Hip-Hop Star To Be Highland Park's First Lady
HIGHLAND PARK (WWJ) - One of the hip-hop scene's most successful female rappers is settling down — at least part time — in metro Detroit.
Grammy-nominated west coast hip hop emcee, Yolanda Whittaker — also known as YoYo — will marry Highland Park Mayor DeAndre Windom in August.
Already, though, she's established herself in the city, setting up the YoYo School of Hip Hop at Highland Park Renaissance Academy.
Talking to WWJ Newsradio 950's Stephanie Davis, she shared her plans for this coming school year.
"My hope for this group this year is to go back to school in September without having writer's block and to be more familiar when it comes to writing," Whittaker said. "Our focus is language arts so all of the other things we use around those."
Whittaker and her staff at the school are training over 150 students.
"We teach them writing, hip-hop writing, but it's just writing in general," Whittaker said. "It's creative writing, it's for journalism, it's for blogging, it's for essay writing. We teach them the formula for writing and then we add in the components. We compare writing a rap to writing an essay."
Whittaker plans on living bi-coastal for a while due to obligations on the west coast, but says Windom will be busy as well.
"I have work in Los Angeles and contracts there," Whittaker said. "So I'll continue it and he has a lot of work here to do."
The wedding is set to take place on the Cayman Islands — and Whittaker couldn't be more excited.
"It's going to be one of the happiest days in my life," Whittaker said. "I'm looking forward to it."
