Intellectual Ratchet organizers Ja’Mel Ware (left) and Kimberly Cho hope to engage millennials with new group.
The two words are seemingly polar opposites — intellectualism thrives in libraries and lecture halls; ratchet is a hip-hop slang term best defined as a mixture of “ghetto,” “hyphy” and “turnt up.”
One wears a mortarboard, the other has colorful hair extensions. One sips champagne at art gallery openings, the other drinks Remy Martin at dance clubs. But are the two lifestyles mutually exclusive?
“Everyone has a bit of intellect and a bit of ratchetness inside them,” says Ja’Mel Ware. “But where do we ever get to be our entire self?”
Ware, 27, founded Intellectual Ratchet, a new social group in Madison that embraces that dichotomy. IR celebrates African American intellect as well as the exuberance of hip-hop culture through hosting parties and facilitating meaningful academic conversations.
“Ratchet to me means soul,” says Ware, who graduated from UW-Madison in 2011 and has lived in the city for about nine years. “It’s a deep-rooted part of [African American] culture.”
Ware moved to Madison from Detroit — a city that he says embodies the gritty, hardworking spirit of ratchetness. He wanted to bring that flavor to Madison as a way to help engage millennials and young professionals of color within a community that struggles with racial inequality and is often unintentionally segregated.
“One of the simplest ways to address racial disparities is to get to know each other,” Ware says. “We need to eliminate the fear we have of each other.”
The group debuted in April with a “soft launch” party attended by about 50 people at Kabul Restaurant and last week hosted its first official event, a sold-out private screening of the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton followed by a discussion of the film.
Ware is planning to host bimonthly events starting in October. He doesn’t want to give away what the next party will entail, but one of his goals is to engage with local businesses and venues that aren’t typically patronized by members of Madison’s African American community.
“[Intellectual Ratchet] is about breaking down barriers,” Ware says.
So far, the feedback for IR events has been overwhelmingly positive. Sabrina “Heymiss Progress” Madison says the city needed a social group that caters to young professionals of color and that Ware, with his welcoming and personable demeanor, is a natural host.
“Madison was very much in need of fresh ideas, people who are willing to take risks on their ideas,” she says. “Otherwise, it can become suffocating.”
Madison, who has also organized social groups for African Americans, says she’s seen numerous young people of color leave the city after graduating from UW-Madison — an exodus that could be explained by a lack of social opportunities aimed at engaging minority communities.
“If we can’t live in a space [that] we enjoy, we can’t thrive here,” she says. “You have to take care of the whole person.”