//Last Thursday I had the honor of presenting at the Museum of the African Diaspora's quarterly Thursday Think Tank. Also invited to present were incredible community organizers, youth advocates, visual artists, food justice workers, and other good people steady doing the work of social change. Poet/Superwoman Chinaka Hodge, Hood Games founder K-Dub Williams, Community Justice Network for Youth's Krea Gomez, a whole posse from the Pin@y Educational Partership at Balboa HS, and a handful of others put it down with 20 PowerPoint slides (showing at 20 seconds each) and a microphone... 6 minutes and 40 seconds to wreck it.
//Like any good DJ, I spoke with my hands instead and recorded a short mix to go with the slides. The first few slides and audio are snippets of some of my own mixes and live sets to establish who I am as a DJ (there being 20,000 DJs in the Bay it was necessary to let folks know). All the rest however, is really the heart and magic of what I wanted to convey: my work the past 11 years as an English and History teacher/artist guiding my students to find their voices and providing some technical skills with recording and production. The beats, rhymes, rhythms and sounds are all done by my middle school youth. It is a daily inspiration to watch and learn from the kids as they speak what's on their mind and create music without a presumption of how "hip hop" is supposed to sound. Like one cat told me afterwards, "It's raw, like how hip hop used to be."
//It was an amazing event and I am grateful for the new connections. Below is an extended 12" version of the slideshow with the audio included:
//It was an amazing event and I am grateful for the new connections. Below is an extended 12" version of the slideshow with the audio included:
//If you are able to contribute to the program, here is the link for our project proposal on DonorsChoose.org. All my people fighting the good fight, let's keep it moving! 1neLuv..
Posts
