Carlos Rice’s face exudes good health — clear skin, a shy smile and a tendency to look you straight in the eye.
A senior at Greenwood High School, Rice, 17, is looking ahead to a future in college while ending a meaningful chapter as a five-year member and junior staff volunteer of the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Mississippi Delta’s Greenwood club.
In February, Rice went to Jackson representing the Greenwood organization in the state competition for Youth of the Year. Although Rice didn’t win, Executive Director David Dallas said he made his club proud.
Rice said the experience was nerve-wracking but fulfilling.
“I had to write a speech on my club experiences. Then before I gave my speech to a big audience, I had to sit in a small room with three judges and give them my speech,” Rice said.
“That was terrifying.”
Overcome by a fit of nerves, Rice compensated when the judges told him to just relax. He told them that music calmed him.
“They told me to just tap out a beat on the edge of the table,” Rice said. He did and was able to move straight into his speech.
Making beats on a computer is a skill Rice has learned on his own that has fueled an ambition to study music recording and production in college.
“I’ve already sold 10 beats to two musicians in Jackson,” he said.
With hundreds of thousands of other freelancers making beats and trying to distinguish theirs from others, that’s a big accomplishment in a competitive market.
Rice said he used to free-style rap but discovered he is more suited to setting up the foundation on which other rappers and hip-hop artists can lay their lyrics.
The self-confidence he has gained to put his beats out there, he said, came from his participation in the Boys and Girls Club.
“I started when I was a 12-year-old,” he said. “At first I thought it was just another school.”
Rice soon discovered that pouring himself into his studies and excelling at this after-school program opened many doors for him.
He raised his academic performance and learned indispensable life skills, then became a mentor to younger members, helping them with their homework and showing them the value of focus and discipline.
He has traveled with the club to Anaheim, California, Baltimore, Florida and to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“I even got a chance to board an airplane for the first time,” he said in his Youth of the Year speech.
Through club programs such as the Triple Play Leadership Club and Keystone, a financial preparedness and college readiness curriculum, Rice said he has learned to engage with more people and to “reach for the stars.
“Without the Boys and Girls Club, I wouldn’t be where I am.”
Rice cites Greenwood club director Antonio Jones as an important mentor.
Another he names is Mamie Watkins, a former volunteer and staffer who passed away this year.
“She was going to help me with my speech,” Rice said. Watkins lived long enough to know that Rice would be representing the club at the Youth of the Year competition.
Beyond the Boys and Girls Club, Rice runs track for GHS and ran cross-country earlier in the school year.
After graduation, he’s looking forward to a trip to Germany to visit an uncle and participate in a Nike sports camp.
“It’s supposed to be a surprise, but my uncle gave it away,” Rice said, flashing that shy smile.
For now, Rice looks forward to graduation and to wrapping up his high-school and growing-up experience in Greenwood. College will take him to either Mississippi Valley State University or the University of Southern Mississippi.
The future is coming up fast, and studying recording technology and production can’t come soon enough for this enthusiastic beatmaker.
“I just want to become better at what I do,” he said.
Rice has a younger brother and sister who have both just started attending the Boys and Girls Club.
“They’re trying to get out of it,” he said. “They think it’s too much work.”
But that work pays off in life-changing experiences, their older brother demonstrates to them with his bright outlook and enthusiasm for the basics of a good life.
“My first year attending ... I thought I was going to be surrounded by a bunch of people I didn’t know,” he said in his Youth of the Year speech.
That fear was eased when he saw familiar faces from school around him and met adults who cared deeply about his future.
“My active participation with the Boys and Girls Club encouraged me ... to have faith in myself to become the person that I want to be in life.”
• Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
