Guillermo Rodríguez, Arkano
Rap artist
His career includes some of the great milestones of freestyle since, at 15 years old, he was crowned champion of Spain in the 2009 Red Bull Batalla de los Gallos. He even broke a Guinness World Record by improvising for 24 hours and 34 minutes straight. At the same time, he promotes and participates in mental health initiatives and collaborates in campaigns against school bullying
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Isabel Arrabal, Bohemia
3rd year ESO student and ‘freestyler’
At 15 years old, she balances her studies at IES Averroes (Córdoba) with her first freestyle competitions. She started improvising at 14, after discovering rap on YouTube, and is part of a new generation of young people who have found in urban culture a place to develop their confidence
Arkano (Alicante, 32 years old) says that rap transformed him, that it even saved his life. At 15, when he was still better known as Guillermo Rodríguez and was still in secondary school, he won Spain’s Red Bull Batalla de los Gallos, the country’s most important improvisation competition. “I was a very shy kid, I had no social skills, I had a pretty hard time in high school and discovering rap was like finding my own voice,” he says. Urban culture enlightened him, gave him more confidence.
“Freestyle is about throwing yourself into the void, we can’t expect everything to be perfect. We have to be prepared for mistakes”
Isabel Arrabal, known as Bohemia, is the same age Arkano was when he was crowned a young promise. It’s not their only coincidence; this woman from Córdoba has also gained self-confidence after daring to rap. In Let’s Think About Tomorrow, the project by Fundación Unicaja and Grupo Prisa about the education of the future, they reflect on how they have been able to develop thanks to their artistic interests and those social environments outside the classroom, unconventional ones.
“Rap helped me a lot to connect with my classmates, to have more confidence in what I do, because I used to be very shy. It has helped me trust myself more”
Bohemia and Arkano also talk about making sure the fear of making mistakes doesn’t immobilize them, the relationship between education and rap (and the importance of having “a richer language,” as Arkano points out), or managing criticism and social media. Although it’s a pending subject for some teenagers, Bohemia has learned to handle those anonymous and offensive messages: “It can affect many people, and the advice I would give them is to think about who they really are.”
Let’s Think About the Education of the Future
‘Let’s Think About Tomorrow’, a project by Fundación Unicaja, aims to promote knowledge, educational values, sustainable and responsible learning, and provide answers to the major challenges of future education.
The project pivots around six axes:
1 Learning and life purpose
2 Well-being and mental health
3 Future and employability
4 Sustainability and collective purpose
5 Technology and ethics
6 Character and citizenship
What is happening in these times of profound and transversal changes? What are the major challenges to face the coming transformation? What education do we need? Different personalities from all fields will help us answer these and other questions aimed at driving change, energizing ideas, and supporting proposals with pedagogical and social impact.
‘Let’s Think About Tomorrow’ is an inspiring project for future generations called to conquer new heights of knowledge in a complex and changing world.