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Steve Moseni, a fourth-year English student, and Matt Seigel are members of hip-hop group Renegad

A group of young hip-hop musicians who call themselves the Renegade Soldiers met last Saturday afternoon in a well-furnished apartment on Selby Avenue off of Little Santa Monica Boulevard.

Inside the turntablist’s bedroom, they convened to rehearse for a Hurricane Katrina benefit show that will take place Oct. 8 at 14 Below, a Santa Monica bar.

There were three turntables lined up along Matt Seigel’s wall, with stacks of vinyl records, recording gear and various percussive instruments. His instrument of choice Saturday, however, was a cardboard box.

Seated on the floor, Seigel had his legs splayed around the box that he knocked his drumsticks against. In a chair facing him was acoustic guitarist Carl Stoeber, who has a penchant for playing jazz chords in funk rhythms.

Rapper Noah King stood between the two with his short Bob Marley-style hair and a hyperactive, boyish presence. He spoke a mile a minute, with an awkward tendency to juxtapose profound ideas with random observations: One moment he was talking about world peace and a revelation he had while performing in Taiwan, the next he announced, “This chair is interesting. Woo!” and flipped up the foot rest of his black, leather La-Z-Boy.

Opposite King, both in placement in the room and rapping style, was Steve Moseni, who attends UCLA and goes by the stage name “Nieve.” Lying sideways with his left arm perpendicular to the bed, the fourth-year English student spat rhymes in an aggressive, self-assured way.

Here in Seigel’s bedroom were the nuts and bolts of hip-hop, and yet it was hardly how most people view the medium. There was no crack cocaine, no iced-out rappers, and no nasty attitudes. In fact, all four musicians seemed comfortably middle class. All have been to college except for King, who graduated from Beverly Hills High and whose father played trumpet alongside Lionel Richie in The Commodores. Seigel and Stoeber are alumni of Loyola Marymount University.

“We’re trying to be the opposite (of stereotypical rappers),” King said. “We’re not trying to be hard. We’re trying to be intelligent.”

Upon meeting Moseni, you would never expect to hear his booming rap voice. Soft-spoken, courteous and humble (his rap moniker is pronounced “naive”), Moseni studies poetry because he loves language: He spells his stage name “Nieve” because it’s the Spanish word for “snow,” to represent purity. His favorite poets include e.e. cummings, John Donne, Mos Def and Nas. Poets and MCs, he says, are one and the same. His favorite class at UCLA so far has been creative writing with Professor Stephen Yenser, because he loved how he could perform his rap lyrics in class and get immediate feedback from his classmates.

While his education has supported his rapping, rap groups such as NWA and The Fresh Prince have similarly helped him stay in school.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think I would be in college if it wasn’t for the hip-hop artists that I grew up on, because I knew that, if I wanted to be a better MC, I would have to do more than just work on my flow,” Moseni said. “I would have to work on making myself smarter, because these people were smart in my mind. Not just street smart, but they were smart human beings.”

This weekend’s benefit concert reflects Moseni’s belief in the ability of rap to be a positive influence in people’s lives. His professors have also recognized rap’s potential as a positive force: Many of them have incorporated rappers such as Rakim into their poetry classes.

“It’s funny, because I used to think that professors would look down on it,” Moseni said. “But every professor that I’ve had in English so far has nothing but good things to say about rap, especially poetry teachers. Poetry is pretty much a dead medium, and through hip-hop, it’s become alive. Kids nowadays, they can’t name you one modern poet, but when it comes to hip-hop and rap, it’s affecting them.”

With his own lyrics, Moseni aims to reverse the negativity most people associate with rap. With the Hurricane Katrina benefit concert, the Renegade Soldiers hope to bring their uplifting message to the people most affected by the tragedy, including a fellow musician.

Seigel has not heard from his friend John, a prominent New Orleans DJ, since Hurricane Katrina hit the region. John and Seigel learned to DJ together at the University of Arizona. Seven years later, Seigel now teaches turntabling at the Scratch DJ Academy of Los Angeles, but still feels connected to the city where he visited his friend so many times.

“We all care about humanity,” Seigel said. “But it’s a little more personal for me.”