Hip Hop Congress

Weekly Update o8.31.o5

HELP HURRICANE VICTIMS:
If members of the Hip Hop Congress have avenues or ways for the Hip Hop Congress to get involved in helping victims of the Hurricane, please email hurricane@hiphopcongress.com.

This comes to us from a friend:
All,
I have not spoken to some of you in a very long while, and others of you I don’t know very well, but I feel the situation in my hometown warrants this mass email. Since I may be your only contact to New Orleans, I feel it is my responsibility to lead the effort of noticing you to exactly what is going on there.

Please be aware of the severity of the flooding in New Orleans. The water really has nowhere to go, and people are being told they can’t return to their homes for a month. To make things worse, communication lines are disrupted, creating a chaotic atmosphere where many of us don’t know the status of our loved ones.

I am so far away, but I determined last night that I had to do my part to help. That’s why I’m sending you this email. The first thing I need to do is get the word out to so many of you all over the country so that you’re seeing and hearing the same things as the people closest to the matter.

Please click on the link below to access the weblog I created this morning. I have started the blog with a description of the events since yesterday morning and a call to action to begin the recovery process. I ask you to provide your insight and ideas to help the fundraising efforts. Please add any commentary to the website itself. Those of you from New Orleans who are displaced can add your own stories to the website so that those on the outside can get a personal glimpse into this crisis. You will also notice links to disaster relief agencies on this website for those of you who wish to send monetary support as well as links to the local news coming out of New Orleans. I will check and update this website daily as conditions are constantly changing.

http://helpneworleansnow.blogspot.com

I really don’t know what will come out of this effort, but I’m optimistic we can make a difference.

We are all in this together. Thanks for your time.

Keith Schneider

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Weekly Update o8.25.o5

HIP HOP CAUCUS BUS TOUR:
This is HISTORIC. A 46 foot wrapped bus with a DJ set up and full system filled with folks talking politics. Plus it’s run by US! The Hip Hop Caucus bus tour is traveling to 47 Cities in 25 states. There will be a lot of press, a lot of events and TONS of opportunities for us to get involved. If you are interested in a list of cities the tour will hit, please email jordan@hiphopcongress.com. The tour starts TODAY!!!

TEXAS STATE:
Last weekend was crazy busy for HHC Texas State. We were asked to give Diversity presentations to all the incoming and transfer students during the orientation process. What we did is cover the required information, had performances that consisted of the material just covered as interludes, then finished with some spokenword pieces. Everyone enjoyed the edutainment. We did approx. 10 of those reaching around 4000 students. Also, on Saturday, we had a performance for Convocation which included, crowd mcing, dancing, and some spoken word. Again, the response was fantastic. After that we had an organization fair in which we collected contact info. of interested new members. We have a promo next week and then our 1st meeting. We’ll get at you with after that for upcoming events.

URBANA-CHAMPAIGN:
The Urbana-Champaign chapter kicked off pretty intensely at the beginning of this school year. Aug. 20 we performed at Late Nighter for our university. We busted out the linoleum and the tables and the PA, set up in front of the Illini Union building and rocked it for four hours. We got a few pages of a mailing list, and made some sweet money.

Aug. 21 was a performance at I-Celebrate, which consisted of a BBoy performance, and an MC performance. We received some good money for that, and plugged our website (uchiphop.org) and shit like that.

Aug. 23 was Quad Day. We performed for 30 minutes (DJ, drummer, MCs, BBoys) and got the crowd of Quad Day a little hyped up. Other organizations expressed interest in working with us or booking us for performances (which isn’t our real focus, we were just trying to make some money, you know?). We had linoleum by our table, and people were breaking. We got mad signatures, met lots of people.

So that was the first few days, and there’s much more shit to pop off.

Holla at you next week, peace.
- Alistair

PRESS IN CHICAGO SUN-TIMES:
Read about the Hip Hop Congress chapter at Walter Payton Prep in Chicago:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/education/cst-ftr-clubs24.html.

CAL STATE FULLERTON:
What the deal duns. We just started school again and are about to begin our campaign of self promotion and propaganda. This will be our second active semester as a fully recognized organization on campus and it is showing all the potential of being as kick ass as humanly possible. Peace yall

Eric Santa Ines

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