Reef The Lost Cauze

Melissa Simpson: So just for the record, tell me your name and your instrument of choice.

Reef The Lost Cauze: Sure. My name is Sharif Lacey, aka Reef The Lost Cauze. And my instrument of choice is my voice and the microphone.

Melissa Simpson: Word. So tell me about when you first got into rapping. Do you remember how that came about?

Reef The Lost Cauze: Like most kids of the eighties and nineties, hip hop culture was just always around me. I had uncles who did it, cousins who did it—DJs, graffiti artists, MCs. My uncle Vincent was a dope MC by the name of Cool V.

But the most clear memory I have of getting struck by the bug was in fourth grade. Me, my friend Louis, my friend Muji, and my friend Andy—we wrote a rap. Well, I wrote the rap, and I let them get on. It was for Martin Luther King Day, and it was called “I Have a Dream.” We performed it at a Martin Luther King Day assembly. It got mad love, and the principal told another principal about it. So we went to two different schools and performed it. That’s when I caught the bug. That’s the earliest memory I have of writing rhyme, performing rhyme, getting love for a rhyme, and being like, “Yo, I want to do this forever.”

Melissa Simpson: Got you.

Reef The Lost Cauze: I was about nine, ten.

Melissa Simpson: Was there a particular way you honed it? We learn from what we hear on the radio, on albums, and then we try our own thing. You mentioned your uncle—did he have any influence? How did you tighten up over the years?

Reef The Lost Cauze: Just being around. Philly’s a place—you can throw a rock and hit an MC in Philly. For me, it was ciphering with like-minded individuals. I had a lot of mentors, old heads that inspired and influenced me.

But I found my own voice fairly early because I was always an outspoken young man. Also, my mother stressed education. When I would get in trouble, I had to read a book and do a book report. At the time I didn’t realize it, but it was preparing me to be a wordsmith—to use different words and my personality to express myself.

The combination of having dope mentors, being from a city so hip hop-inclined, with so many dope MCs—I’m from West Philly. Guys like Last End, Hamid, the Cool C’s, the Youngsters—these were all people who lived within a few blocks of me. So it was always around me. It was just a natural progression.

Melissa Simpson: Gotcha. So tell me about how you got into being an educator.

Reef The Lost Cauze: That started with my mother, who worked—she’s retired now—for the Philadelphia Prevention Partnership. Through that, my uncle, also a member, would run mentorship programs and workshops for young boys.

He would do food drives and workshops. He brought me, my cousin, his son, his daughter—we all helped him. I was out on Saturday mornings with these young boys, giving out food to the homeless. We’d go to museums and talk about what we saw.

At first, I was just an extra body. But as I got more comfortable being around them, I started creating my own workshops and programs. I really loved doing that.

From there, Matthew Kerr, who started a program called Beyond the Bars—an incredible program in Philly—reached out about teaching writing workshops. Through that I met Devin, who was doing a program called Boss Boys. It was a program for sexually abused boys. We used art and healing. My man Betz from Mural Arts was one of the guys who spearheaded it.

We met with these kids. It was during COVID, so it started in person and then moved to Zoom. We did workshops with them. Philly is like that—you work with one person, someone hears about it, and they say, “Oh, you're good at this. Come do this over here.” But it started with the Philadelphia Prevention Partnership.

Melissa Simpson: You mentioned you ended up creating your own workshops. Can you tell me about the structure of those? How were they formatted?

Reef The Lost Cauze: We’d take emotions, feelings, experiences, and sit down and write about them. A lot of the guys wanted to be artists, so we’d take them to recording studios, work on technique, recording, learning the lingo and landscape of the studio.

One of my favorite classes was marketing and branding. Showing them how everything they have—or want—is marketed and branded to them. It was amazing to see their eyes light up when they realized, “We actually kind of do this every day.”

But the best workshop I did was a full-day one at LaSalle University, through the Philadelphia Prevention Partnership. They would go room to room with different topics. One room was about how to deal with the police. Another room was diet and nutrition. Another was conflict resolution. It made me proud to put the creative, the writing, all those other things into action—especially with young people.

Melissa Simpson: What was the response from the young people to that kind of holistic approach to music education? Emotional, social, technical, business—what was their response to the full package?

Reef The Lost Cauze: Some of them really took to it. Some have gone on to be mentors themselves. Kids who started at 13 or 14 are now 17 or 18 and carrying the torch. My uncle passed unexpectedly, but a lot of them are continuing the work.

Some we lost to the street. Some are now sending me links to their music—they’re recording artists themselves. Overall, the impact was positive. They gravitated toward it because it wasn’t “sit here and do equations.” It was real-life stuff.

That way of teaching—more observation and participation—is what I always responded to. We have conversations with them. They’re part of figuring out the answer. We also did fun stuff—escape rooms, laser tag. But it was about building. Through this art form, these mediums, they realized they’re brothers and sisters. They should love one another.

That’s what I’m most proud of—how many connections were made, how many bonds were built.

Melissa Simpson: You mentioned that the kind of education you did was more communal. It wasn’t just a one-way conversation. There’s a case to be made for traditional one-way education too. What are your thoughts on those two approaches?

Reef The Lost Cauze: I think every kid is different. Tomorrow, my wife and I are going to my son’s school. My oldest son is nonverbal autistic, as you know. We’re going to sit with them to go through his IEP, which is his Individual Education Plan. In that plan, it details what they feel he needs most—areas to focus on.

Honestly, I feel like every child in America needs an IEP. Every child is different. Every child learns differently. The most important—or I should say, most detrimental—thing we've done as a society is make school a one-way curriculum.

I don’t think every kid learns the same way. I don’t think every kid has the same interests. Some kids are bookworms who naturally like the structure—go to math, go to English, go to social studies. But others learn differently.

Until we’re able to truly expand on what education looks like on a daily basis, we’re going to keep losing kids. They’ll be frustrated, unable to understand what’s going on.

It’s really important that we get to a point where education isn’t just this one-way street.

Melissa Simpson: Obviously the arts are being cut across the board. When I was in school, I had a weekly music class. I was able to play two instruments in middle school. Even now, for adults, our art institutions are closing. What impact do you think that’s going to have on young people—this absence of art education and music education specifically? And why do you think music education is important for young people?

Reef The Lost Cauze: That’s a very good question. A beautiful question.

I think what’s happening is by design. When you take away people’s individuality, when you take away people’s artistic expression, you’re able to make them less humane. You’re able to break spirits a little bit.

For a lot of people, music, art, acting, playing an instrument—these aren’t just hobbies or classes. These are things that elevate people’s spirit and soul. And the cruelty is the point. Taking these things away is meant to hurt people, to make them less original, less authentic.

It’s part of a greater plan. And I think it’s going to destroy a lot of progress. It’s going to destroy people’s confidence and abilities. You take away books, you take away instruments in schools—what are you left with? A shell of a person.

They know what they’re doing. They’re doing it on purpose. And like you said, it’s not just kids who’ll be affected—it's adults too.

Art makes the world brighter. It makes the world a better place. It allows people to find themselves. It allows people to heal, to grow, to release.

And if you take away outlets for release, it leads to more violence, more suicide, more depression. It’s clearly a plan to harm people. And our people suffer the most from it.

Because if you go to the suburbs—they’ve got music class, shop class, metal class, home ec. They’ve got swimming pools in their high schools. You come to our areas—none of that. And there’s a reason for that.

Melissa Simpson: For sure. Do you think it would translate well if rap was taught in traditional institutions—not just hip hop, but rap?

Reef The Lost Cauze: Absolutely. I think so.

If you’ve got people teaching kids sonnets from Shakespeare, you can’t tell me some of Nas’s lyrics wouldn’t hold up right next to them. And I think you’d reach kids more if they were taught things that were relevant to them—more in their spirit, in their world.

A 16- or 17-year-old might not relate to Shakespeare, but they can certainly relate to some MCs—maybe from before their era, or in their era now. Jay Cole comes to mind. A young person in school would be excited about that.

Instead of reading Shakespeare, they read the lyrics of some of the greatest MCs and dissect what they meant. I’ve done that. I’ve had classes where we went through the catalogs and lyrics of some poets—because they are poets.

You could see the students connect with it. They understood it more than if you give them dead English from 200 years ago.

Melissa Simpson: Is there anything else you want to add in relation to what we've been talking about?

Reef The Lost Cauze: I would encourage every artist—working artist, living artist, whatever you call yourself—even if it’s not on a large scale, mentor somebody.

Take somebody under your wing. Show them what you know. Teach them.

We’ve got this thing right now where older people are supposed to be scared of young people—“They’re so crazy, they’re so violent,” they say. They call them the “YNs”—the youngins.

But that hasn’t been my experience. And I think a lot of teachers or people who work with kids would tell you that’s all a facade.

They’re scared to death. And they need you more than ever.

So if you have a skill or talent—music, photography, painting—whatever it is, take someone under your wing. Help them. Then watch what happens. Watch them blossom.