 excited and honored to, that Double Edges is hosting this event today, the Power of Hip Hop Culture. Thanks to our guests, Clyde Valentine and Will Power. As many of you know, Double Edges quarter our mission to create a living culture. I believe that culture has an ability to awaken people and that a culture that is living, the spectator, the community, the citizens are actually engaged, not only passively receiving a work of art or a message or a mandate and then going on with their lives, but there is a dialogue. There is a call and response, there is engagement, and there is hopefully in a culture that's truly alive some form of awakening. We wanted to do this conversation, the Power of Hip Hop Culture, because Hip Hop Culture is, in our ideals, in our vision, a living culture. It is more than one entity, more than one manifestation or expression. It's more than music, it's more than fashion, it's more than a mode of expression. It is a multitude and it is a global multitude. It speaks to young people. We have young people here in our community, here as part of the theater, for whom this multitude is really important. We want to share other models, other ways where living culture exists and where it is affecting change and where it is creating new awakenings. So with that, I will pass it over and just say how honored and glad we are, whether, and welcome to those of you who are watching from farther away, but I'll now pass it over to Eugenio Uriona, and thank you to Claude and Wilfrid Baker today. Hello, how are you doing? My name is Eugenio Uriona. I was born in Argentina and I lived here part of my life, so welcome to my casa. I would like to say before we start that this is being web streamed, so if we could turn on anything that uses Wi-Fi and not have it on, because we want to give also the opportunity to you guys to talk and ask questions and engage in a discussion and also for them on the internet to ask questions. Basically, I live in the sticks. It's not Brooklyn out here, it's not Compton, but throughout life I've listened to hip-hop, because hip-hop has been something that has helped me grasp English a lot better. So it's informed my life in a big way, so I'm at a point here where I want to do something with it, and ask questions of what can I do with it, what should I do, how do I motivate myself, how do we motivate our peers to do something with this. So I met Claude in October. He took me on a center trip and I helped at a festival where I was doing PA work, helping out with the DJ, but with a mural with the setup, everything. And afterwards we had a discussion about that, about how do we work with this, how do we make what we want to make out of it, and what are the struggles, what are our challenges, what do we do. So that's pretty much where I'm coming from, but of course everybody's going to have something to contribute. So I'm going to let them introduce themselves, because they can do that a lot better than I can, so I'll pass it to Will. Thank you again. Alright, my name is Will Power, I'll try to keep this real brief, which is hard for me, but I'll try to do it. And my introduction into hip-hop many moons ago, I started off as a break dancer and I was whack, I was terrible. I couldn't knee-spin, I couldn't even knee-spin man, you can't knee-spin, but it was really bad. And at this time, I'm from the West Coast originally, I'm from California, so at this time break dancing was the first kind of element of hip-hop culture that really came in and really became real popular. And at that time, the trend of the moment was to call someone out to a spontaneous hip-hop battle. So you'd be like walking down the street and someone would look at you and be like, you know, and you'd have to get down either on a piece of linoleum if someone had it or something and someone would call you off the bus and you'd get off the bus, you know, and that kind of thing. So I was getting taken out left and right and getting embarrassed, it was just terrible. And this is like, by this time, this is like 1984 and I was already a theater artist. I was already kind of a child studying theater, so I started to shift to rhyming to kind of putting my ideas into rhyme, into verse. And it was just kind of a more natural thing for me to express it that way, you know. And so I got these tools and at first they became things to just have fun. We would rhyme against other crews in different parts of the city in California where I'm at where I was and something fun to do. And around the time that I started to rhyme, this is also when kind of the whole war on drugs, crack cocaine, I don't know if you guys know what I'm talking about, but the infestation and the drama of the 1980s, you know, started coming into these urban neighborhoods. So suddenly this thing that we did that was for fun became actually a surviving tool. You know, it became a way to kind of stay out of trouble or express things that were going on. In my neighborhood in the 70s, there was some violence and some drama, but it wasn't that much. But when we got into like the mid-80s and Reagan's second term, it was just crazy. So, you know, any kind of stereotypical thing you could think of was happening, like, you know, just drive-bys, friends getting killed in front of me, people getting beat up, family members overdosing drugs. And so this tool, this hip-hop tool, as far as, you know, you talked about change and empowerment. Initially for me, it was for me personally to just survive in that era, you know. As I continue to develop it, you know, and on the West Coast, and this is something I want to tell you too, you know, on the West Coast initially, we were trying to sound like we were from New York because that's who the popular people were of the day. So it was like, you know, that kind of thing. I know it's a bad interpretation, dude. So that's what we tried to do, you know, and we wouldn't get any respect. Obviously, now there's a rich history of hip-hop on the West Coast, everything from, you know, Tupac to, you know, to Kendrick Lamar to everything, but back then, the idea of being an emcee from the West Coast was crazy. It was like, you guys don't rhyme, you know, who are you faking, you know, that kind of thing. But what started to happen is as a culture, as in a region, we started to develop our own style or styles that were really authentic to who we were. Those styles stretched a gamut from, you know, gangster rappers, which was a part of California too, you know, cast a tofu and walked around in sandals like Michael Franti, you know, all that was up, all that and in between was a part of the California aesthetic, you know. Jerry Currow's The Dreadlocks was kind of what was happening, you know. So we started to develop our own style and for me personally, the kind of hip-hop I've always done, I was an emcee and I was also an actor, but it was always about the live arena, you know. Hip-hop culture originally was a performance-based culture. It was about the ritual of bringing community together, you know what I mean, to kind of heal and to express and then it started to become more of a recording-based culture. So by the time I came of age in the 90s, it was really about like how good was your CD, you know. And the challenge for my group is we were, we, our contemporaries were, and I'm showing my age here, people like, you know, Digio Underground, Tupac Around, The Coup, I don't know if you know who that is, but we came up together, Living Legends, Hieroglyphics, Michael Franti, they were all my friends and contemporaries in this, in this world in the early 90s and their records were better than ours and our live shows were always better. We had like a live band and dancers and actors and, but it was tricky because a lot of my friends were getting these multi, you know, $100,000 deals and we had record companies around, they were like, you know, but how do you do what you do live? How do you put that on CD? And it was a lot of pressure. We were like, we don't know. So we were trying to figure out how to take what we do live and put it on into a recording format and it was really frustrating and eventually I figured out that my form of hip-hop was supposed to excel in the live arena. It was supposed to be such that we, we, you came into this and you had an experience and then you went out, you know. And so we kind of started to develop this thing, me and another number of artists, kind of hip-hop theater, you know, which was kind of like the idea of mixing theater and narrative with the narrative inverse of hip-hop and telling stories that way. And also some of my actors, you know, we were doing a lot of bars and they like step on a broken bottle and they were like, I'm an artist. I can't do this anymore, you know. So we, so we start to take our hip-hop into like, we start to take it into, we were some of the first groups to take it into theaters and into black boxes and into activist spaces in that way, you know. So anyway, that's a little, that's a little bit about Montrejectory, you know. Now I use it, I don't just explore hip-hop, but I still use it as a tool for teaching, you know, around the globe and we can get into that. But initially it started as a personal thing, a way to kind of have fun, to express yourself and to heal in that environment. Thanks Will. So, you know, I'll go here just to introduce ourselves a little bit and then really jump into the conversation part. So, you know, that's really important and so, so important for the folks. That are tuning in. And I think we're using the hashtag since this is on HowlRound as well, New Play, so we can, you know, track some questions from wherever you might be. So just a little bit about myself, I was, I think Will and I are similar age. I was born in 1971. And, you know, I think my first experience with the culture was really on the streets, you know, I got to experience a street dance form called Uprocking. You know, and I'm not an expert, you know, in this, but I knew what it was and there were the older teenagers were doing it when I was like, you know, nine, you know, ten, maybe even younger. And, you know, we would, you know, be the little guys like wanting to just see what was happening in the Apache line and which is what they did. It was a war dance, basically. Uprocking is very war, violent driven and kind of came right out of gang culture in New York City. And that kind of stood with me. And then when I got a little bit older, right, I started writing graffiti, not very well, right, you know, and I just kind of kept it in the neighborhood. I was too scared to jump into the tunnels. So I didn't want to do that. I was popping and locking, you know, a little bit of breakdancing, not super athletic, so, you know, I popped and locked, which was more of a West Coast form. But it was already in the East Coast at that time. And, you know, I caught that kind of late in the mid-80s. And, you know, for the younger folks in the room, like, I remember my dad distinctly like saying, oh, this stuff is a fad, which he's listening to right now. Is it going to last? You know, it was a real, like real ages. He's like, ah, this is a fad. And I was just kind of like, I didn't even understand what he was saying. But, you know, it just stood with me. I did all those things. And by the time I got to high school, it was about, it started being about money and getting money, right? So the dance crews turned into, the dance, yeah, the dance crews turned into crews, just crews. And folks kind of stopped dancing. And it really became about, like, you know, crack and drug dealing. And, yeah, I didn't really do any of that. And I was kind of, you know, I moved away from that stuff. Because, you know, just personally, my family was very invested in the street stuff. So that was my biggest drug prevention. You know, I was like, I'm not going to, you know, I see the worst of this stuff, right? So there was no way I was going to broker in it. You know, and I had that conversation essentially with myself as a young person. So I got heavy into club culture in New York City, like 15 through 19, you know. And at the time in New York City, you can go to a club at 15 years old. You know, I mean, it maybe wasn't right, but they weren't carting. And, you know, so I was, you know, I spent a lot of time in the club. And there was a little bit of an overlap there. And for the music heads in the room, you know, look at early Jungle Brothers, right? And, you know, you'll hear some house hip-hop tracks, right? Because they were part of that bridge. And Jungle Brothers were kind of the original native tongues. And when you think about native tongues, it might be for some of you, Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and then later Tali Kuali, Most Death, Common, right? That that's kind of like a native tongues, you know, collective, right? And then maybe some folks on the West Coast. Then later on, you know, I was in college and all these magazines started coming out, right? So media started to explode, right? And, you know, I would go to the Barnes & Noble and I was like devouring, you know, the source and rap pages and the very, the launch issue of Vibe had Snoop Dogg on it, right? Who's now Snoop Lion or something, right? You know, but Snoop's been around a long time. You know, as an artist, you know. So, you know, I was like eating all that stuff up. And then the game changer for me was this book called Bomb the Suburbs by Billy Wimps at Upsky, right? Upsky was a graffiti writer from Chicago. And, you know, he was a peer and he was, you know, he was essentially, he was a collection of essays that he self-published, that he sold out of his book bag, 20,000 copies out of his book bag. So while cats were selling CDs, Upsky was selling books, right? And it was a lot of reflection, like, okay, what graffiti writers in Chicago and, you know, what are the long-term health implications to, you know, this aerosol that we're inheriting if we don't use masks, right? I didn't know anybody that was asking those questions as writers in New York, you know? Also, I'm an upper middle class white kid from North Chicago. What are the implications of me bombing with my friends from the south side? You know? He came from a different background, so him writing a book was interesting, but it really kind of made me think about the potential for the culture beyond what was beginning to happen, which was just rap music, right? So when I, and I hate to put it that way because I don't want to sound like a hater. So fast forward, I graduated from college and I share this with young people when I speak to them. I wasn't super focused on what I wanted to do, but I know I wanted to do two things. I wanted to work in my community, my immediate community, where I grew up, so I said, Park Brooklyn, right? And I wanted to work around hip-hop culture in some way. And to me, that was the definition of my community. It was, like, very specific and also a little bit broader. So I had an opportunity to start a publishing company, a magazine called Stress, right? With a group of friends from New York and some of my homies from college. So we didn't start in the garage, you know? We started in the office in Midtown. We raised some seed money. We were right on 34th Street, Pennsylvania building. And the first issue we put, Ray Kwan from Mutang on the Cover with a bulletproof vest and a blunt, right? And I remember, and a blunt is a cigar filled with marijuana, right? So, you know, I was... I remember bringing it to this other thing that I was doing, which was organizing this youth conference, and one of the elders got really upset with me, right? And he was like, what are you doing? Like, this is the wrong message to be sending, you know? And, you know, I kind of didn't think about it. You know, early 20s, right? And this was Mutang. So if you knew Mutang, it was like, that's Ray Kwan. What are you talking about? That's who he is, you know? We're not going to gloss over that fact. And then I was like, but look inside the magazine, right? And inside the magazine, we had issues. We started exploring issues around Giuliani's hyper-aggressive policing policies and the criminalization of young people. We launched an article in a column that was about a dialogue between inmates and corrections officers, because from our viewpoint, they were all locked up, right? So we wanted to foster an honest dialogue anonymously. We were very specific and critical inside the magazine, and we wanted to do something that was bold and in your face, which is what young people do, right? It's, you know, bold and in your face. But there was an authenticity, and that's always what we were after, and I think that's what I hope to kind of build on, right? In the magazine, we did a lot of firsts aesthetically. I call what we did essentially a sociopolitical magazine that explored hip-hop culture. It wasn't just about real rap music, right? We put Jay-Z on the cover. His first cover was just magazine as a fact. It was issue number two, and it was called Keeping Rap Dollars in Rap Pockets. So our criticism and exploration around Jay was the fact that he was also a business person. And now that's kind of known in popular culture, and he's looked upon that way and heralded. But at the time, that was pretty radical that he negotiated a deal, him and his partners, with the label where they kind of owned their own music. That was pretty radical. So we chose to focus on that. We also gave Eminem his first cover. That's a fact. That's true, right? Justi did the cover, and we did it like Clockwork Orange, right? So we gave him a top hat with the glass of milk and then Spin Magazine used that very same photo when they did their Eminem cover. And they got called out for it in the trade magazine. So I think we were pretty kind of on the edge in terms of how we were focusing and thinking and exploring the culture, right? So along that time, I met an artist by the name of Danny Hock. And while I was in college, I had did some theater with some friends who were drama majors. And then Danny and I, through the magazine, we supported one of his solo performance plays. And we were like, you know, if you're going to come out with this thing and market it, market it like you're dropping an album. And at that time, you know, the CD thing was like, people were selling a lot of records. So we were like, sell your play like you're selling a record. So he did a lot of college radio, a lot of street teaming. You know, we were in music stores. We did promos. And that really helped kind of that particular production. And he was also in his 20s and, you know, made a lot of money. And then fast forward, you know, the year Stress Magazine made a million dollars the year we went out of business, right? And there was something about infrastructure that I learned, something about business that way. It was a tough nut to learn, right? You know, because you think, oh, wow, we finally made a goal. And, you know, it just kind of imploded, you know? So that kind of, I took that and I'm talking to Danny. He's like, well, I want to do this thing. I want to produce these artists. There's a lot of us around the country that are doing this work. And then we jumped into the hip hop theater festival. And that's how we met well and a bunch of other people. And I think for me, it was always about telling our stories, right? First and foremost. And I quickly kind of abandoned any personal preference towards how that story was told as long as it was authentic and rich and really, really good and made a difference in some way. And that's kind of what's driven me through this point. So, you know, I'm not necessarily an artist, but I consider myself a creative producer. And, you know, one of my heroes is Joseph Pat, for example, right? In terms of, you know, what he was able to do in New York during a specific time. And I didn't have the privilege of knowing him, but I know plenty of people who knew him, you know? So I got to hear those kinds of stories. So anyway, that's been my trajectory where I really, through the whole thing, it's really been like trying to find the edge of the culture and push it, right? So another quick example of something we did was, you know, Danny had gone to Cuba and learned about this big rap festival called Fethival de Rap Internacional, and it happened in East Havana in this housing project called Alamant, right? Huge housing project and for theater, 3,000 people. And we went one year and I was sitting next to a couple of people who were expats and we'll leave it at that. And there was this one group that came up called Primera Base, first base, and the hook on the song, and they were a very popular group, and they were popular, and I was a little disheartened about their popularity because everything else I had seen was pretty radical. There were lots of duo, like male-female groups at the time. We just had the Fuji's and that was it. And we saw like multiple female-male groups or female lead groups and I was just really, I thought that was amazing and I was really encouraged by that. Then this group comes out more traditional, right? You know, a lot of mugging, a lot of love, and they were trying to obviously be something that they weren't. And the hit song was Iguacatu, like you, right? Roughly translated. And so the hook was Iguacatu, Iguacatu nigger, a nigger like you, that was the hook. And it was really, really bad for us to hear that, right? Because it was no context for a bunch of young Cuban brothers to be using those words, you know? And it was completely inauthentic, right? So that prompted us to then start organizing and bringing artists to the festival. And we brought a lot of artists to that particular festival. Most, Ty Leib, Common, Tony Touch, Dead Press. And we were specific. So we organized a concert in New York that was a fundraiser and then we would bring artists to Cuba that participated in that particular concert. And we would raise a lot of money and we would put the money into the productions themselves and then also some political prisoner funds. So we were doing activist work in the context of that thing. And we figured it out in terms of what we wanted to do. We developed a vision and a strategy and then we executed it. And that was pretty transformative. So, you know, I keep trying to do that with the work. You know, whether it's hip hop at this point or just other work, you know, I follow a blueprint that works for me and my particular craft. I'm hoping that we can jump more into, and I think you might have some questions first to prompt us. Or, you know, my question might be for everybody, why are you here today? What are you hoping to learn? John Lee became just like my other heroes, with John and Bob Kennedy. I think they all made a similar fate by corrupt government. I just, you know, see, I don't know, a lot of self-absorbed behavior with artists across the board. And it really, you know, to me, I would like to see a shift. So, like, we all share the same concerns about the CIA, the NSA, social inequality. And, you know, is that something that's addressed? You know, do you feel like, you know, showing a compassionate side or a socially active side? You know, the only hip hop analysis to really revolve around that, you know, KRS-1. I don't know if I see the same thing now. I see, just to give my personal opinion, more like a, you know, a self-absorbed and selfish attitude, like, I'll get mine the hell with the rest of whoever, frankly. And I would like, you know, my personal vision is to see that, you know, to champion intellect or compassion or social awareness. And I don't know how that travels along the lines of what you guys are doing, but, you know, that's always been my concern or desire is to see something different that, you know, because we're all, you know, we share, like, the same everything and, you know, that I would like to see a shift in that direction. It's a great, you know, like, I'll give a quick story. You know, I was a coach and, you know, I'd be a basketball coach and people would listen to me and not the teachers, you know, because I'd dunk the ball, whatever, you know, and the same thing that I see, like, you guys have a way to get a voice out in a perspective to young people and when it's displayed in, you know, like a compassionate, intelligent way, it's like, that's kind of cool, you know. I grew up in a work-class neighborhood where you talk about, all right, poetry, you're in a fist fight, you know, so we all did the same kind of nonsense as men and, you know, I just, I, my desire was to see more of that and I know you guys share that same vision, I would imagine, it's just like, what's the working mechanism to get there or is that, you know, like, in any, especially with males, you know, to try to display that different way of being for the good of all. I, it's, you know, I definitely don't have the definitive answer but I hope to explore part of the answer with the young people that are here in the room based upon what your interests are and what you're looking to realize, right, because I think, you know, I was fortunate in that even though I grew up in a rough neighborhood, the art that I was exposed to was right there on the street, right and it was accessible, always on the train, right, so I, you know, the train would come by and we were able to follow stuff, like, and I think the accessibility has changed because you have access to media in a completely different way and the kind of artists that you referenced, the Charis Wands and some others, they're still out there, they're not propagated or popularized via the mainstream media or corporate mechanisms but because you have the internet still as a neutral place, as a place that isn't restricted quite yet, you know, you can get all of that stuff, you know, you could, you could see amazing art from all over the world, right, you can hear amazing music from all over the world that's completely authentic, right, so I guess my, you know, so I'm really here because when you're asked us to be here and you want to explore a particular issue related to you guys and I'm hoping that we can get into that by just saying if we can answer some of your question in a real specific way related to y'all, again, I think that would be part of the answer. I just real quick, I just want to echo that I might go on a limb here but I think there's more positive things going on with hip-hop and youth empowerment and stuff now than it was with KRS and that kind of stuff, it's just you don't hear about it as much, you know, like this is the intimate gatherings going online but whoever you're equivalent would be in Oregon might not know this is happening, you know what I mean? So I feel like a lot of those people that came of age in the late 80s now they are the teachers and the leaders, you know and there's a ton of them of hip-hop artists, activists and all kinds of work all over so it's happening all over, it's just kind of like what Clyde said, it doesn't always seem like it because at that time, you know, KRS Public Enemy, what have you, they tend to be some of the more popular mainstream artists where I think you're right in terms of the mainstream hip-hop artists maybe they're not in turn on that that vibe as much now, you know what I mean? But yeah. I'm interested to that y'all brought up social media and earlier, Will, you were talking about how hip-hop for you was a community gathering and to me when I think of theater, I think about people like this in the same space and time exploring community or these issues, right? So how has social media as a platform a neutral platform for accessibility also impacted that idea of community in person? Like how has it been helping hip-hop theater, hip-hop culture and how has it been, I guess taking away from it or being more harmful? Well, I would say just you guys are at an advantage in a way because I feel like you could, you know have a free South Station with cats in Europe you know what I mean, like live you can communicate in ways that we could when I was coming up in the early 90s we, like I said the real big push was to try to get signed to a major corporation because that was really the only way really outside, you know we could be local but if we wanted to get our stuff out all over the world there was no mechanism to do that you know and even local, like I used to help run this nightclub in the Bay Area in the early 90s and like we used to sneak downtown to a friend of mine, give her all the flyers at her office job and she would run them through it's still the postage because there was no other way to get the word out, it seemed so like arcade now passing mailing lists around so it's just I think that the ability to get information out there is just really profound, if you have a voice that's really powerful and authentic it's easy to get it, or easier you know what I mean, the medium exists to get it out there, so I think that's really exciting, I think the challenge we were talking about this last night is just trying to retain the specialness and the sacredness of the live community gathering and I think sometimes that can be really challenging for young people because it's not as much of a knee, you know it's all here often, you know what I mean so a lot of times we can potentially miss out on these kind of interactions there's some, there's an energy underneath when people come to a theater show or a community gathering that's beyond even what's happening on the surface that we miss out if we just do the internet stuff, you know so I think, you know, how do you maximize the technology, maximize the social media and at the same time retain some of the, this kind of organicness too, that's where it's at for me Yeah, I come from Minneapolis and I come from Minneapolis and my association with hip hop came through seeing artists that were of my generation and utilizing the technology that had fun of them, you know like the it seems like every 10 to 20 years there comes an art form that the older generation is mystified by and they're using tools at their disposal, you know you look at jazz bebop, big band rock, it was all people picking up things that were new like an electric instrument and I remember when turntables were people's trash and so people picked them up and made them in a new thing and it seems like the hip hop is ingrained in our culture like punk rock and even though people can't really admit it or acknowledge it in a lot of ways unless you capitalize on it that as a cultural medium it's continuing our exposure and our ability to transmit meaning through word song, beat and I don't know if I have a question per se other than looking at the next step, the next generation, I'm looking at what are they going to come up with that mystifies us at this point right I'm looking forward to it as well I'm looking forward to following to be honest with you and supporting if I'm invested in any tenets that I learned from the universal zoom nation in Africa and Bombada it's like each one teach one and those are some things I live by that helped me survive that's one of them I don't have all the answers I'm definitely ready to fall in line one time authenticity it goes back to authenticity I feel like with hip hop or whatever the next thing is going to be for you young people here whether you're a lyricist, a musician a filmmaker or whatever what is the Ashfield style right now the western mad style western mad style the four of them the four of them the four of them I know that sounds crazy but again I'm trying to tell you when I was coming up in the 80s to be an emcee from California it was like you know what I mean California is a pre just before Drake before all that stuff you'll never be able to imitate Brooklyn like people from Brooklyn I do a lot of youth work with this kind of thing I do a lot of work with hip hop artists a lot of work with theater artists internationally and a lot of times I'll be in South Africa or Europe and they're like okay let's just it's natural initially when you're into something to imitate that's natural you're going to go to a certain period of invitation as a young artist but then how do you get that authentic voice to not necessarily just talk about things locally but to capture an aesthetic and an essence that is the essential thing of what your community is and who you are if you ever listen to like old school ice cube or too short even me from the film war in San Francisco my work is if you're from there you can really get a certain it epitomizes a certain segment of the history and culture of that place and I grew up there so it's like I know the stories and I can articulate in a certain way that kind of epitomizes that energy I've come essence the storyteller agree all of that area not just me but that's one element there might be a gangster element that's more the harder elements you know how do you do that and like that is the thing what does it mean what is the musicality of Ashfield what is the what is the energy what are the local idioms and then how do you fuse that in with hip hop and that's where you not only get that authenticity but that's where you get the respect worldwide because people are like they're doing something that epitomizes that energy that energy in western Massachusetts like Steve is the you know what I mean of course you know just a slide stone in the late 1960s you know that was the Sanford that was hate Ashbury that was that didn't make any sense so it's not something that the easiest thing to do overnight it's not the easiest thing to like you know I'm gonna make it up right now but it's just being open to the energy and continue to articulate national international issues but then also looking locally because hip hop ultimately even though it's a global phenomenon really at its core it's a neighborhood functioning music firm it's hyper local even Jay Z he's talking about his neighborhood where he grew up and he's doing it in a way that has universal appeal to people all over all over but it's the storyteller the essence of at least for the music bar is the storyteller in her or his community using the local to look at issues globally he's talking about police brutality he's talking about locally in your neighborhood but then other people are getting it that's true of dance too there's so many regional dance forms that are that are contemporary you know breaking is old it's still very popular it's on television there's lots of battles and competitions all over the world you know but when you look at Chicago you look at New Orleans when you look at the west coast you know all those forms are reinterpretations of a very ancient need to move our bodies and to kind of tell our stories physically you know what I'm saying so whether young people know it or not they're still connected to something that's very ancient and deep and it's the disconnection right to your point sir that you know I think part of what we want to foster more right which is why I think it's we need to be open as older elders it's just to connect and say hey I'm not trying to tell you what it is but you know let me show you this right because it looks a lot like what you're doing just so that you know whether you choose to do something or not you make that connection if you choose to yeah but it's just real quick just to piggyback on today and I think deep thing like you ever see like traditional folk dances where they're like hey that was so in the sea like you know what I mean it's just things that come out of the experience it's the same thing with hip hop dances it's really deep like you know like you said hip hop was created in New York but some of the like the popping which is like this stuff and the locking was west coast so all this stuff the way came from California no duh you know what I mean so all this stuff that didn't come from Brooklyn all this stuff that came from that was California you know what I mean and even within that there's like popping like in the bay I'm just saying in the bay area we'll really want to pop no I'm not going to pop pop pop but in the bay area for example I'm not going to do it there's just kind of a line there's a line dance you know where it's kind of like you know I do that you know then you do it you know what I mean and three people do it and then we kind of like it's kind of almost like a kind of a jack in the box kind of kind of dancing style you know what I mean all these kind of cats doing this thing and I found out where it came from and I found out where it came from was this dance group called the black resurgence and they were the black panther party's dance group and so they would come out and they would do like kind of march you know like pre S1W type stuff and out of that the brothers in the 80s later on started doing like hip hop style dances that were you know but it came out of a specific local political movement movement meaning political movement also dance movement that these black resurgence did and the brothers copied that and created that you know what I mean so all this stuff of agriculture or the way people move here how do you turn those into dance moves and that sounds crazy I'm not saying like a hip hop cow you know but I'm saying I'm saying it could be you know like I don't know I don't know but the point is that is the authenticity I'm talking about physically instead of reaching into that locally and creating art from that you know what is that just back in thanks I'm curious about the historical knowledge that current like practitioners of hip hop have you know like how that relates to authenticity because I feel like it's so specific to the historical context that it developed in and every sort of like stage along the way especially complicated by the mainstream appropriation and it changes the meaning of hip hop is yeah just about like I didn't know that about the black panthers it makes sense but is that commonly known like where the roots and routes of these these things go it's a really great point right because I know with a couple of the forms right let's say with breaking you know just as as one form or dance in general because it's in your body right it's primarily oral so it's like oral based knowledge sharing and it's very master apprentice right and visual arts like that too so often times you know the story it's like I started practicing so and so took me under their wing and then gave me an outline right and I started looking at these folks and I hope that was so and so and then they gave me an outline right so the record recorded the music is different you know there's a lot of scholarship around music there isn't a whole lot of scholarship around the visual arts or graffiti and dance Joe Sloss wrote this book Dr. Joe Sloss C H S C H L O W S Sloss wrote this book called and he really did an excellent job he's he's like a musicologist by training so he did a really good job of breaking down like the science of breaking and he managed to do it without pissing anybody off which was quite a feat he didn't get beat up he didn't get threatened none of that stuff which usually happens the the elders who do have kind of like the knowledge and you know they hold on to it and they don't not everybody's giving because they've been exploited you know so they kind of that you know there's a lot of reasons why you don't just give it up right they're like kind of full masters you know you got to prove yourself so there's more scholarship work to be done by by far I think yeah yeah I would say there is a lot out there but I would also say that by the time from those books started being written the beginnings the forms were already done you know what I mean true so some people are still alive but it's almost like they weren't there was no scholars kind of so there's even disagreement in New York about who created what you know what I mean this kind of stuff because it kind of was happening you know and so it's kind of like there's a lot that we don't know even though it's a modern art form just because people were doing it to make any sense people weren't necessarily kind of kind of reflecting on it yet nobody by the time that happened even if we start having late 70s that was already already Renny Harris produces a great festival in Philadelphia called the Legends Festival where it is a forum for that kind of knowledge sharing to happen in practice but the important piece for Renny it's that it's embedded in practice it's like there's also there's this skizzle between the practitioners and the scholars because it is very much a one way sort of relationship it doesn't have to be but oftentimes it is in that positive vision here and then back here and then we got some okay great so many great points are being called up and I wanted to sort of contribute part of a story that really pertains to all this authenticity to regional style to the ebb and flow of how people even create their craft I go so far back that my contemporary sound was the last poets that you know and and their connection even to the Panthers and to that whole time period I'll just let if there are young folks in the room I guess that means I'm representing the old folks in the room and that's good connecting the 60s and this tumultuous time it was it wasn't just a time of poetic awareness it was dangerous it was in your face it was brutality there were deaths Kent State do I need to say more but in all this I entered the circle as a musician and so to me the big arm wrestle was over music and world music and so that interest took me to West Africa and suddenly as I'm there for the for the music and the jazz and the connection suddenly I see young hip hop things happening and what I realize is that there's a lot of imitators it's all Brooklyn in West Africa and suddenly there are a few who are the griots the contemporary griots so for going back to the ancient it's pretty much about as ancient as you can get the storytellers of Africa and these young folks are you now they're you I see it in them and I've had the great put pleasure and privilege to work with a lot of these young folks one group was called Gokbe System Neighborhood System how much more can you get and what they did was they integrated ancient almost forgotten West African string instruments with traditional drums and then it was all greats I knew just enough to understand they weren't they were saying their own unique story and eventually they taught me and so here I am the world musician guy you know world music thing and here they are the latest latest and I say let's bring them to America so they get here and I pile up a pile of CDs and go look welcome to America here's a little booklet to take you somewhere so it's Miles Davis oh yeah they heard of that Pharaoh Sanders not so sure John Coltrane heard but don't know last poets oh we know them I'm like wait wait wait wait wait no this is underground you're from Africa I mean you're good you're sharp you're knowledgeable you're all that you cannot know the last post this isn't that even right they're laughing at me their English is basic and finally they say you know I dare them well fine who are the last poets go ahead and they go first rappers you know I go the judges will accept that answer because they had it I knew what they were doing and I said how do you know them they said well if we if we're gonna really enter something then we have to know how it starts wow so you have partners in this world like that and and then you know group after group but these were these guys were ridiculed what are you doing this is bush you're calling up the old like you're bringing a banjo to get to jazz well yeah you can bring anything there so they took some ferocious heat and did it anyway and so I guess what I want to say is that this is a world phenomenon and while at first some of the less daring copied what they saw I agree well that you copy this is a great place to start go ahead it's a great thing but as soon as you go I think I know what's going on all the rest has to be you and I love what these young folks did and so here they were at my house literally watching MTV and they're sort of fascinated they're tilting their heads kind of funny and I'm going look whatever else you remember from what I say I'm just gonna say one thing that's useful MTV needs you more than you need MTV and they just sort of laughed and but now now we know and these cats are doing it now right now and it's men and women it's all this you're talking about so you have some international brothers and sisters and and please make this link because if global citizenship is going to save us and really that's what's going to happen you know not protect America protect the planet these cats are on and you're on to them and this is this is so good thank you man we're going to go to Nick back here and then we're going to go to some of the questions we have uh via how around two questions for you guys which is one is about style and one is about function which is uh just in exploring and learning how to play musical folk traditions I hear a lot of my elders saying please don't record this when you're learning it and they were making the point that when they used to learn songs that pre radio they would go to the dance and the only way to learn the song was to take back what you could remember of it and then the accidents and the ways in which you would put it together became your own style so I have a question about how to grab an authentic style when you have the internet and you're watching things always to get your information in an isolated context especially a rural context and the other one was for Will which you said it started because it had a specific function for you personal function and then you saw it have a social function Clyde where you were living and I have a question too is like what happens when this work doesn't have a social function or a function and it's just being done as a that's a I don't know that many hip-hop artists whether mainstream or community driven that it didn't at the beginning have some kind of social function that have longevity I know some hip-hop artists that came out and it was more like you know they have like one hip but the mainstream artists all the ones even the big popular ones Jay-Z they talk about that a lot and it was a social function for them survival, getting out the game communicating with other burrows you know what I mean so I think it always has that for the most part I mean again there have been some commercial things but I think it always has that in some kind of way doesn't have the same kind of commercial functions you know I think it's always been that and the other part do you want to answer the other you know it's tough for me to answer Nick because I'm not built that way you know what I mean so it's even hard for me to kind of like step outside and say well and not be crass even you know I think when it doesn't have a social function in with respect to music right you end up with minstrels that's like sell a lot of records and do a lot of you know and I hate to just be down on it but that's the only but that thing that also doesn't have longevity I mean how many guys have heard a candy man no one knows what that is right he was huge in 1991 they were born in 1999 that's my point the people that you know from back in the day or even now the ones who comes out of that community social function they might not define it that way but that's what it is yeah me and my boys to stay same we were freestyle you know what I mean and we were freestyle against other neighborhoods and like that's a social community function that's a survival aspect you know what I mean the ones that didn't do that it's more like we're gonna jump online real quick and get to Carlos and then I saw a hand up over here so we'll address some of our folks who are participating in the stream Carlos and then see how it's just over here there's a few comments coming from online I'll just pass one of the a question or I can't think of the word she's from Chile she lives in western Massachusetts she writes I'm really interested in how the power of hip-hop is expressed in rural context and in international or transnational context which that question could be also for you guys but also could be for some of you guys who live in a rural place even if it's Greenfield and some of you even come from other countries so how is hip-hop expressed in a rural or from an international place that that's how you understand or if that's where you're from anybody anything else in there you wanna put out there and then we'll go over to yeah this is over here there's something also unrelated about wanting to hear about how women and their contributions to hip-hop culture and hip-hop theater wanting to hear some of that okay great so can we hear from you then Carlos we can go to you is that cool well you touched on a lot that I've been very sensitive about I live in Greenfield I've been there for about five years I moved from Vermont hip-hop and that whole culture has really changed my life it's very prevalent in Greenfield it's a big thing everybody's bumping music down the street and you know we all have our favorite jams a lot of what I've noticed recently is that it has become of all about the media all about the paycheck all about the money and the image and you're talking about how um you put him on the cover with the blunt and the bulletproof vest and he had this big image and um that's what's being portrayed now and I see a lot of this happening in Greenfield and Franklin County with people my age with friends that I know heroin's very prevalent and it's taking over massive amounts and it reflected in the communities and I hear it in the songs I just went to a Hobson concert not too long ago they had a couple local artists ripping four on three, four on three put your hands in the air it's just it's become a big party scene I feel like the music in Massachusetts at least for some of the people that went up on the stage that I saw locally every single song he started would put your hands in the air I'm doing girls and doing drugs not getting caught by the cops and it's become this facade of I can get away with whatever I want I'll be okay and like I just I feel like it has no meaning anymore and to me hip-hop has always been a story every music any type of art is always expressing a motion story to get something across to somebody else and it has none of that for me anymore in the mainstream media at least and I just it hurts because it's art to me is a beautiful thing and I feel like it's not art anymore this is where the opportunity is almost every music form is a response to something else every theater we just talking about the regional theater movement was a response to Broadway and how that was not addressing the needs of communities nationally hip-hop was a response because at that time on the radios and stuff like that it was not reflecting disco it was not reflecting what was going on in the communities so the opportunity is how can you all how can you as a supporter as an artist member as an artist how can you then say well what do we want to create that's a response to this bogusness that's happening you know what I mean according to you I'm not saying it's bogus I'm saying what you're saying it's a response hip-hop theater was a response to that on stage there were no I wasn't seeing anything that was reflecting what was going on in my community in my generation you know and so it was if there was people doing it I probably wouldn't have done it because it was no need it's already done well you know me so artists that's that's part of our responsibility it's your responsibility to respond to be like okay I don't like that you know what I mean so you don't have to necessarily diss it you can but say okay well what am I going to create because chances are if you feel this way there's a like-minded community in this area that feels the same way you know I don't think you're the only one feeling that so how do you galvanize that community to create something new this is the first time I've ever experienced anything like a conversation like straight up about hip-hop about this in a community like I go to school with and he told me about this and that's why I'm here because it's about the community it's about talking about it and like I've never experienced this and like up until recently I've been kind of trying to get out there and experience different cultural things and like do different things experience different things and like I've never had an opportunity to actually sit down and say I don't like that this is happening and like how do I change it but me now is figuring out how to change it and how to push the boundaries and how to get there because like there's the the March of Miles LP2 just came out and that for me is changing a lot of the hip-hop game that just like made me smile when it came out because it's just everything has the same beat same drop and it's a good thing but it doesn't that doesn't that doesn't it changed it I understand I mean there's more I want to know how I can change it but first of all you guys can start with like a weekly or you know what I mean once every two weeks you get together you play music together you know what I mean write rhymes or just discuss it can be put together a party that's you know you know what I mean once a month you put together that plays music that you are more you know you can be active in that way you guys one thing you do have a lot of people you have space it's a lot of space here that's it that's it that's it that's it that's it find the space to do something you can do a like you can do a generational thing where all the people come out young people and like when you're bringing your hip-hop music they're bringing their jazz and you do it like a weekly jam session just to see what what is out there like those kind of things will spark new new things you're not alone in how you feel all right guarantee it I'll put money on it you're not alone as a young person in this community about maybe your frustration with some things right so the thing is how do you get back into that and to start the sixties were not the sixties were not you know universal wave of resistance it's probably somebody who knows the percentage it was a small percentage of people and the rest and the rest of the music was just grooming along doing whatever and whatever it was never remembered and the rest of it is you said sliding the family stone yeah there we are that was a commentary it stuck the last poets that stuck you know the rest of it so your sense of it's just me on here yeah in the sixties that's how it fell to a big chunk same challenge you know stand up and just you know grab the wheel drive the car where you want to go I just want to say that as I'm listening I'm listening to a lot of I'm hearing you guys talk about what was happening what what was happening in the hip-hop was like pertain to where it was coming from and what was happening where you guys are from so I want to just talk about like what is happening around here what what do we got well for me it's about access like you can't get anywhere if you don't have a car if you don't have a car you still got if you have a car you still got to get gas it's one problem after another one and then who are you going to meet up because nobody answers a phone when we get together right we freestyle right we freestyle but like and then like I mean it's hard to get get together around here and like when we get together where I can understand like that's our release our party you know like we want to have fun you know we came all the way out here this is like you know a lot of fire like outside or like you know so there's a lot of space but it's a lot of emptiness too there's a lot of like isolation happening bring it together think about all the things that are filled within that space so I mean who here is doing stuff with hip hop so raise your hands raise your hands hi though hi now half way raise your hands what are we doing I'm part of a local hip hop group kind of up and coming it's me and a good friend of mine two years ago two friends of ours from the second county tech school over here had decided they wanted to start doing their own thing they didn't want to label themselves as hip hop they wanted to label themselves as indie hip hop they don't think that their actual hip hop are even today is like the Lil Waynes, the Rick Ross, the Birdman all of them they wanted their own type of style which kind of originates from Hody Allen, G-Eazy, Maud Son and that kind of inspired me and a buddy of mine who we have both been writing me since I'm 18 he's been writing since I was 13 he's 20 and he's been writing since he was about 13, 14 decided we want to do our own thing and our two buddies wanted to help us out and we decided we have our own inspirations and we have some of them are the mainstream artists like Eminem for personal one a minus TI but then a lot of the underground artists some of them that have been making their names quite known Tech9 being a big one, Chris Calico Chris Webby and they kind of inspired us to want to do something of our own thing and what we've actually done is we've created more of an inspirational hip hop group we have we actually had just recently back last month put out our demo on SoundCloud and some of the songs that were supposed to be more of either the ones that hit home the ones that are inspirational or the ones that are the good vibes like positive energy those are the ones that people say we really like the song, we really like the song we performed at the Roadhouse in Millers Falls back in the end of December and we had we probably performed in front of 150 people and we ended up getting a standing ovation first time performing on stage and they liked what we did and we've even got planned that we're already working on future work both as a group and as solo artists and we're actually going to be performing again next month one of them one of the bands performing alongside us being the runner up contestant in Battle of the Bands for Warp 2 where last year being Sienna and potentially we might be playing with the band that beat them beneath the sheets and it's performing both hip hop and rock saying like hey motivation comes not just from hip hop is this whole genre singing dancing rapping all this and then to be able to incorporate that with the rock world where that's a lot of stories they address a lot of problems like some bands that do it very well of all different genres offspring rise again, surge tank in the system of a down and it's basically being able to intertwine both of them saying how our rock and hip hop the same that's kind of inspired us to drive wanting to do what we do keeping able to have people be inspired not exactly make it big but at least be able to say that hey we have a word we have we have what we want to say we still want to have fun while doing it but we want to get our message out and there's positive reviews we're not trying to be like the next young money cash money superstars or the next shady record superstars we're trying to take what we're doing independently and even if it's just we're state known and actually have people say hey there's all this stuff going around in like New York where you've west coast where it's all gangsta rap or then you've got down south where there's like crunk and stuff with little John and everything have New England be its own thing and be more than just all that I mean just meet my buddy and then our two friends it's basically an independent hip or a hip hop group and a hippie hop group so it's the best way to put it, happy lucky stoneers just saying good vibes it's trying to intertwine like saying that there's a lot more to what there actually is behind it that's awesome that's interesting just to interject practice generosity I don't think I need to say that but I think that's an important kind of like you know successful kind of thing like put people on right so you know that's definitely something I practice where it's like I try to be as generous as possible and say oh yeah you let me do you know well you know or maybe I will power is amazing or you should really know you know or I'm doing this thing come with me you know you should check it out and I think in that you know constantly be advocates for yourselves and who you represent so advocacy also like being as vocal as possible and like we've had people come by saying like hey we want to do stuff with you we want to do stuff with you and me and my friend have actually sat down and we're saying they're thinking it's we're as much of a hobby as this is we're really trying to be serious about this and we want to make sure that you if you want to do something with us you're as serious as we are where we may be all fun and games outside but as soon as it comes time to stand in front of a microphone it's all jokes assigned time to be serious and we want to make sure that whoever we're talking to we have some friends that are great local MCs that we want to work with and we know they have the dedication and we have some people that are we know want to joke around and it's basically biting our lip like we really need to see if you're dedicated or not absolutely I love the idea of doing this I'm doing this sound what about you man what you working on I manage a couple of rappers from look around here one goes to UMass the name's Danny and the other one the other one is Ternors that's cool yeah yeah yeah like I set up shows I mean personally I want to rap too eventually but you know I got to work on it a little bit so but they're actually really good they couldn't make it I wanted to bring them but a lot hip hop basically is my life I don't know where I would be without it honestly and like touching on points about them being the money and stuff if you come from where a lot of these people come from it's completely different it's hard to explain life is just completely different I'm adopted and I grew up here my whole life but recently I just went with my biological family and it's like completely different life to them so like music and stuff like looking for different things like money to them is so much bigger than like I could even imagine like the selfishness like they honestly like they're only looking out they're looking out for themselves for a reason because nobody really is looking out for them to feel so that's where like a lot of the selfishness comes from where a lot of these artists like that's where it is like when you see them being egotistical and selfish to them that's just them creating for themselves and oh and then earlier I heard someone talking about social media and how if you're not authentic how do you like get that authentic authenticity but yeah authenticity but realistically with the social media there's so many so many people trying to do it now you're not going to get seen unless you're authentic like people like all the videos I look at like I'll just if I don't think like right off the first 10 seconds it's not something that stands out to me I'll just skip to the next one like literally I go through like probably 50 different new songs a day I go on how to hip hop and just look up to rap songs like that's what I like to do and like if it's not appealing to me right away I'm not going to waste my time listening to that there's so much more like there's like millions of songs honestly that get dropped every day and the question that I had was somehow addressed but then after I hear you now and I heard you I wanted to deepen it because I think that my question to you guys for me I came from a city Buenos Aires which has similarities to New York and other ones where you need to be really smart to get away to get out of it so you're mostly escaping for a long time here it seems that the form of art that you all are facing and the big challenge is how do you get together instead of getting away so in that and this is my question to you how do you get together and this is not not hopping into a car and getting to how do you get together but no I know but how do you get together in person whether it's about hip-hop or about is there any possibility for you to get together differently we need to be able to put ourselves outside of that study room and make it more public because we're behind closed doors we need to be able to put it out we only have a specific group that we can share similarities with we haven't been able to find other people even though there are a bunch of them out there it's just hard to bring us all together I guess figuring out who we would want to bring together is most of the issue because well if we don't have a space at school we can sit in a park or whatever but it's also about quality yeah it's probably what you bring yeah it's about figuring out who you want there and who you don't I really don't want to hang out with the crackhead over there like I'm gonna teach you something though just don't smoke with me that's the other thing sometimes you can find people that maybe are aesthetically different you know what I mean you don't want anyone disruptive but just be open to it it might not look the same way but it might still be some linkages there so it's like how are you getting together but also then what are you doing when you get together what part of it and are you making something between yourselves to kind of go outside of that comfort zone because that could become a little bit of a bubble we just kind of connect so how do you kind of say alright now we're going to stick our necks out and try to do this thing and see if it works when you do kind of develop a consensus around a vision to do something I think that sounds like almost at the cusp of that place where like the focus needs to get to alright so now we're going to organize a thing and we're going to see where that goes from there and there's enough of you here and you know so impediments aside right in terms of the resources a little lack thereof the car, the gas and those things focus on what you do have right and then start from there right I mean you know which might not be a lot but a lot of people have done jumped off that way so we have somebody back here and somebody in the back over here I'd like to, I'm another one of the older people in the room in case you hadn't noticed just jumping on to what Carlos is talking about we have a theater in southern Vermont we're a presenter so I think I'd like to just throw into the conversation what the role of public space plays faith in hip-hop culture and a lot of interest in hip-hop culture has ever been a moment where that has sort of been tested where there's been like a song or an artist who just made me like why does this belong in the culture how do you sort of regain your focus and belief in that I'm curious about this there's probably two numerous examples that's my short answer but let's try to keep things moving and I know the online thing there was a couple of questions about women in theater and the hip-hop theater movement and I have to say that the idea to pull the festival together I don't think was original because there was already work happening in the UK Holly Bass had written an article in American Theater Magazine she's a longtime friend and colleague and he's a Davis who is a very accomplished playwright and actor wrote an article in the source called Hip-Hop Theater New Underground and that's where I saw these names like Will Power and Hip-Hop Theater Junction and that gave us the idea to do the thing so you know my longtime collaborator is in addition to Danny Camilla Forbes who was a powerhouse director who founded Hip-Hop Theater Junction she's working on Broadway right now associate directing a piece I think one of the things I enjoy about my work on the theater side and hip-hop in general hip-hop brought me to this place but theater in particular not so much the industry stuff the commercial stuff but this space is the inclusionness and the equitability as a thing that you guys to continuously practice with each other you know that makes me want to sort of ask in really explicit terms because I think the question about how the hip-hop culture is connects in a rural place how it connects to those who hover in a transnational you know place what are the what are the essential aspects what are the pieces of hip-hop culture that are in the spirit of it right that are so important in or become important in a rural place for those of you growing up in a rural place or in for those of you who didn't but who are practitioners how does it land for somebody growing up in a rural place what are the essential explicit pieces of it that are meaningful you talk about the intimacy or the equity that takes place in it so is this question explicit and clear? I would ask in addition are there any aspects that don't apply you know because I feel like you know hip-hop is poetry it's metaphor so even if you not live next to the projects maybe you are there's something metaphorically in there that often times connects to what people are going on really how they feel isolated you know what I mean yes but that's not that I mean this is a great point because it's different for people it's different in terms of how they take it they might I know for some of you poetry Nico and I were talking about this my son here loves hip-hop loves the wholeness of it the multitude of it poetry wouldn't be identifiable necessarily in that so how do we understand it through a specific to the hip-hop culture I'm not saying that it's not poetry I believe that it's mostly how it gets differentiated and how it gets but yeah I mean it's interesting like I said for me it's like it's metaphor it makes sense so that's why for me I'd be interested in what you're saying and also are there elements that don't connect because you know I'm not from New York but there's never been an artist I've heard who's good that don't connect with all the elements I may or may not not know where the L train rides but I can connect it to something because the metaphor is deep that make any sense there are artists today and I'm looking forward to hearing some of the music because there's artists that are 19 years old that are young that for all intents and purposes I should be related to but it's good music and it's good art and I'm into it so I listen to it I mean last night I was I was putting Will on I was like yo check out this we're on YouTube and I was like yo people Afso he's down with Kendrick and I was just kind of throwing things at him that were speaking to some part of the conversation so I'm very much I've always been that kind of person you know what I mean in terms of just going out it's tough man I don't know how to answer that question in terms of you know but I just feel like it's like again the piece yesterday right I wasn't around in the 30s and 40s and 50s the piece you guys did but there's an energy underneath that is true that's why someone from rural China forget rural Massachusetts can't get into a hip-hop record they might not even get the language they might not even speak English but there's an energy underneath that speaks to true and that's to me what I think links the city with the rural with America with international with those kind of things now there are challenges like if you don't know some of you repeat the word you don't know what it means I think yeah I just want to connect real quick to this idea of public space too because I feel like for me in my creative trajectory it's always been a multi-generational meeting point to create this work you know in the Bay Area there were some mentors I had that provided space oh here's the 60s you know what I mean that provided guidance it was our thing you know what I mean but they were always there to support vision or guidance or whatever of course you know Jim Nicola New York and you know really helping that come up was just huge it was different generations having the conversation not one being right or wrong and it was the art on stage was newer generations creating it but it was always intergenerational in the mentorship and in the progression of the art that's always been really really key and in hip-hop especially just as much I would even say more than some art forms definitely just as much in the essence of it is a multi-generational conversation because the sample is real key you know and obviously you can in jazz you can hear ragtime and rock and roll you can hear the blues that's always been but in hip-hop it is done well and you take the essence you actually take Rachel you don't even like take Rachel you take Rachel and the MC is having a dialogue with their elders and their ancestors that's in the essence of the DNA just as much as not more than other art forms so I think this idea of different generations connecting has been key and I think for whatever you want to do I would say that don't be afraid to reach out to the elders we already offered that's key to your understanding that's an asset that you have here too so just understand your assets more than what you lack you know recognize what you have it's this person here that to your point of like how to connect poetry and this particular this particular form of music give a hip-hop performance for Romeo and Juliet and you have never seen them like that yet try and make Shakespeare dance hip-hop he died how many hundreds of years ago like you can bring everything from a time that has already passed and bring it into a performance or a beat like it just changes but it's still the same thing you take that very essence and change it if you mind me saying I would also say that hip-hop is part of that it's all a continuum the root is West African beats and music but there's also a Western root in hip-hop you know what I mean there really is within the language within the rhythm of the language I don't think it's strictly an African root I might be kind of going on a limb there but it's I feel like from what I look at Shakespeare I think this is a continuum clearly some of those Olympian poets were rugged they were the Ray Ponds maybe Shakespeare wasn't but Marlode they were gangsters but you know they were more like the last poets let's say no I think they were more like Ray Ponds they were like I'm not saying that I'm saying I'm saying there was a rough they were close to the source that's what sometimes can make hip-hop kind of dangerous it's close to the source it's reflection but it's close to the those of the Lithuanian poets were close to a new energy I'm not trying to make too many leaks but you know Marlode was killed in a knife fight a lot of them were killed in raw fights you know what I mean you said what about rough Shakespeare wasn't as rough but a lot of them were roughians you know in South America in Peru, Argentina, Brazil Uruguay I can name other countries the combination of the African culture and the Hispanic and the immigrants and the indigenous they created a form in the 1800s that was very similar it's called Palladas and it's a dual but the dual needs to be set in decimals so the beginning of the dual begins you need to be smart enough to use the words to challenge your opponent and that then led to a dagger fight that always would end up with somebody dead now it's like what Jack Will said let's not think about dead in the way we think about because we don't know what that was about those people were wild people but it's very interesting to me that this that I told Eugenio many times you know this that I hear on hip-hop now in the 19th century they were already doing it it is the African beats turning to words with rhymes yeah and the potential is with hip-hop you can have the aggression without obviously the violence so some of these cats they carry the aggression but it's like how do you do it with metaphor to the trans kind of continental identity where specifically hip-hop theater festivals co-producing international hip-hop arts and cultural festival at the Kennedy Center that opens on March 28th so in three weeks, two weeks, whatever it is I'll be in DC for those but it's dance, music, theater visual arts hybrids, forms a lot of it is going to be streamcast you know a lot of the performances are free and there's work from all over the world there's like feminists trans-gender African Arabic, French Spanish and just kind of pointing to the commonality and the power of this thing to kind of like what's the baseline and it's really just like all it is is an exploration it's not even definitive it's just like this is three weeks and this is just kind of a sample of all of this stuff you know but I think it is under that spirit of you know the commonality and to your point about global citizenship you know I like to say that I think hip-hop is the first culture of the 21st century you know, I think in terms of my experiences and how I came up and I believe that especially now with you all in this generation too we just literally brought up the West Africa and the big conversation was the N word in Africa you know, can you hear it and Abiyodun is looking at these young people and he said to them look, you know his generation and mine for that matter as an African-American he was saying to them I work hard to be the African brother and my African sisters we work so hard and here you are being the original you are in the place where humanity was born and your legacy is there and yet you can't find in your language to use my African brother and my African sister you got to say my nigger and you don't get what that means it was a beautiful conversation Young Paul from London his name is Dean Atah ATTA and he just did a residency at Paul Quinn College which is in the south side of Dallas and he has this poem called I ain't your nigger and it's an indictment on the use of that word but there's a line and I'm only going to paraphrase about how we're scared to use the word brother or sister which changes the game when you use those words because you know it really changes things and that's a bigger issue that we don't have to kind of but it's the power of language the power of words and the intensity of it behind it you know that's a bigger conversation yeah so I don't know how much more time we had the other points back here I wanted to say on the whole concept of how you get together is that I feel personally in the valley here that there's several communities that have come together and have been born out of people passionate about I gotta find space to practice I gotta find space to do my art and I gotta find collective people to do it with and like double edge is an example of that I come from earth dance it's a bunch of dancers going out on a farm figuring it out themselves there's serious community, there's yoga communities I'm really curious like what would it be like for hip hop artists to come together buy an old farm and throw down together and like really work on their craft you know and that that question is maybe how it needs to happen find a space and I like that anybody else? back here my thought was just about what Will said about Shakespeare and Matt and his question about international communities and just what you talked about the underlying rhythm and for me just listening to the disparate comments on that it just sounds like the common thread people who were died for their art and are dead without it they're just a bit I just can't imagine any artist talking about the generational thing not connecting to that so whether they even embraced what was happening on the stage if they see somebody that has that passion that to me would just seem like common thread you know for y'all trying to figure it out here I mean yeah do take best practices take what you do have and work from there and then try things and don't be afraid to fail like fuck up make a mistake it's cool keep going you know because I think back to this authenticity it's like you gotta come with your truth you gotta find that voice and all of you will emerge as eaters and you're all respected right you know what I mean and that's the bigger issue right so I know what my long term investments are I've developed that clarity but it's taken 40 plus years at this point to kind of really fond tune that focus so you gotta keep working on the answers can I say something too and the thing that I'm really excited about is that you all can help lay foundations or hip hop and beyond in this region for generations we don't have that opportunity in Brooklyn those foundations are already laid does that make any sense those people we still have work to do with California but the foundations are there but you guys can lay those foundations for a whole I'm not trying to lay heavy stuff on you I'm just saying start with the poetry start with the poetry and everything when you come to something look at this farmland people lay these foundations this place is going to live on for generations this is incredible you all can lay similar foundations for your aesthetic, for your generation and lay it in a way that you want to see so that that energy the energy of the founders of anything is still there it's really hard to change that energy around you can build on it, you can reform it you can edit it you guys can lay some foundations now it's not like this it hasn't been hip hop for 30-40 years you all can be the first to lay it down very very powerful and embrace the business side not everybody is going to be the rapper bro we need managers, we need organizers we need the master planners you know I'm just saying you're the one who said that's part of what you do so if you're good at it you're good that's very key actually anything you want to close with anything? close with I hear the part about the sample I feel like where we live right now we find that practice of taking something that we've heard before and repeating it so we are very open to the past generations we do hear it because we have the samples we heard it in this way we may not get together and do the live performance like I don't walk down the street and somebody I don't know what happened but I still when I play music Jaquel showed me this guy, Chance the Rapper who's from Sasa to Chicago where I've never been before in my life but through what he says I saw it and also I saw things that he was doing that I was doing out here in the sticks there's a song called Cocoa Butter Kisses where he just wants love from his mom but he's off smelling like cigarettes and stuff and I was right there right there on that same plane but that's the thing we see samples from different places, we connect to them but they're all different and we see the differences too we go through and we look for our authenticity and I see like Flatbush Zombies these guys had this huge beard this multi-colored thing going on and the frills were all spiky and weird but I was like what is that? we're open we're open and we have the access to all the different types of stuff so all we gotta do is come together and make it happen I'll be watching you thank you there's some coffee and tea, there's some food and again, let's hear it again for our amazing guests Clyde Valentino and Will Power