After everyone else has gone home for the day, Travis Williams and Terrell Harris get no further than the front entrance of the Royal Theatre.
They set up stage there, on the theater's front steps, savoring every morsel of time to do what they love -- sing rap songs and dance.
"When they're open, we're here. 8:45 a.m. to 5 p.m.," said Harris. "When they close, we sit out on the steps and keep practicing."
It is here on the steps and in the recording studio of the Royal Theatre that Williams, 19, and Harris, 17, have discovered perhaps the most important ingredient of their musical success: each other.
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Located in the heart of St. Petersburg, Fla.'s Midtown neighborhood at 1011 22nd St. S, the historic theater has gained new life as a performing arts center for children ages 5 through 15. Run by the Boys & Girls Club of the Suncoast, the Royal offers classes in music recording, opera, creative writing and more.
But it is not just a place where music is recorded. It is a place where Williams and Harris have gone from being kids growing up in the same neighborhood to close friends who depend on each other's talent, ideas and support.
Harris started coming to the Royal in his early teens, to freestyle rap with his friends. He's now the face of the theater's Recording Arts Production, RAP, program, where he teaches about 15 aspiring young songwriters. When he isn't teaching music production, Harris spends his time laying tracks and recording rap songs for Williams' dances.
"I'll just say, 'What up? I need a song put together,' " Williams said. "He'll put together something from nothing."
Williams came to the Royal a little more than a year ago, when he was asked to perform. He couldn't stop coming back. Now, he isn’t just dancing on stage for the kids -- he's working behind the scenes, teaching them how to move with emotion, dance with purpose and work in harmony with others.
On a recent afternoon, Williams and Harris sat side-by-side in the studio, watching a jagged line on the computer screen mark the track Harris had just laid. With the bass blaring, Harris had his hands on the computer keyboard. Williams watched, tapping his foot to keep rhythm.
It's the dancer in him.
"When I dance I think about all that has happened in my life and I just get it all out there," said Williams, hands outstretched. "It eases my mind. It takes me to a whole other world. I just dance, dance, dance."
Dance was the creative outlet Williams needed growing up in the Deuces -- a tough neighborhood in Midtown.
"I seen a lot of people fighting on the streets and stuff," Williams said.
Rather than join them, Williams turned his energy to krumping -- an urban street dance that has developed as an alternative to violence. The dance moves mimic fighting. But when Williams krumps, he's fighting the urge to fight.
"I have a temper," he confessed. "But I say, 'Let me leave it alone' because I don't want to waste what I've got."
His talent is well known at the Royal and beyond. He has been featured in a local commercial for the Maxi Mall on 34th Street South, and has been performed at the Coliseum on Fourth Avenue North, the Palladium Theater on Fifth Avenue North and the Wildwood Recreation Center on 28th Street South.
As a child, Williams went to the Wildwood Recreation Center and "let it all out" by dancing with friends. In his spare time, when in search of new dance moves, he would watch R & B/pop singer Usher on TV.
"I saw him and I said, 'Oh, that's nice,' " he said. "It was more of a hip-hop style that I liked better. I saw another side of dancing and I didn't want to stop."
When he's not polishing his own moves, Williams is teaching krump in the children's program at the Royal. "I'm still at it," he said. "The time, sweat, tears ... everything keeps me moving."
So does his grandmother, 65-year-old Ann Gethers, who raised him in the absence of his parents.
"She always kept me away from the trouble," Williams said. "She was always there to tell me to stop."
When he thinks about what it was like to not have a mother pack him school lunches or a dad to play ball with as a child, Williams said he turns to the people who want to be in his life, like Harris. Together, they encourage each other’s talents, realizing that the streets toward stardom are much easier to walk with a friend.
For Harris, stardom already exists at the Royal. When he freestyle raps during dances at the theater, crowds of children huddle like groupies. His talent is becoming known outside these walls, too; a few months ago, he created a song highlighting various Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball players, which he has been asked to perform at a game this season.
Rap was always the engine in Harris' life, driving him forward when other passions and pastimes lagged. He grew up listening to music on his mother's old clock radio, which was worn with age and had a stripped cord that would fall out of the outlet. Intent on hearing Tupac Shakur's "Hit 'Em Up," then 8-year-old Harris didn't care if he got shocked.
"I just kept plugging it in and plugging it in," Harris said.
The pain from those jolts was nothing compared with the pain he felt at age 11, the first time he was handcuffed for talking back to police during a fight. It wouldn't be his last run-in.
"(The neighborhood) was bad. Left and right people were getting killed and smoking crack on their porches," Harris said. "I got pulled in a whole lot and I used to get into a lot of fights. I had a big mouth."
But Harris was kept in check by the fear that his younger brother and sister, 15-year-old twins Phadrae and Shadae, would follow his lead.
"I didn't want my younger brother to follow me," he said. "I didn't want him to be like me. I'd be getting in trouble left and right."
Now he calls himself "the man of the house." His father isn't around much and, when asked about him, Harris shrugs his shoulders and talks instead about biggest supporter -- his mother.
"She always told me, 'If you want to do something, just do it. Don't stop.' She's been pushing me forever."
He also gets pushed by the inspiration of those who came before him at the Royal Theatre. Every day, when he walks through the front doors, he's greeted by paintings of famous black performers such as Cab Calloway and Angela Bassett who have graced the stage of the Royal, where Harris now does his rap.
Williams and Harris aren't forgetting the next generation of kids who find a creative home at the Royal. Several of their current students gathered recently for a dance party at the theater. Their devotion to their teachers is unabashed.
Shakiya Samuels, 10, took a break from dancing to UNK's "Two Step," to talk about Harris, her favorite teacher.
"He teaches us about life and about responsibility," she said. "He tells us not to get into trouble, to stay focused and to just keep pushing yourself forward."
Trayvon Bromell, 12, tries to imitate Williams on the dance floor.
"He's become my friend. ... He showed me how to do all these moves," said Bromell, shaking his hands in a rapid, circular motion.
Williams and Harris are part of what Royal Theatre director Herbert Murphy calls "the Royal family," a network of students and teachers who produce music, talent and trust. Family members like Harris and Williams, who devote themselves to their talent, to other kids and to each other, make Murphy eager to come to work each morning. They create a sense of hope, and make musical success seem possible.
"This isn't just a hobby for them. It's a full-time job. They live here," Murphy said. "We actually have to kick them out. We'll be gone and they'll be sitting out there on the steps."
Together, Williams and Harris map their course beyond the front steps of the Royal.
Harris, who is still in high school, hopes to establish himself in the greater rap industry.
"[Tupac] is one of my inspirations ... but I want to top him," he said. "If hip-hop dies, I want to be in the history books."
Williams is working on his GED. He wants to become a professional choreographer and continue collaborating with his musical partner and friend, Harris.
"I see myself doing nothing else," he said. "Something good is coming."
