Back in Blacc
Junior Dan Lesser and seniors Ken Nakama and Josh Maslaki pose with the Massey brothers, Chris and Kyle.
Grammy-nominated singer Aloe Blacc performed a private concert on campus on April 15 with acclamations in reward for Warrior students winning the Starkey Hearing Foundation’s Listen Carefully video contest.
With hope of delivering the message to protect teenagers’ sense of hearing from noise pollution, Blacc and the Listen Carefully organization hosted a contest where students created a 15-to-30-second video that informs the audience of the dangers of noise pollution in society. Warrior TV and advanced video production members Dan Lesser, Ken Nakama and Josh Maslaki gained a victory with a brilliantly efficient video.
“We worked on [the video during] lunch and fifth period,” Lesser said. “Submitting [the video,] we didn’t know that it would become this huge.”
“I just [wanted] to give back what I have taken,” Nakama added. “I [felt] like I should give back to school some way, and this is my way of giving back”
Listen Carefully posted the video that Lesser, Nakama and Maslaki created on YouTube on Jan. 12 with approximately 13,200 views.
On the day of the concert, Caroline Sunshine and Chris and Kyle Massey – supporters of project Listen Carefully – joined the concert to help students enjoy their time.
The atmosphere among students heated up as Blacc jumped onto the stage full of energy. Blacc’s encouragement and advice through his music influenced students positively to raise awareness about the serious hearing problems teens experience over the past decade.
“The motivation [to support this foundation] is kids in general,” actor Kyle Massey said. “We just want to go places [to let] students have fun and forget about problems.”
For three years the Massey brothers volunteered to travel around schools to encourage students to be aware of irreversible hearing loss before they were invited to campus.
“One billion teens [are suffering] from hearing loss right now,” Massey said. “[And] we want to make sure that we make an impact on [students]…[and show them] the things that they can do to preserve their hearing for a [long time].”
The brothers took their role as the masters of ceremony and announced the winner for the video contest before Blacc took their place.
Brimming with enthusiasm, students were eager to watch Blacc’s concert. Many were gladly willing to wait in line for a few hours to attend the free and meaningful concert by Blacc.
The atmosphere among students heated up as Blacc jumped onto the stage full of energy. Blacc’s encouragement and advice through his music influenced students positively to raise awareness about the serious hearing problems teens have experienced over the past decade.
