Rapper’s positive beats win props

Tanya Romanchok came to watch the school-sponsored rapper bomb at Wednesday’s voluntary assembly.

Like other students, she didn’t expect much from the self-proclaimed ex-gang member and rapper.

“People came in to see him fail,” Romanchok said.

Then she delivered her best compliment after seeing Scoob Serious: “He’s tight.”

Scoob Serious lit up the Ferris High School auditorium Wednesday morning with a positive message and chest-thumping beats.

Ferris was one of five Spokane Public School performances this week and last.

Serious, who says on his Web site that his life turned around thanks to the Lord, talked about the harm of gangs on his life.

Then he rapped with skill that surprised Romanchok and the auditorium of 150 students.

Scoob Serious, aka Eric Doyle, was paid $350 per school from a “safe and drug free” grant.

Doyle, whose Christian rap has garnered multiple Grammy nominations, kept his public school message secular, though positive.

He talked about how he started a gang that thrived in Salt Lake City.

“We became the biggest gang in Salt Lake City,” Doyle said.

Then his friends expanded the gang into cities such as Seattle and Denver.

“My ex-gang is documented to have 12,000 members,” Doyle said.

He talked about friends who died or went to prison. One appeared on “America’s Most Wanted,” he told the students. Then Doyle was convicted of a felony and went to jail – and that’s when he thought about the course of his life, and the gangsta rappers he was hanging out with.

“I could have really blown up with it,” Doyle said.

He stays in touch with Snoop Dogg’s older brother, Dirty Left, he said.

“If you’re living that (gang) life, I’m encouraging you to change right now,” Doyle said. “You don’t have to be doing what you’re doing.”

And then he turned to the sound man: “So go ahead and bang out the beat.”

Doyle sang, “If I had just one wish, I’d wish to be a kid again.”

Students took his picture with cell-phone cameras. Some passed around Doyle’s CD and moved to the music.

A group of three freshmen girls proclaimed afterward, “He’s hot!”

The positive message got through.

“He was way better than we expected,” said Hope Taegel, 14.

Doyle was brought to Spokane and scheduled for the Spokane Public Schools events by the Dream Center, a youth ministry in Spokane Valley; Teen-Aid, a nonprofit organization that advocates abstinence-based sex education; and Healthy Families Inland Northwest. In addition to Ferris, he performed at Rogers and Havermale high schools, Holmes Elementary and Bancroft School.

His finale is a free pre-album release concert 7 p.m. Friday at Valleypoint at Pines, 714 S. Pines. Doyle handed out fliers for the church event.