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There's a current running through local hip-hop that has nothing to do with the aesthetics that Soulja Boy and 50 Cent put out. The local sound promotes respect, with often socially conscious lyrics, much like the attitude carried by De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest or Digable Planets.

And to communicate this aesthetic, hip-hop artists have to reach out to both adults and children.

Hip-hop artist Travis Bauer is one person carrying the flag. He raps both solo and with Justice League, a local hip-hop group, and supports other musicians with a positive message -- including the young ones, attending the monthly Elements series at the Martin Luther King Center, in which local, adult rappers, DJs and breakdancers teach local youth their skills.

Bauer got his start trying to learn Run DMC raps as a kid, and was heavily influenced by his grandfather, an avid record collector. When he lost his grandfather, Bauer said, he decided to make a change in his life and to start focusing on the positive, which his grandfather had always encouraged him to do.

Bauer said he hopes to encourage local hip-hop artists to focus on the art of the music and to unite, to not get caught up in self-promotion.

"With hip-hop, or what I call hip-hop," Bauer said, "you get all genres -- jazz, blues and hip-hop ..... With rap you just get rap."

One way Bauer hopes to promote artists who embrace a like definition of hip-hop is through helping to promote events such as "Mixtape Mondays" at Birdy's Bar and Grill or another event he hopes to call "Children of the Corn."

"What we hope to accomplish with 'Children Of The Corn' is unification of positive-minded groups to counter the images you see and hear in the mainstream media," Bauer added via e-mail.

The next "Children of the Corn" event will be a canned food drive on Dec. 22 at Tip Top Tavern featuring Justice League, Butterfly Toungz, Son of Thought and more.

Spanning generations

At a Nov. 2 Elements event, Bauer sat among children, parents and grandparents and wrote poetry as spoken word artist Tasha Jones led her audience through an exercise using poetry to describe themselves.

It was the second activity of the night, the first featuring local B-Boys breaking on an improvised floor of linoleum taped to the Martin Luther King Center's industrial carpet, which eventually spawned a dance-off between the pre-teen girls and boys in attendance.

"They're so shy," Bauer said. "Once they get up there and get some accolades they want to do it again. The artists, they don't get paid, they just show up -- plus they can bring their kids. It's a constructive good time."

The program began as an outreach effort for the Second Time Around program to help grandparents who are raising their grandchildren relate to each other, though people of all ages (and skill levels) are welcome. The event is co-hosted by the Indianapolis chapter of the Hip Hop Congress, an international nonprofit that encourages the art of hip-hop.

So far the program seems to be a success, said Josh Kupke, interim director of Second Time Around.

"Grandmothers that I work with that previously couldn't stand what their grandchildren were listening to ..... said they were very surprised (to see their kids dancing) and they didn't know their kids could do that sort of thing," Kupke said.

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Get Out

What: Elements, a monthly workshop for hip-hop fans of all ages. Learn to break dance, rap, write or DJ from local rappers, spoken word artists, dancers and DJs.
When: 7 to 9 p.m. Dec. 7 (and the first Friday of every month).
Where: Martin Luther King Service Center, 40 W. 40th St.
Tickets: Free.
Info: (317) 923-4581, www.mlk-msc.org.