Los Angeles math teacher LaMar Queen has been using Hip Hop to help his students memorize steps in solving algebra problems, and improve their grades, according to the Associated Press.

“It gets stuck in your head,” says Cindy Martinez, a 14-year-old student whose math grade has improved from a C- to a B, thanks to Queen’s method.

Queen, 26, has won a national award for his approach, and now shows teachers and parents how to utilize his method.

“Math is a bad word in a lot of households,” says Queen. “But if we put it in a form that kids enjoy, they’ll learn.”

“Rap is what the kids respond to,” he adds. “They don’t have a problem memorizing the songs at all.”

The origins of Queen’s raps came after students told him his class was boring. The students added that he looked like rapper Kanye West, and challenged him to rap.

Queen, who had been rapping since seventh grade – he’d put rhymes together while walking home from school in a Carson, a city neighboring LA – responded by writing a rap song called “Slope Intercept.”

The method was initially met with skepticism, until Los Angeles Academy Principal Maria Borges witnessed it firsthand. “It engages the kids,” she said. “Kids seem to know all the rap songs, but they can’t seem to remember different math rules.”

“Some kids who aren’t even in Mr. Queen’s class go around singing his songs,” says Kejon Closure, 13, whose grades skyrocketed from a C-average to an A.

Queen, who allows his students to appear in the music videos he makes as a reward for good behavior, encourages other life lessons as well, such as “be respectful. Listen to your parents.”

“Let’s talk about slope intercept/I don’t mind if you interject/Just don’t disrespect/I say, you have a question for me?/What’s y equals mx + b?” rhymes Queen, who has launched a website, MusicNotesOnline, to market his rap CD and DVD.

Queen plans to expand his rap teaching method to other subjects.