This week benchmarks the sixth F-Rock photo contest. Send them your best b-boying/b-girling picture and win an F-Rock Clothing goodie bag including a t-shirt, spin cap, mix cd, and $50 cash.
Criteria for the contest is as follows:
-You must own rights to the photograph
-They are looking for original freezes or creative photos
-Extra points for difficult freezes
-Submissions must be in by July 31st
-Email pics to frockclothing@gmail.com with the subject line “July 2010 Photo Contest”
-2 submissions per contestant only please
-Visit their gallery to see past winners
DJ Zita rocks parties and holds it down in the Bay Area, reppin’ real hip hop AND the ladies! Cop her WHERE MY LADIES AT? – A Tribute to the Queens of True School Hip Hop mix now – it’s a free download!
A staple in the Bay Area for years, lady DJ Zita has been steadily building a DJ queendom beat by beat. Known as a party rocker, classic record provider, tireless promoter and meticulous organizer, Zita has brought her sisterhood sounds to dancefloors on both coasts and overseas since 1999. Her captivating sound spans the eras and blends genres of body-rockin’ music; she’ll seamlessly segue from boombox classic hip hop to mothership trunk funk, spin smooth R&B treats along with timeless soul heroines and heroes, flip reggae dancehall riddims, throwback to ’80s pop freestyle, and groove the dancefloor with her soulful deep house. At first one of only a handful of women on the scene, Zita established Bay Area Sistah Sound (BASS) to unite women DJs and performers. She can also be found most weekends holding down residencies in San Francisco and Oakland as part of DJ duo Golden Soundscapes with partner Dmadness, as well as producing fresh events spotlighting women in hip hop and guesting at many premier music nights and venues. With her dazzling style, fierce determination, and golden touch on the wheels, DJ Zita has changed the landscape and continues to shine.
Himanee Gupta-Carlson presents: What It Means to Be a B-Girl – A Celebration of Women in Hip Hop, at Garfield Community Center on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 7:30PM. This event features performances by some of the women Himanee interviewed while gathering research for her project.
She went on to write an essay called “Planet B-Girl,” that has been accepted by the editors of New Political Science, publish date TBA. “Planet B-Girl” focuses on how feminism connects with the political potential of hip-hop.
Please come enjoy this free hour long show, and don’t forget to bring friends, family members, and children. I hope everyone leaves inspired!
Zulu Radio is Seattle’s source of new school, old school, true school, local, and worldwide Hip Hop for the masses!
Listen to Zulu Radio on KBCS 91.3 FM (www.kbcs.fm) live every Saturday from 10pm – Midnight, Pacific Standard Time as hosts Khazm, WD4D, Able, and DJ B-Girl bring you 2 hours of real, forward thinking, quality hip hop. No filler, no nonsense, just the good music you’ve been denied of… Until now!
With a continuing mission to elevate the culture of Hip Hop, Zulu Radio provides a diverse array of quality and innovative music programming. It is a platform for Hip Hop as a cultural movement to nurture growth within our communities.
Broadcasting from Bellevue Community College the show can be heard throughout Bellevue, Seattle, Tacoma, other Greater Puget Sound areas and now across the world on-line! Log onto www.kbcs.fm and click Listen Live.
Katalyst arts program unites youth from many backgrounds
Katalyst is a hip-hop music and graffiti workshop run by the Washington Asian Pacific Islander Community Services, taught by local artists like the Blue Scholars, Gabriel Teodros and DJ B-Girl.
Youth performances and art, open mike and a special guest performance by Seattle hip-hop group Waves of the Mind 8 p.m. June 18, Hidmo, 2000 S. Jackson St., Seattle; free, all-ages (206-329-1534 or www.hidmo.org
Photo by MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Maya Uemoto, Mike Lont (aka Mic Flont) and Daniel “King Khazm” Kogita guide students through Katalyst hip-hop and graffiti workshops.
Tacked together with plywood, the recording booth provided only the bare basics — a mike and a headset — but Dennis Randle didn’t care. It was his sanctuary from the streets.
“This is where one Blood and one Crip are now homies,” said Randle, 24. “You connect artistically and become close community.”
Randle spoke between recording sessions at Katalyst, a music and graffiti workshop run by Washington Asian Pacific Islander Community Services (WAPI) in the Chinatown International District. Established in 1993, the nonprofit has been offering classes since 2006 in various hip-hop disciplines (music, recording and art), taught by local artists like the Blue Scholars, Gabriel Teodros, Daniel “King Khazm” Kogita and DJ B-Girl.
“The more time [young people] put into music, they less time they put into other things,” said Mia Beardsley, aka DJ B-Girl. “We’re taking the street hustle and turning it into something positive.”
Some kids come to the class through WAPI, which conducts substance-abuse prevention and treatment for youth. Some are ordered to go by a judge for past transgressions. Others, like 13-year-old Shea Dailey, simply come to “hang out and do art.”
Together the students, from teens to 20s, are putting on a free showcase featuring youth performances and art June 18 at Hidmo, a restaurant and meeting space in the Central District. They are also collaborating on a compilation album, filled with songs recorded in class.
Randle is hard at work at his. He pokes his head out of the makeshift studio after recording a hook, asking local artist Mike Lont, aka Mic Flont, how it sounds. After a nod of approval, he continues recording.
He chants: “I walk like a champion/talk like a champion/eat like a champion/then repeat.”
“The court ordered me to come here,” said Randle, aka Greedy. “I come from being poor … but here they give us food, they give us positivity.”
The goal is to provide music certification so the students can be their own bosses as artists, and maybe even grow into the program’s teachers.
“It’s an alternative to drug usage, something that can be built into a career,” said Greg Garcia, WAPI’s executive director.
But it’s a lean program, dependent on grants. There are only 20-some students, and many come by bus on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. They huddle in little circles, in sweats and jeans, passing around their black sketchbooks and reciting their rhymes off crumpled loose-leaf binder paper. Besides these sketchbooks, they share an earnestness to learn.
“This is something I look forward to, it’s a hater-free zone,” said Charles Wilton, a senior at Rainier Beach High School. “It’s safe.”
The office is humble: There’s the plywood recording studio in the corner, and there are a few computers for production work, but some laptops were recently stolen. Decoration is minimal, except for a graffiti mural in the back with mugs of former teachers, like the popular Seattle hip-hop duo Blue Scholars. Posted on the walls on butcher paper are handwritten rules of conduct — which include “no beefing” (or fighting), “don’t come in high/drunk” and “no swearing.”
The standard is respect.
“Everybody comes in with a blank slate,” said Lont, 28. “There are no egos.”
Don Nguyen, 16, has been in treatment for 17 weeks, 15 weeks sober. Known by the tag “Junior,” he joined the class after hearing about the graffiti component: “The people here, they motivate me, they motivate me to be like them.”
Others attest to the program’s effectiveness. Both Randle and his good friend Star LeBron have gone back to school — Seattle Central and Shoreline Community College.
Growing up in New York, LeBron admits she was “all over the place, and not doing school.
“I was kind of a bad kid and I stumbled across this. … You can do court, or do music. You get free studio time here. It’s the only way to get out of this harsh lifestyle. … The environment is real. They don’t treat you as a student, they treat you as a friend.”
Katalyst program coordinator Beardsley is often the students’ confidante. They have her cell number.
“The biggest challenge of the program is attendance,” said Beardsley, a DJ, producer and hip-hop artist. “Something may happen at home, or at school, or if they’re slipping back and disappear, so I’m always so happy to see everybody.”
Sometimes, Beardsley is the only person that knows what is exactly going down in their lives.
“They have a big moment, they have to make a big decision and the key thing is to come through for them,” said Beardsley, 33. “It’s fulfilling to be that person, to gain that trust.”
She is looking into expanding Katalyst into the South End of Seattle with more classes — recording, emceeing, deejaying, production and graffiti. She also wants to kick off jam sessions on Saturdays.
“This is where red and blue rags can meet,” said Randle, referring to youths with different gang affiliations. “We don’t know where nobody lives, we just know their hearts. We all have that commitment and passion for music.”
Sat. June 5th, 2010 from 1-5 PM
4501 Delridge Way SW Seattle WA 98106
DELRIDGE DAY & SUSTAINABLE WEST SEATTLE FESTIVAL
is a free community celebration featuring live performance, creative arts and environmentally-minded workshops, speakers, family activities, and over 100+ community organizations and resources for Southwest Seattle.
Hosted at the Delridge Community Center and Playfield, the event will feature two music stages with noted community performers and will connect residents with the initiatives and programs that are working to provide better access to a healthy, active lifestyle. Workshops span from sustainable gardening practices to theater arts to Brazilian dancing; family activities include potato sack races, a magic show, a walking tour and a fresh produce tasting. In addition, Sustainable West Seattle will host dozens of organizations and local businesses in a resource fair. Come connect and learn more about the Delridge neighborhood, the opportunities available for residents, and try something new!
TWO STAGES OF LIVE ENTERTAINMENT
Refresh Southwest features both a Mainstage and a Community Stage where musicians, magicians, and community members will perform. Bands include To The Sea, Cristina Orbe, and Quetzal; Youngstown Records, a collective of talented youth, and other performers such as magician GG Green will be on hand. TEAM Delridge will also produce their Talent Show of local community talents!
The Katalyst Program is WAPI’s hip hop education program. Geared towards teen youth of color, the Katalyst program provides access to music production and recording equipment, art supplies and technical training.
On Friday, June 18th, 2010, students from the Winter/Spring session will be performing and displaying their artwork in a final showcase/performance. The event will be held at Hidmo, located at 2000 S. Jackson Street in Seattle, WA. The show is free and starts at 8PM. The June show will feature special guests, Waves of the Mind.
Flyer design by King Khazm and the Katalyst graffiti class
TheTriple Door is pleased to host a very special Rane Corporation Product Demo/Launch Party happening Wednesday, May 26th in the Musicquarium Lounge. The new Sixty-Eight Club Mixer has revolutionized digital Djing and set a new industry standard for others to aspire to. This unique event will afford the Seattle music community the opportunity to see, touch and hear the best avail Dj mixer currently on the market as well as get updated about the new Scratch Live 2.0, Video SL 1.2, and Serato/Ableton Bridge software.
The evening will feature a reception from 7-8 PM with passed hors d’oeuvres, a demo session with Rane technicians from 8-9 PM and music from some of Seattle’s best Djs from 9 PM-Close. Raffles for fabulous Rane gear will also be taking place!
Hip-Hop artists in Arizona come together in this video to protest the tough new immigration laws in the state. Featuring DJ John Blaze, Tajji Sharp, Yung Face, Mr. Miranda, Ocean, Da’aron Anthony, Atllas, Chino D, Nyhtee, Pennywise, Rich Rico, and Da Beast.
The track instrumental is from “By the Time I Get to Arizona”, by Public Enemy.
Guru, Rapper Known for Social Themes, Dies at 47
New York Times
Published: April 20, 2010
Guru, the gravel-voiced rapper who as a member of the duo Gang Starr was one of the most expressive rappers of the 1990s and a major figure in bridging hip-hop and jazz, died Monday in New York. He was 47.
He learned he had multiple myeloma last summer and was hospitalized for related respiratory problems in February, his brother, Harry Elam Jr., said. Soon afterward he slipped into a coma, from which he did not recover, his brother said. Though Guru came to be known as one of the formative rappers of the flourishing New York hip-hop scene of the late 1980s and early ’90s, he was not a native. Born Keith Elam in the Roxbury section of Boston on July 17, 1962, he began his career in the mid-1980s as MC Keithy E, but soon switched to Guru (which he later turned into an acronym, for Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal).
In 1988, after an early version of Gang Starr splintered, Guru met DJ Premier — Christopher Martin, a Houston transplant to Brooklyn — forming a partnership that would lead to six influential and critically acclaimed albums, two of which, “Moment of Truth” and the hits collection “Full Clip,” were certified gold.
Together, Guru and DJ Premier made archetypal East Coast rap, sharp-edged but not aggressive, full of clear-eyed storytelling and suavely executed, dusty sample-driven production. In the early 1990s, as hip-hop was developing into a significant commercial force, Gang Starr remained committedly anti-ostentatious. As a lyricist, Guru was often a weary moralist weighed down by the tragedy surrounding him, though the group’s music was almost always life-affirming, never curmudgeonly. From a young age, Guru had been “creative like crazy,” his sister Tricia Elam said. “Dynamic and curious, eager and ambitious.” But his artistic impulses didn’t neatly line up with his middle-class upbringing.
Guru’s father, Harry Elam, was the first black judge in the Boston municipal courts, and his mother, Barbara, was the co-director of library programs in the Boston public school system. Before beginning his rap career in earnest, Guru graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1983 and took graduate classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. He worked briefly as a social worker. Leaving school to pursue a rap career flummoxed his family, said Guru’s brother, Harry Jr. “I was on my way to becoming a professor, and my brother is dropping out of grad school, and I’m saying, ‘What are you doing?’ But he believed in it and followed it through.”
Besides his brother and sister, Guru is survived by his parents; another sister, Jocelyn Perron, and a son, Keith Casim.
Guru’s music bridged generations in part thanks to his career-long engagement with jazz, even after hip-hop largely ended its flirtation with it in the early 1990s. As a solo artist, Guru released four volumes of his “Jazzmatazz” series, the first of which, from 1993, was one of the most influential in the fleeting jazz-rap movement of the day. And “Jazz Thing” a Gang Starr collaboration with Branford Marsalis, was used over the closing credits of the Spike Lee film “Mo’ Better Blues.”
For all of Guru’s gifts as a storyteller — songs like “Just to Get a Rep” are among the starkest tales hip-hop has told — he benefited from an unusually forceful voice, rich and burred around the edges. It was tough to compete with, which he explained on “Mostly Tha Voice,” from Gang Starr’s fourth album, “Hard To Earn”: “A lot of rappers got flavor, and some got skills/ But if your voice ain’t dope, then you need to chill.”
Flyer design by King Khazm and the Katalyst graffiti class
