ ♪ In each and every way.

♪ ♪ They killed Martin, ♪ ♪ He was leading with love.

♪ ♪ Knocked the Black Panthers off the map, ♪ ♪ You know they couldn't see us with guns.

♪ ♪ Fred Hampton in a pool full of blood.

♪ ♪ So many assassinations in the nation, ♪ ♪ We on the run.

♪