Detroit activist's Bars Over Bars music program wants to stop youth violence over hip-hop

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - Activist and clergyman Maurice Hardwick - better known as Pastor Mo - is convinced music that overtly promotes senseless violence plays a crucial role in Detroit crime.

"It’s not all hip-hop, I’m just asking us to turn our backs on murder music," he said. "It’s pushing our kids to be dangerous. It’s celebrating the murder and homicide, robbery, treachery and savageness. And so, I’m totally upset. I’m tired of it, and I won’t be quiet about it."

Pastor Mo is hoping to turn the tide with his "Bars Over Bars" program - meaning rap bars over jail bars.

There is an emphasis on rap lyrics heavy on substance, positivity and uplifting the Black community, which is a stark contrast he says from the kind of rap that’s often heavily promoted.

His Bars Over Bars hip-hop song - and program - is catching the attention of hip-hop heavyweight Fat Joe.

"We’re doing an interview tomorrow (Saturday) at 1 p.m. to talk about why I made the song Bars Over Bars and that program about what it is to help stop the violence over hip-hop," he said.

And for Pastor Mo, this emphasis on the impact of positive music is not just theory. He says he used it to top off the brokering of a truce between two groups of young men at each other’s throats back in 2017.

"I was in the studio one day and I got a call in the studio, ‘Pastor Mo, some boys are getting ready to get into it, there's going to be a shoot out.’ I came out, I began to talk to the young men," Hardwick said. "I began to tell them about we are brothers and we shouldn’t under threat of each other and I asked if I could pray with them. they allowed me to pray with them, man.

"I said if you guys would allow me to take the two leaders and make a song called 'Squashing the Beef M.O.B." which is Money Over Beefing, I’ll pay for the studio time, I’ll get us on the radio, I’ll try to help change ya’lls life. And they said, ‘For real Pastor Mo?’ I said it’s for sure."

Pastor Mo is hoping to get the Bars Over Bars program in Detroit schools and summer programs, hoping it’ll save and change lives.