Hip Hop Congress

Weekly Update 11.12.o6

Welcome back to the weekly update. Our tech people are still in the final stages of getting the lists back up and running so hopefully this reaches everyone. Next week the update should include more chapters!!

CAL STATE FULLERTON:
Cal State Fullerton has been madd busy this semester.

We got accepted back into the Association for Inter-cultural Awareness (AICA) and have been working on building and collaborating with some of the organizations in AICA.

We held a production workshop on with DJs: Nevi Nev (Soul Rock Affiliates), frank(e) (Fresh Air) and Choice37 (Captions) on September 18th and an emcee workshop with Congress artists: Rahman Jamaal and DLabrie on October 16th.

We participated in the Rally Against Hate on October 4th with various clubs and organizations on campus, as well as the Greeks, in responseto a hate crime that involved CSUF students from the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Greek community.

We started a weekly jam called All Your Bass are Belong to Us (Kuddos to the nerds who get the reference), which is held in the Titan Quad every Thursday from 12noon – 1pm.

Friday, November 10th, we’re holding Slow Your Role, a night of live bands, spoken word, and art with Mike the Poet, Blue Key Coretet, Kane, Brandon Francis, Kareya, Casablancas, and HHC DJs. It will be held in the Titan Student Union Underground Pub from 8pm – 12midnight.

Thursday, November 16th, we will be holding our end of the Fall semester main event: Revival of the Fittest 2 featuring performances by Brawdcast (myspace.com/brawdcast) and Gio (myspace.com/gioforadvice). Breaks and an open floor will be provided for our very supportive bboy community. It will be a great end to a crazy and hectic semester!

Peace.
gorgeous tone, jessquest, samurai, newtrishis,
soulfunky, jenita applebum, luis, and frank[e]
[ Cal State Fullerton Hip Hop Congress 2oo6 Core ]

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY:
Wash U HHC is working to create a new generation. We are working with several organizations to bring in Idan Reichel, an Israeli performer who incorporates Arabic and Ethiopian musical traditions along with hip hop.

We are trying to get some stuff moving for a budget for next semester as well. For right now, we’re just chillin on things, trying to get people back into the fold

Yoni

SACRAMENTO:
Hey I would like to welcome the brand spanking new Sacramento Chapter. To give everyone an intro to this community I have copy and pasted a quote from Wikipedia, “Sacramento has a reputation as a center for Dixieland jazz, because of the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee which is held every Memorial Day weekend. Events and performances are held in multiple locations throughout the city. Each year thousands of jazz fans from all over the world visit for this one weekend. Sacramento is also home to the Sacramento French Film Festival, a cultural event held every year in July that features U.S. premiers of French films and classic masterpieces of French cinema. In addition, Sacramento is home to the Trash Film Orgy, a summer film festival celebrating the absurd, B-movies, horror, monster, exploitation.”

I for one am excited to someday visit this city. Here’s Wes with his update:

What thizz it? Yo the Sacramento chapter was formed and met yesterday for our first meeting at Pieces Pizza in Downtown Sac. We’re trying to get recognized at Sacramento State University and pulling together the Sacramento hip-hop heads in the community to form like voltron.

wEs KuRuHara – raekwondahchef@yahoo.com

USC:
USC HHC hosted a concert on campus November 1, 2006. It was titled “Hip Hop 4 Knowledge 2006″

Acts: The Pozerz and Custom Made. We had close to 100 ppl show up (97). It was an overall success.

Spring Calendar: Assist in the establishment of HHC at UCLA, USC v. UCLA freestyle battle, Hip Hop and the Phrophetic Discussion sponsored by (ALLHIPHOP.com / XXL / *Power106*), and Concert w/ The Pozerz

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK:
So Ron usually has some inspiration quote at the end of his updates. I felt why only one quote? Why not two or three? Don’t put limits on your quotes. So I am going to include an article (usually this will be a link, but I couldn’t find one) that I think could inspire and provoke thought. Or I just think its a cool article. So scroll below to read “Bling Bling – It’s a Good Thing!”

Have a great week and I am looking forward to catching up with the rest of the chapters next week. Oh and I gave Kevin Federline Jordan’s address. Give him a good home J.

Peace
Berk
berkowitz@hiphopcongress.com

Bling Bling – It’s a Good Thing!
From the October 2005 issue of the People’s Tribune (www.peoplestribune.com)
by Carvell Holloway and Brotha B.A.N.K.

Bling bling is flashy – showing the cars, the spinning, the jewelry, the clothes, the shoes. It’s a good thing. It provides positive motivation. Record companies like to focus only on the part of bling bling that’s about the idea of “me! me! me!” They don’t show the full picture.

Bling bling shows how much is out there for people to have and to get. In that way, it’s very positive. But at the same time, kids see material things as being their only way to express themselves as who they are in society. In other words, if I have some $200 tennis shoes, look at me! That is what I am, those $200 tennis shoes. But in reality, if we all had $200 tennis shoes it wouldn’t be so much about that, it would just be about the creativity.See what I’m rockin’ today? What are you rockin’ today?

Some people say bling bling is just consumerism, meaning that we consume too much, that we’re wasteful. But it’s hard to say we consume too much because you have a lot of people who aren’t consuming enough and a few who consume too much. Some people aren’t consuming very much at all and that’s because other people who have a lot of money and power are not allowing them to have an equal share of goods.

Life is full of stress. People need a release and they use the music for a mood enhancer. Bling bling type artists have brought that release to millions and millions of people all over the world.

Music puts you in a space where you feel good about yourself, feel good about things. You identify with it. When a person creates, there’s a lot of people who go “Yeah, I feel that.” It’s like when John Coltrane talked about how he wanted to create a song so powerful that when his friends heard the music, they would feel so good that they would be cured of whatever illness they had.

When people dismiss bling bling they miss out on some important things going on in hip-hop. Like Pit Bull doing a remake of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and making it even stronger. Like Nelly doing the song “Nellyville” which is about a peaceful society where everyone has everything they need. Nelly did that song totally in terms of bling bling (“Nobody livin’ average, everybody jang-a-lang/ Nobody livin’ savage, everybody got change”). Nelly’s talking about what we all want. Why shouldn’t we? Bling bling shows that it is possible to have things. It focuses on a sense of self-worth.

It’s true that bling bling’s not out there showing what a true utopian society could be like. But there’s plenty in what we see if we look at it in a more visionary way. We shouldn’t look at bling bling as “Oh, this terrible thing that the thug hoodlums from the ghetto are promoting these days.” We should look at bling bling as showing the opportunities that are out there for everyone. What we really need to do is to bring everybody up.

Hip-hop should emphasize how everyone can have an Escalade, how everyone can have food and a roof over their head and good health care. We need to embrace a larger idea of what’s available to everyone, not just the individual.

Trumpeter Carvell Holloway leads the jazz/hip-hop group Strokely in Los Angeles. Brotha B.A.N.K. is the rapper in Strokely.