Our staff is comprised of artists, musicians, emcees, writers, photographers, and actors drawn from New York City’s deep cultural pool, bringing our youth some of the city’s brightest artistic minds.

CARLY DELIGHT, VOCALIST/ACTRESS

DELIGHT is a singer and performance artist who currently leads weekly music workshops inside the shelters. Prior to this work, she volunteered her time extensively at One Mic for two years, mentoring our teens with creative writing, lyrical poetry, production, and recordings. Her musicality stems from her love for theater and her background and experience as a performer. She has been involved with events such as live tribal house DJ sets, multimedia performances, and stage productions in collaboration with companies such as The Producers club, Mirage productions, Fernwood resort theater, BTAP, Stella Adler conservatory of acting NY, Circle In The Square NY, and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA).

She received a scholarship to attend AMDA, focusing on classical opera, voice, ballet, tap, jazz improve, and theatrical performance. Delight also attended New School University for Creative art therapy and psychology and is now pursuing her masters in education. She currently works as a Para professional with the department of education, dedicating her time to work with emotionally challenged and special ed students by implementing her creative therapy skills. Delight recently released her first EP.

HANNAH IMMERMAN, VISUAL ARTIST

Raised in Brooklyn, HANNAH is a visual artist, urban design graduate and quite a crafty lady who was born to create with kids.  She’s been a part of ART START workshops since 2001, starting as a volunteer and now leading the projects up four nights per week at two shelters in Manhattan. Hannah graduated from New York University in 2009 with a Bachelors degree in Architecture and Urban Design during which she studied for two years in Florence, Italy.

BILLY MARTIN AKA SPIRITCHILD, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, ONE MIC PROGRAM (YOUTH OFFENDER OUTREACH)

SPIRITCHILD is a freedom singer from the South Bronx by way of Brooklyn, who uses the arts to cultivate a cultural revolution. As the current Program Director for ART START’s One Mic music recording program, Spirit creates engaging hip hop curricula specifically to work with youth offenders. Previous experience in the field includes teaching hip hip curricula at Children’s Village Dobbs Ferry New York Juvenile Detention Facility. Also an instructor at several public schools throughout New York, Spiritchild also teaches on seasonal tours of Africa, South East Asia, and Europe. He has also produced for and recorded with Grammy-nominee Maya Azucena, the legendary Les Nubians, spoken word Nuyorican poets champion Ainsley Burrows, X-Vandals & Ricanstructions very own N4P, to name a few. As the founder of the Movement In Motion Artist & Activist Collective he integrates activism and hip hop music production, and is the rhythmic poet of the Hip Hop fusion band, Mental Notes.

M.C. K~SWIFT, EMCEE//PRODUCER/EDUCATOR

M.C. K~SWIFT  (Anthony Scott) is the Associate Program Director of ART START’s One:Mic. He’s a Hip-Hop artist and educator, who has been recording and performing since 1994. He has conducted creative writing and performance workshops in hundreds of high schools in NYC and throughout the tri-state area since 1999, as well as in institutions including: CUNY Grad Center, The New School, NYU, Wesleyan University and Columbia University. Other clients of M.C. K~Swift include Urban Word NYC, The Hip Hop Project, Sankofa Community Empowerment, the Hip Hop Association and the First Wave Program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has also trained educators at numerous schools, non-profit organizations and community centers on bringing creativity into their classrooms. A founding member of the progressive Hip-Hop collective, New Rap Order, and a member of the Universal Zulu Nation, M.C. K~Swift is among both the vanguard and the old guard of True School Hip-Hop Culture.