‘Impressionable moments’: Austin musician SaulPaul asks kids to imagine futures ‘worth building’

Austin singer-songwriter SaulPaul had just finished a high school performance a decade ago when he was challenged by a counselor who had waited patiently in line to meet him.

“If you really want to make a difference,” SaulPaul recalls her saying, “you should come to my elementary school.”

At the time, the singer aimed his motivational tunes at high school juniors and seniors, believing that his path through poverty, prison, and an eventual University of Texas degree might help them make better choices on the cusp of adulthood.

But the counselor told SaulPaul that some of her students never make it to high school. They needed to hear from him sooner.

That encounter was pivotal for the performer. He redirected SaulPaul’s persona toward a younger crowd, focusing on reaching at-risk children before they decided that a larger future was not awaiting them.

The result has been an expanding musical universe that includes youth choirs, music-video shoots, South by Southwest performances, albums, and even a reach across the Atlantic to children in Africa – all connected by song.

Children’s artist

When SaulPaul began performing tunes such as “Be The Change” and “Encourage Me,” young students responded with an intensity he had not expected.

Janet Ward, a Manor Independent School District elementary school counselor who has followed SaulPaul’s work since he first performed at Blake Manor Elementary in 2018, said his music succeeds in part because children remember its messages differently than they might a classroom assignment.

“I could have had them write an essay. I could have had them make videos,” she said. “But I can’t embed that in their brain the way that his music does.”

SaulPaul notices such enhanced connections as well. Years after a performance, students approach him in public places to repeat something he told them in school.

“I realized these were impressionable moments,” he said. “To entertain, inspire, empower them, and I’m like, ‘It worked.’”

That work gained a clear professional identity in 2018, when SaulPaul attended the Grammy Awards and heard an award announced for best children’s album. “If there’s children’s music,” he remembers thinking, “I guess I’m a children’s artist.”

By the time he shifted his focus to younger students, SaulPaul had spent years performing in schools. But the new approach helped him recognize an underserved niche: culturally relevant music made for listeners who’d outgrown nursery rhymes but were too young for adult songs.

Ward said SaulPaul’s history – including a two-year prison stay — allows him to reach some students whom others can’t.

“He walks the walk,” she said. “Sometimes you have to have people that have been through it to be able to walk other kids through.”

SaulPaul doesn’t hide his past, which has taken him from prison, to college and onto a music career. But he doesn’t want it to crowd out his message to students.

“As long as (they) keep just talking about me, then it’s like, ‘Yay me,’ he said. “I’m trying to create something bigger.”

‘Dream Lab’

That wider effort now extends beyond school appearances and albums. SaulPaul has begun organizing his work into programs aimed at different stages of life: Skill Builders Career Academy for adults seeking trade training and jobs, Million Dollar Dreams for middle and high school students, and Dream Lab for younger children.

Launched last year, Skill Builders uses virtual-reality instruction and certification programs to prepare students for skilled jobs. SaulPaul said it has awarded 50 scholarships and completed three graduating classes. Participating employers and staffing partners such as the Texas Workforce Commission help graduates find jobs.

Dream Lab is a music and arts program built around a hip-hop choir album of the same name. As SaulPaul describes it on TikTok video, Dream Lab “started as an album, then it became a festival, then a residency, then a workforce initiative, then a tour, then a movement.” Its goal, he adds, “was never simply to make music. The goal is to help young people imagine a future worth building. We’re not just making songs. We’re building dreamers.”

Dream Lab took over downtown Austin’s Republic Square one day this summer to give kids and teens an opportunity to create and record their own songs and learn choreography. During a recent five-week summer residency, children 5 to 13 learned songs, recorded vocals, rehearsed choreography, and performed together.

Now Dream Lab is expanding through partnerships and new projects. SaulPaul is assembling more than 100 singers for a new version of his song “Speak Hope, Sing Joy” to focus attention on foster care children awaiting adoption.  He recently worked with Mastercard to create financial literacy and STEM materials connected to songs such as “$100 Challenge” and “Work Wins.”

Drayden steps up

Before joining Dream Lab, 10-year-old Drayden Wheeler said he had little experience singing or dancing. Through the program, he helped make music videos, performed with other children, and began thinking of himself as a potential leader.

“It felt good because it’s basically showing that I’m a leader and I can do different things,” he said. “I can show people how to do good things and teach my peers how to do the same.”

Drayden described SaulPaul as an encouraging mentor who teaches students that opportunities come with expectations. The work, he said, taught him how performances can encircle the globe.

After students in Austin learned choreography steps for SaulPaul’s song “I’m Rich,” students at a Ugandan orphanage performed their own version. Seeing children on another continent adapt something that Dream Lab participants created in Austin demonstrated how encouragement can travel.

“Say someone’s having a bad day and you’re having a good day,” Drayden said. “You can come into that room with a good feeling, and you can encourage other people to have a good feeling.”

And maybe you can make that feeling sing.

Chad Swiatecki is a 30-year journalist who relocated to Austin from his home state of Michigan in 2008. He most enjoys covering the intersection of arts, business and local/state politics. He has written for Rolling Stone, Spin, New York Daily News, Texas Monthly, Austin Monitor, Austin Business Journal, Austin American-Statesman and many other regional and national outlets.