♪ MOHAMUD: Hi, my name's Faisal Mohamud, and I am a youth at Brian Coyle Community Center in Minneapolis, and I chose to do a film on a particular person.

SISCO: What's blessed is how our people live together, fight together, really live life together.

(applause) MOHAMUD: Sisco is an artist, poet, who is hard-working, caring, has made a name for himself in this community, and is motivated by his youth.

(clapping in rhythm) This community has many issues, many problems.

There has been shootings here.

I want to show a positive side and how we are trying to make a big difference in our community.

We are not what the media portrayed us to be.

- Are you hyped, are you hyped?

ALL: Yeah, I'm hyped, yeah, I'm hyped.

BOY: Give it up for Sisco.

(applause) MOHAMUD: Tell me a little bit about yourself and how you came to America, and the obstacles you went through to the point where you are right now.

SISCO: My actual name is Abdurazak.

Sisco is my stage name, I'm an artist.

You know why I need this mic, you'll understand why I need this mic, give me liberty or give me death, I'm gonna fight till anything you have left.

(voiceover): It all started back in middle school.

I've always had the passion for stand-up, poetry, spoken word, or hip-hop, but they didn't have that until they started a spoken-word class, and I joined in and I became a teacher's assistant student.

(real-time): They wanted to murder me, it was late nights in my room, called it Hell's Kitchen... (voiceover): I became more interested into myself than, like, you know, joining a different group just to fit in.

Changed my life around.

ALL (clapping): And Coyle's in the house... SISCO: I started this program.

The obstacles I faced, moving from different countries to different countries, I speak, like.

about seven languages.

And now I think that actually even helped me to understand more people and get along with a lot of people.

- He's very outspoken about a lot of things, and that's what really drew me to him.

Because he wasn't, he wasn't quiet, you know, when it came to speaking up about certain issues in the neighborhood.

♪ SISCO: The media also picks what they show.

It definitely affects who you are and what communities you live in if the media is targeting you, pull in people to brainwash them.

We live in Cedar-Riverside.

It's a very targeted community.

Whenever something happens in a different country related to Muslim, or terrorist attack, they zoom in in certain communities very close to only the bad areas, you know.

There's a lot of great things happening around here.

Like 99.9% of the time, none of them show up.

One little bad comes... - They're on it.

- Everywhere.

It makes them uncomfortable, it makes them pull back, and it also makes others have a different perspective, or, like, different ideas of who we are in this community, you know?

MOHAMUD: I moved to Cedar-Riverside in 2010.

I thought it would be nice, comfortable.

As I started living there, I seen more of the things that happen there, the shootings... And the many things that I did to stay away from that is the programs that I joined.

SISCO: Most of the supports that I got was one of the people who had me join that afterschool program in the middle school, was always there talking to me about it, and if I start a program like this, I want to support and make those youth in my program feel special, just like the way he had me feel special.

- Might be a little bit better than me, but I still got that... shot, swish.

(cheering and applause) SISCO: So my Muslim promotes peace, and never a violence, even if somebody does something to you, you don't do anything back to them.

Those extremists that do anything, it's different.

They have their own idea, but Muslim in general has a different stand for it.

Whether we say we're Somali or Ethiopian, Oromo, we are all the same, we are one.

If we come together, we are stronger than we are divided.

And we're human, we're all here, so, any negative things come around, just brush it off.

Don't believe it.

(kids rapping quietly) KIDS (clapping and chanting): Don't make me get hype!

Don't make me get hype!

Don't make me get hype!

- Yeah!

MOHUMED: I always saw him as somebody who was ahead of his time.

He does what normal teenagers do, but he's more of a leader in the sense that he knows how to give back.

He knows how to help his people.

And that's what I really love and appreciate about Sisco.

MOHAMUD: How was it like growing up without your parents?

SISCO: Actually very tough.

Even though I lived with my auntie, it was always, like, her kid first, before me.

My mom's still alive, she's in Africa.

My mom is really somebody that is very important to me.

I've always just wanted to get a job where I can send money to my mom, so now it's my turn to give back, to do the same.

That's somebody I would love to make proud, if not anybody else.

MOHAMUD: The reason that we moved to Minneapolis was that my mom needed help.

Because she was sick.

'09 is when, when my mom passed away.

So, it was a hard time for me.

But being in those programs have helped me to overcome my sadness, and I'm grateful for that.