Featured

Worcester community reacts to first Black president at Holy Cross

VEER MUDAMBI

Michelle Alexandra Santana freely admitted she has a lot of dreams, but she felt that her alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross, appointing a Black president was unrealistic, even by dream standards. “It never crossed my mind,” Said Santana, Class of 2010 and wrap-around coordinator with the Worcester Public Schools. Upon hearing the news, Santana said she was overwhelmed with emotions — mostly happiness, although it was tinged with apprehension.

The first thing that strikes Che Anderson, Class of 2011 and Assistant Vice Chancellor for City and Community at UMass Medical School, about having a Black president is that it will be a shared experience for students of color. Especially after a difficult year, when Black and brown communities were disproportionately affected by the COVID crisis and being on the front lines of the country’s struggle on racial inequity. He likens his excitement to Barack Obama’s election on a smaller scale.

As of July 1, 2021, the College of the Holy Cross will be headed by its first Black and first lay president. As an established Worcester institution and a valuable part of the community, the effects of this move will be felt well beyond the college campus.

Dean Vincent Rougeau has been the head of Boston College Law School since 2011, where he worked to expand the school’s national and international recruitment of a diverse student body. He was recently named the inaugural director of the new Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America, a space for listening, dialogue and greater understanding about race and racism in our country.

Santana has seen firsthand how diversity can sometimes feel like a performance. From past experience working with City Hall on diversity issues, she is familiar with impressive vows for improvement that result in little substantive progress. “They write a

Vincent D. Rougeau of Weston

WEBB CHAPPELL

long letter but then forget about it until something else happens,” she said ruefully. This worry tempered her elation at the news of Rougeau’s appointment. “I hope it’s not a performative appointment,” she said, because there’s potential for a positive impact.

Debbie Hall of the Worcester Black History Project shared the excitement of the two alumni. “I’m excited about the possibilities for Holy Cross — as a major institution in Worcester it will definitely have an effect on the community.” Hall particularly emphasized that as leadership of city organizations and institutions transitions due to age and other factors, there will be further opportunities to pursue diversity at the highest levels. One hopes, she said, they will follow the example of Holy Cross, as they “think about what leadership looks like going into the next decade.”

The effect on students of seeing a person of color in a position of authority cannot be underestimated, and will go a long way to making minority students feel welcome. From her own experience, Santana describes the shock that she felt coming from a diverse high school in Worcester to the Mt. St. James campus of Holy Cross. “It was a very isolating experience,” she said, describing not only the racial but socio-economic differences, and a clear divide based on that contrast.

“It didn’t feel welcoming to students like me who are unaware of the level of wealth that could exist in the world.” While the school has improved in regards to diversity over the years since she graduated, Santana credits that to the effects of being in a diverse city like Worcester. “I just never thought that I would see some part of myself in the president,” she said. “I expected more changes from the city before Holy Cross.”

When institutions take such a major step, it can affect the wider community in turn. Over the course of her work with Worcester Public Schools, Santana more often than not sees Holy Cross represented in city matters. Rougeau’s new leadership directing how the school involves itself outside campus is one of the things she’s most excited to see. “I’m very excited to see what projects he wants to do outside of Holy Cross. I hope he ventures out.”

While Anderson said he learned a lot inside and outside of classrooms at Holy Cross, he was always keenly sensitive to how the color of his skin affected his experiences. “I can’t think of a venue I’ve been in then or since then that I wasn’t aware of being a person of color.”

Unlike his fellow alum, most surprising to Anderson was Rougeau’s status as a lay person, since the school has had Jesuit leadership since its founding, though he can understand why many might not have expected the new president to be a person of color. “Holy Cross is seen as a white, affluent space,” he said. “When any major corporation or organization that doesn’t specifically cater to people of color has a black person in a leadership position, there is an element of shock and traditionally, that’s not where you tend to find Black and brown people.”

Like Santana, Hall agrees that representation in leadership roles influences not only the way students are treated but recruitment and retention. With the appointment of someone like Rougeau, she said, “it sounds like the school is trying to move in a different direction.”

In that regard, Rougeau’s background in race and diversity issues is promising. At Boston College, he spearheaded diversity initiatives and while Hall praises his appointment as brave and smart on the part of the college, she is only sorry it took so long. “Not only the first African American but the first lay person to hold that spot.” She goes on to say it’s not enough to hire people of color but those “who have a vision for inclusivity — not only getting Black and brown people here but keeping them here.”

“[Rougeau] has been amazing at BC by all accounts,” according to Anderson who has friends who attended BC Law. “He’s very innovative, forward thinking and progressive.”

Historic in terms of Black history in Worcester, Rougeau’s status as the first lay president is also a good omen. “It matters that they are saying a lay person can lead an institution like Holy Cross,” Hall said. The combination of the two is a sign of the school’s commitment to diversity. Traditionally, of all aspects of American life, religion has been the most clearly divided along racial lines, according to Hall. “The most segregated place in America is a church at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning,” she said.

Crossing those barriers is not a simple process, but some are impatient for change. “This just goes to show that institutions, if they really want to make a change, they can,” said Santana. “That whole ‘it takes time’ bullcrap doesn’t mean anything.”

Worcester rapper SUMiT revels in ‘Stimulus’ success

Worcester rapper Vinny Rovezzi, best known as SUMiT, has been hitting milestones since the October release of his EP, “Stimulus,” which includes the special track, “Game 7,” featuring Jamaican-American rapper and “Beautiful Girls” singer Sean Kingston.

A lyricist by nature, Rovezzi takes pride in his ability to write all of his own verses while recently allowing room for guest appearances such as Kingston to contribute their own rhymes. According to Rovezzi, the Kingston collaboration was his first with another artist.

“Before I even began recording, I could just hear his voice on the beat, and never before had I called on a collaboration with another artist, but his voice, I could just hear it, so my manager, Danny DiRoberto, reached out to Sean’s manager right away and approached him with the song. After that, we heard back within a couple of weeks and I wrote the lyrics for my verse and chorus and Sean wrote his own lyrics for his verse.”

DiRoberto, Rovezzi’s manager and longtime friend, is delighted by the results of Rovezzi’s artistic development over the last six months. As one of Rovezzi’s closest affiliates, he knows what Rovezzi’s spark is.

“Vinny’s strength lies in the way he stays true to himself and his music regarding the words and passion of it. His recent growth comes from him adapting to his listeners. He went from delivers release of his pain, passion and emotion through music for himself and only for himself but is creative and savvy enough to deliver in a way that sounds amazing for an audience who doesn’t know him to be immediately intrigued and want to dive into the lyrics he is expressing. He has an amazing sound with a very high poetic quality of lyrics to match.”

Next up from Rovezzi is the Feb. 26 single release of “Need a Drink,” from his coming album “Vino.” Rovezzi describes “Need a Drink” as a “feel good song” and “something to party to.”

To be expected later in 2021, Rovezzi is excited for the release of “Vino,’’ which features Boston’s rising artist, “Just Juice.” Rovezzi disclosed themes of the album, which are based around the value of time and which ways we choose to use it. Rovezzi described the creative process while recording “Vino” as “a very eclectic project for me.”

While stepping out of his comfort zone to invite other artists into his creative space has manifested positive growth for his music career, Rovezzi says his inspiration to make music is something personal that has always lived inside of him.

“I’ve always had feelings and emotions inside of me that I’m not able to express in any other medium. I wrote my first rap when I was 12 years old, it’s always been something I’ve been drawn to. Almost like when you’re hungry and you need to eat something, I get that feeling of urgency and inspiration to create music in the moment”.

Vinny Rovezzi

DYLAN AZARI

Death Over Simplicity sets his own tone with ‘Til There’s Nothing Left’

ROBERT DUGUAY

Without a solid beat, rap is just another kind of poetry. Samples from classic tracks often find a way of creeping in to establish a groove and when the syncopation is on point then it can deliver an incredible listening experience.

Beats are vital to hip-hop the way cheese is vital to macaroni or how gasoline is vital to a running automobile. You can’t have one without the other and Worcester hip-hop artist Death Over Simplicity, also known as D.O.S., has been making his own beats for the past few months. The latest edition of his output is the beat tape “Til There’s Nothing Left,” which came out Feb. 5.

“It was all made with a hardware and software program called Maschine from Native Instruments, so all the beats were made with that,” he says. “There wasn’t necessarily a vision going into it, I was just making these beats for around four years now and I was going through what I thought were some of my best ones. I tightened them up a little bit and I decided to put them together as a collection and release them. At random, I did some electronic digging on YouTube and Spotify while going on some musical tangents and listening to a bunch of soul and funk. Some of the stuff that stuck out I chopped it up and made something happen.”

The album cover has an anime styling of D.O.S.’s face that’s being split into a corkscrew type of shape. This particular design is inspired by a favorite anime of his along with the title of the beat tape.

“I didn’t draw it, I wish I drew it but the cover is inspired by this anime called ‘Parasyte,’” says D.O.S. “I’m a big fan of that show in particular, it’s basically about these aliens taking over human bodies and controlling them and making them into monsters. It’s a cool show and the animation has a lot of that head splitting, body unraveling type of stuff happening. I thought it went well with the title because ‘Til There’s Nothing Left’ comes from a lot of artists I’ve heard through interviews and read in biographies and autobiographies say that there’s a piece of themselves in their art. Some of them relate their art to their own children and they have a different relationship to their material as the years go by.

“I thought that if it’s true that there’s a piece of yourself in every piece of art you put out then I’m going to try and create until there’s nothing left,” he adds. “That’s more of a motivating thing than a literal thing because there’s only a portion of you that goes into each piece, which is basically the inspiration. The artwork was made by my guy Maz Wun, he’s a local artist in Worcester and extremely talented.”

For the rest of 2021, D.O.S. plans on releasing more beats and resuming his rhyming techniques. He doesn’t know if he’ll be rapping over his own beats or someone else’s, but he plans on maintaining his prolific output.

“The rest of the year is going to have a couple more installments,” he says. “I’m going to put a few more beat tapes out as sequels to ‘Til There’s Nothing Left’ and ‘Pixel Chops,’ which is another beat tape that I put out toward the end of last year. I’ll be making more beats as I get more comfortable with the production side of things. A lot more rap stuff is gonna be coming out as well. I don’t have the exact date for those but there will be a lot more rhyming and more beats. I might be rhyming over my own beats but that remains to be seen, I’m not sure.”

To listen and purchase “Til There’s Nothing Left,” visit Death Over Simplicity’s Bandcamp page at deathoversimplicity.bandcamp.com.