There’s war going on… it’s for our minds.

We—an army of artists, creatives, educators, students, revolutionaries and radicals, casualties of the ignorance and apathy in our communities; captives of the systematic neglect of our schools, tutored by television and fueled on fast food and free lunches—have developed a powerful, almost desperate taste to know.

Armed with art, music media and technology as the tools to teach ourselves, write our own story, dissect the pathologies of plight and extract the wealth of knowledge that comes from such conditions, challenge ourselves to learn by any means, craft our own curriculum, be free thinkers, form our own opinions, and imagine new ways of teaching and learning, with the goal of creating a culture of education that engages the most disaffected communities so that they might reclaim their minds and ultimately reclaim their fate.

Our name pays homage the trouble we’ve endured questioning what we’ve been taught; the trouble that so many of us get into because we’re bored and uninspired in school. It speaks to the trouble working to open our peers minds to their own intellectual capacity and the brazenness to defy their ridicule. It calls attention to the contradictions that have been waged on our image, while reclaiming and redeeming the way society sees us. Furthermore, it is a tribute to the history of our struggle to learn, the battles fought and lives lost to secure equal and adequate education for the less fortunate.

Strap yourself. Only the smart survive.