Frantz Carty is an inspiring high school math teacher, a devotee of rhythm and rhyme who describes himself as an educator impacting lives through mathematics. Within the walls of his Brooklyn high school, he teaches a seemingly traditional curriculum. However, Fridays are different. This is when he transforms from an everyday high school math teacher into an MC – employing lyrical rhymes to walk students through complex problems. Freestyle Friday has proven to be an effective way to engage his students after a long week of school, using something they’re interested in to make math fun. Unbeknownst to Carty, aside from his students, there was a whole other audience for his work. He discovered this wider audience when he started uploading content to TikTok. You can find Carty on TikTok under the username @NeverQuitmath, where his most popular video has amassed a total of 1.1 million views and 194,000 likes. The mission is evident in his username – his passion is to inspire kids who may seem uninterested in academics to keep going, and never quit math.
Carty’s interest in artistic expression began at a young age. Carty describes, “I grew up in what I consider the heyday of rap music…I loved it.” He shares, “I used to literally record mixtapes, like actual mixtapes with the tapes from the radio. You know, I would sit there and wait until my song comes on, then I’ll press record and stop it at the end. And then I would wait and then I would listen to that all the time.” This passion for Hip-Hop extended to the poetry of lyrical Hip-Hop, with penmanship being an integral part of his life. “It has always been a part of me,” he explained. “I remember writing my first rhyme. I must have been in the third grade.”
As Carty grew up, he found himself gravitating towards math, appreciating its reliability. He explained, “When I did math, I knew that if I did this, this and that and I followed these rules, I [could] guarantee the results. Whereas I felt with English or humanities, to some extent, there was a level of taste that was involved.” He fondly recalled his middle school math teacher, Mr. Gutzmore, whose style of teaching profoundly influenced his own: “I appreciated the fact that he got so many of us to pass algebra Regents, including myself with a 96 or 98.” Reflecting on his experiences later as an educator, Carty realized that “with proper preparation many students are capable of doing more than traditionally expected.” As he advanced through high school and college, and the math became more complex, Carty discovered a novel method for memorization: “I started realizing that when I had to memorize a long equation, it would have been easier to take that equation and put it to the melody of a song that I already knew.” Initially, he kept this method to himself but upon enrolling in college, he shared these innovative tricks. “When I first started in college and I started tutoring, I started using some of those skills for my students as well. I was like, ‘Okay, you like that song? Okay. What’s the melody? Okay, so if we have that, let’s use that melody to memorize these steps.’”
This method proved very successful for Carty’s tutees. As his career as an educator progressed, he decided to elevate his method by recording the math-related rhymes he created. Carty’s curriculum included songs recorded to teach certain concepts. He recalled that the first math rap he recorded and published on YouTube in 2021 was a remix of “You Be Killin Em” by Fabolous. Although he didn’t see immediate success online he continued with this process.
Carty’s artistic expression doesn’t stop with math, he is very involved in the step world. He taught step at a charter school and is the President of H.A.V.I.C. SQUARED ENT LLC, a step-dancing company he created with longtime friend Anthony Kennedy. Although dancing in a percussive rhythm isn’t the same as curating math raps, Carty cites Kennedy’s advice as integral to his success. Carty “grew up in an era where you didn’t put anything out until it was arguably perfect,” and this limited his output as he was striving for an impossible goal: perfection. It wasn’t until Kennedy encouraged him to break out of his comfort zone that their company started seeing real success, “[Anthony Kennedy] was always telling me we need to just put it out. Let’s put out a [step] freestyle… And lo and behold, he was right,” Carty explained.
Carty’s prolific work in the stepping world earned him an audition for the off-Broadway show and its subsequent tour, STOMP. As described on stomponline.com, the show is an “inventive and invigorating stage show that’s dance, music, and theatrical performance blended together in one electrifying rhythm.” He successfully auditioned and was signed to a rehearsal contract. Things were looking up until, a week later, he dislocated his shoulder. This injury meant that Carty couldn’t prepare for rehearsals as he had planned; “I rehabilitated the best that I could because I wanted to get in shape. I did a rehearsal contract, but I got cut.”
When the 2020s arrived and the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Carty realized that had he not dislocated his shoulder and joined STOMP, he would have likely been out of a job during that tumultuous time. With a nationwide quarantine, Carty’s teaching job shifted to Zoom, allowing him to stay home and focus on improving his craft. He explained his ambition: “My goal was that I wanted to make good music that happens to be teaching. Quite often when people think of any kind of educational rap, they think of something cheesy. I wanted to make quality. I wanted someone to listen and be like ‘This is good’ then be like ‘Oh, wait, they’re teaching’.”
Once Carty and his students returned to in-person schooling, he noticed many were struggling to connect with the work. To address this, he adapted his math rapping skills into a tool to engage his students more effectively. He would ask them to choose a beat, and then he would use his freestyle skills to teach a problem that the class found challenging. This approach was not only engaging for his students but also provided an opportunity for Carty to challenge himself. And just like that, Freestyle Fridays were born.
In 2022, Carty began posting his raps on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Initially achieving modest success with views in the low hundreds. The short videos captured the classroom’s excitement, showing how students’ skepticism often turned to awe. Carty, with his signature cool, deftly crafted the perfect rhymes to match the beats and solve the problems. A breakthrough came through on September 22, 2023, when he posted a Freestyle Friday lesson on multiplying polynomials, set to the instrumental to Kanye West’s All Falls Down on his @NeverQuitmath TikTok account. This post went viral amassing 1.1 million views and roughly 194,300 likes.
Carty was blown away by the response and acknowledged his mixed feelings towards the sudden success. Initially, excitement was his dominant emotion, leading him to wonder, “What’s going to happen next? Am I going to be on Ellen?” However, he also understands the deeper implications of this fame, reflecting, “It’s really not a destination or an accomplishment. It’s more of an opportunity.” Carty believes that going viral and thereby drawing more attention to his work, provides him with a chance to showcase his abilities. “That’s when the work really starts. This is when you really have to find ways to be more consistent. This is when you really have to find ways to invest time in your craft,” he explained.
Carty doesn’t let his viral fame get to his head. Determined to maintain the momentum of his art, Carty is ready to embrace the challenge of continuing to motivate and inspire young learners. His advice for those creating content without an audience is to “Be true to yourself,” because as he puts it, “There’s going to be a high premium on authenticity,” and “If you don’t sacrifice for what you love, then what you love will become the sacrifice.” Carty’s journey is a testament to triumph in adversity. After losing the opportunity for his dream job as a dancer in STOMP, he created new opportunities for himself that benefit others. Reflecting on his journey with a smile, Carty remarked, “Thank you, [STOMP] staff, for cutting me. And maybe one day millions of people who will benefit from NeverQuitmath will also say thank you.”
