Hip Hop Congress

Weekly Update o2.o9.o5

INDIANA AWARENESS FESTIVAL:
The 5th Annual Awareness Festival is coming to Bloomington. So is Amer, Fruchter, Christina, Shamako, Jordan, and MC Ronnie McRonRon (powerless CIA cowboy). Check out the schedule of events:

February 22: Freestyle – The Art of Rhyme: a documentary film on the art of freestyling and battle rapping. WOODBURN HALL ROOM 126 7:30PM ADM: FREE

February 23: Afeni Shakur and Jasmine Guy: experts on activism and modern revolution will be speaking. IU AUDITORIUM 7PM ADM: FREE

February 24: Poetry Slam: with guest poets Psalm One and Thaione. Local artists will take the stage showcasing their poetry to compete for a cash prize of $50. IU MEMORIAL UNION GALLERY 7PM ADM: FREE

February 25: Workshops: on elements of hip hop, the music industry, hip hop in the classroom and the future of the hip hop community by Ron Gubitz, Jordan Bromley, and Shamako Noble. These will be free flowing sessions where participants are encouraged to bring lots of questions to interact with the workshop leaders. COLLINS 4-6PM ADM: FREE

Performances: by Mac Lethal, Honors English, Shamako Noble, and HalfBlown with 2 Scoops Malone at the WIUS STATION HOUSE 7:30PM-10PM ADM: FREE

February 26: The following events will be held in Wilkie Auditorium free of charge but with a suggested canned food donation.

Bboy registration: 1PM-3PM
$1000 Bboy battle: 3PM-6:30PM
$500 MC battle: 7PM
Brother Ali performance: 9PM

The following events will be held at 9th Street Bar (between College and Walnut):
TopSpeed and Cee-Fade host DJ battle: 11PM
DJ Trackstar, DJ Sleeper and Verseatile performances: 12PM

Video games and door prizes will be available. There will be a $1 cover due to no student funding of bar events, must be 21 to enter.

INTERNATIONAL HIP HOP CONGRESS CONFERENCE:
The conference is tentatively planned for the weekend of June 16th to June 19th in Chicago, Illinois.

We are creating a team to work on the conference. There will be a meeting on Thursday, Feb. 17th at 8pm at UIC’s CCC (750 S. Halsted) on the second floor by Java City.

If you are at all interested, respond to this e-mail, call 773.474.0375, or show up to the meeting.

This is a great opportunity for any and all Hip Hop heads, artists, crews, organizations, and activists.

Questions? asad@hiphopcongress.com

A CALL FOR HELP:
A couple of members from the Urban Art in Action Movement recently traveled to Porto Alegre, Brasil for the 5th annual World Social Forum and the 2nd annual Hip Hop City.

This was a place for people from around the word to come together and discuss social justice work and Hip Hop Culture as a movement. It was great to see the number of people that attended and make some very solid connections out there.

Unfortunately, our funding for this trip was cut. The reason is that a main funder of ours decided to donate to the recent Tsunami disaster.

We applaud the decision made, but we are now in debt for the trip at about $4000. So – we are asking our friends, family, crew, and people to help fundraise the money for the trip. Any money donated will be tax-exempt through the Southwest Youth Collaborative (a non-profit organization). Being able to raise money for this trip will insure more important trips for more young people from our community who would not usually have these opportunities.

Please contact Asad – asad@hiphopcongress.com or 773.474.0375 with further questions.

WASH U:
This weekend was hot, We threw a poetry slam in conjunction with the Association of Black Students, using KWUR equipment and packed the house. The poems were tight, the music was sick, life is good. We are just tying up loose ends for the Brother Ali show, including trying to get some alcohol there.

Peace
Yoni

SAN JOSE STATE:
What’s crackin HHC? We chillin like sum villains out here in San Ho. We bout to try to expose our club to get sum more heads in it by having an info night.

We’re planning on educating folks on what HHC is all about. Also sum of our chapter went out to Agenda a club in San Jose to see Dj Babu spinning on Thursday.

Well that’s whats crackin at SJSU. payce.

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY:
Txstate University is about to experience Hip Hop at it’s Purest Form. Feb 12, the Congress is hosting the Survival of the Illest M.C. Battle at Nephews. Doors open at 9:00pm. Wednesday and Thursday of this week we’ll be promoting the event on campus, San Marcos, Austin, and San Antonio. If any of yall are in town…holla

CSULA:
HHC CSULA is restructuring our leadership in order to hide the fact that we are really run by Morman CIA agents. We are looking forward to our upcoming event Bring Your Skills. We are trying to raise funds in order to send a few members to this year’s conference. That’s about it for now I’ll keep you posted. Lates…Jerald

CSU FULLERTON:
Exciting news from the Fullerton chapter. We just began our first day of discover fest and we successfully spread the word around campus and dropped the science on HHC. But here’s the good stuff. CSUF congress has decided to do a radio show over the internet which will probably be up and running within the next few weeks. I want to call the it simply, “Hip Hop Congress Radio” and, as the title suggests, I want to cater, largely but not exclusively to HHC artists. So let it be known from this day forth, if you want to put out some quality music or come on the show to discuss politics or hip hop activism, you have a voice @ CSUF on titan internet radio. Peace yall.

-Eric
co-chair

USC:
What up from Hip Hop Congress! First off, there is some bad news to be brought to everyones’ attention. Due to complications with Taper Hall and the school administration, HHC weekly meetings are still on hold. But, if we’re not meeting in Taper Hall next week, we will be at one of the board members’ cribs over that weekend for an informal meeting. More details to come. Also, the start of our Famous Freestyle Fridays in front of Tommy Trojan are being put on hold as well. Right now we’re trying to work out at deal with the LA Scratch DJ Academy to perform in front of Tommy, so that is the number one priority as of right now. But don’t worry, Freestyle Fridays should be back in place with the first ‘actual’ weekly meeting of the semester.

GRINNELL COLLEGE:
Whas up Congress, the Grinnell Chapter is still getting everything in place for our events for the rest of the semester. We are hoping to get a weekly event goin’ where everyone who wants to practice their breakdancing skillz or spit a few verses have the space and the opportunity to do so. Keep you posted.

Stay ups,
Elena -Communities Chair

VASHON HIGH SCHOOL:
We have our first performance on February 23rd for Black History Month during school. Our mixtape is still a work in progress, and our 16 Bars of Fire for the week was about shoes. We listened to “My Adidas” and “Air Force Ones” and then wrote our own shoe lines. Next week’s will be about love in honor of Valentine’s Day. The new board has really stepped up and taken charge of the chapter.

Rico

WEB CONTENT:
We have some new web content up including interviews with Shiloh, album reviews for the Wu-Tang greatest hits package, and some other good stuff. Also, don’t forget to check out the archives.

Thanks to Dan Snow, our new Web Intern. We appreciate the help. To send love and thanks to Dan, email bengals@hiphopcongress.com. We will make sure he gets it.

CONTRIBUTE TO A YOUTH MANIFESTO:
To Whom It May Concern:

An Aborigine activist group-coordinated by an amazing gentleman named Wirrigan-that is greatly concerned with the state of Earth’s newest generations will be approaching the U.N. with a manifesto of sorts regarding the state of the world’s youth. This document will be a sincere and potentially potent tool that intends to galvanize the global effort to save our youth. I write this letter, because we need YOUR feedback to make it happen.

For any of you reading this, you are invited to take any amount to time that you can spare or that you wish to devote to a simple or complex statement on the needs, struggles and potential solutions that you see in your everyday life and in your observations of the general human condition. In areas all around the world, children are faced with different sorts of violence, hunger, economic challenges and internal conflicts of varying natures. Some of you are teachers or social workers. Some of you are performers and musicians. Some of you are professionals and some of you are parents. All of you are a part of some community. All of your feedback is welcome.

If this concept is too broad for you to approach, view it this way: This is your opportunity to put into words your general feeling on what we can do to positively effect the future of our planets young ones. Think about the youth you interact with everyday, but also think about the youth of other continents. If you don’t know that much about other cultures, that is as good a place to start with as any in terms of where we can improve as a global community. Some may be well traveled and familiar with the trials of many different regions, and if so let that be reflected in your thoughts.

What we are seeking does not require structure, but you are free to provide your thoughts in a structured form. We are not looking to solve all of the world’s problems in one stroke, and so any and all insight is welcome. It can be a paragraph, or it can be five pages.

The final result of all of your collective efforts will be published, and combined with the work of other groups, brought to the U.N. in the hopes of focusing much needed attention, resources and energy into the future and present of our progeny. Our goal is to be ready to approach the U.N. by APRIL of THIS YEAR, so the sooner you can provide a response, the better. We implore you to contribute whatever you can, and if you have any questions or require clarification, please send an e-mail to shamako@hiphopcongress.com. Again, this is a HUGE opportunity, and this is a serious request. Thank you for taking the time out to read this and we wish you all the best!

With great hope for a collective vision,
Shamako Noble
Hip Hop Congress

BAM! What an update….Have a great week!

Peace and Love,
Ron Gubitz
Hip Hop Congress

“May we all fulfill our highest selves in the most colorful ways” –my buddy Yoav