The True School Park Jam Series is becoming one of my favorite video documentaries around. This is a trailer for the upcoming episode which will feature Afrika Bambaataa, Kool DJ Red Alert, and The Original Jazzy Jay reuniting on the wheels of steel for the first time in over 25 years. If you like this, check out the last episode featuring Biz Markie and Kid Capri.

Big ups to Mark Carranceja and Noisemaker Media for sending this video over. This is their most recent episode of The True School Park Jam Series featuring Biz Markie and Kid Capri.

Distrakt is one of my favorite underground emcees. Recently, he’s been doing a lot of work with Sedgwick and Cedar. This video walks you through his newest creation, a FREE downloadable interactive study of the history of hip-hop. Dope and educational.

Right underneath the image, in stencil-like lettering, the poster tells him: “Grandmaster Flash played the records they clapped for/ back when the dancefloor was packed at the Black Door.”

“I was like, wow, I didn’t know he was from around here,” said Mr. Arzu, who, at 19, is too young to remember the days in the ’70s when that artist first started entertaining crowds at a small club on Boston Road, just a block away, called the Black Door.

The poster did not exactly announce where the Black Door had been, but Mr. Arzu gathered it must have been nearby. Mr. Arzu, who lives in the Forest Houses, a public housing project in the Bronx, had seen similar posters of the hip-hop artist Fat Joe in his own neighborhood, where he knew that artist had grown up. He figured the posters in his grandmother’s neighborhood were doing the same thing, commemorating a local legend.

Mr. Arzu had no idea who had put the posters up, but he was glad they did. “It goes to show that when hip-hop started, that a lot of greats came from here in the Bronx,” he said. “It makes me proud.”

The origin of the posters, which were posted last November in 10 historical hip-hop sites around the city, is not exactly what you would call street. Claudia Burnett and Masha Ioveva, two multimedia artists at R/GA, a digital advertising agency near Times Square, were inspired by a request from the Bronx Council on the Arts (which ultimately had no hand in their project) to generate a digital experience for the borough that would celebrate its culture. They decided to create posters that would showcase the hip-hop history of the Bronx, and that would also invite passers-by to add their own rhymes by text message to Bronxrhymes.org, creating a virtual space for rhyming battles.

The two women, using funding they received from a digital arts organization, hired a designer to work up the posters, and asked a work colleague, an informal hip-hop obsessive named Steve Caputo, to work up the rhymes. The two women had approached a few hip-hop artists, and one did deliver a few. “But Steve’s were better,” said Ms. Burnett.

The humor in their devotion to the project wasn’t lost on Ms. Burnett. “There we were one Saturday morning, three white girls, two of whom are Bulgarian” — Ms. Ioveva, who is Bulgarian, brought a friend — “out there wheat-pasting posters, driving around in some Mazda rental car,” she recalled.

The making of history is one thing; the memorializing of it is another, and the people responsible for each contribution often have little to do with each other, except, ideally, a mutual appreciation.

But it can be a tricky, redundant business, bringing history to the people who lived it. A sign in Morrisania pointing out that Grandmaster Flash used to live there must feel, to a lot of its 40-something residents, a little bit like a sign on Pennsylvania Avenue pointing out that President Reagan used to work nearby. Did Hakim Milton, a 44-year-old man walking down Boston Road, know that Grandmaster Flash used to play at the Black Door down the street? “Yeah, and he lived right down there,” he said, pointing to an apartment building a block or two away. “And I used to see him play in the park.”

Near the Franklin Avenue Armory shelter, some Bronx Rhymes posters, now tattered, commemorate the time that the rap artist KRS-One spent living at the shelter. A man sitting in an S.U.V. down the street on Saturday afternoon — “Call me Mr. Smith,” he requested — was asked if he had known that KRS-One used to stay there. “Yes, I did,” he said.

How did he come to learn this bit of hip-hop trivia? “I used to see him walking in and out of it,” he said. “I live right down the street.” As much as he admired KRS-One’s work, he wouldn’t say if the posters had moved him one way or the other. “Doesn’t change my life one bit,” he said. “He got out, God bless him. I’m still here.”

The Web site hasn’t exactly taken off the way that Ms. Burnett and Ms. Ioveva imagined it might. So far, they’re not sure that even one passer-by has been inspired by one of their posters to text-message a rhyme. But because of some percolating buzz in the blogosphere about their project, people interested in the subject have sent in a few rhymes. Ms. Burnett and Ms. Ioveva expect the interest will only continue to grow, long after the last of the posters has been torn down or beaten down by weather.

The project may have its physical grounding in the Bronx, where the history is familiar to a lot of the locals, but the hope is that the information it disseminates will go mainstream, much like hip-hop itself, informing, however subtly, the way that people think about the Bronx, about art, and the recent past. “Keeping it real, homeless was his deal,” reads one rhyme posted on the site, about KRS-One. Another reads, “This site is wack, gotta get back, to what is real, ya know the deal?”

Call it historical discourse, hip-hop style.

Source:
New York Times

According to news sources, events on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 are scheduled to include music, performances and lectures by several of hip hop’s founders, and roundtable discussions led by prominent speakers from the hip hop and academic communities. Cornell University Library will host the event, which will highlight the one-of-akind historical materials.

“By paying tribute to those who laid the foundation, we tell our own history,” Bambaataa said. “Preserving hip hop’s early years will help future generations understand the places they come from.”

Bambaataa is scheduled to address the symposium onOct. 31 as part of a roundtable discussion featuring other hip hop pioneers such as Grandmaster Caz, Grandwizzard Theodore, Popmaster Fable, Tony Tone, Disco Wiz and Kool Lady Blue. Select artists will also perform in Alice Statler Hall that evening.

Noted hip hop historians will speak at the event, including authors Jeff Chang and Mark Anthony Neal, associate professor of black popular culture at Duke University. Hip hop photographer Joe Conzo will present his historic images of the Bronx during the conference. The event is free and open to the public.

“We want the community at large to celebrate hip hop’s contributions to American culture through a better understanding of its origins, which are the focus of this unique collection,” said Katherine Reagan, curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts at Cornell University Library.

Johan Kugelberg, a collector, curator and writer in the field of popular culture, donated the materials to the Library. Kugelberg’s book, “Born in the Bronx,” chronicles the evolution of hip hop in the South Bronx, beginning in the early 1970s. The 2,000-piece collection includes the archive of Bronx photographer Joe Conzo, vinyl records and other recordings, handmade party and club fliers, and custompainted textiles by artist Buddy Esquire.

Visit http://rmc.library.cornell. edu/hiphop for more information.

Source:
Frost Illustrated

To celebrate they plans to throw a historic four-day celebration, with things kicking off in New York City beginning Thursday, July 24 with the legendary Celebrity Benefit Basketball Challenge, and will wrap on Sunday, July 27 with the Outdoor Concert in Newark, New Jersey as an official event at the Third Annual Lincoln Park Music Festival.

Since its inception in 1977, The Rock Steady Crew (RSC) has upheld the vision of great b-boys and b-girls who have redefined modern day dance and hip-hop art. Each year, RSC President Crazy Legs coordinates the anniversary.

“Our goal is to always provide the global community with a nice balance of hip-hop that caters to people who support all elements of our culture,” explains Crazy Legs. “This year we will be honoring the legacy of Wayne ‘Frosty Freeze’ Frost, who recently passed away on April 3, 2008. Frosty Freeze was one of the last B-boys who embodied the very DNA of the original style, character and moves that existed when this dance began in the early ’70s.”

In the unsettling social climate of our world today, the Rock Steady Crew bonds as a multi-cultural international family. The anniversary is anticipated each year by thousands of people, many of whom plan their travel, from everywhere across the globe, for months in advance to attend.

“For some reason, hip-hop has that natural ability to bring people together and bridge the gaps that divide us, because of our common interest,” says Crazy Legs. “When people come to the RSC anniversary, it becomes more than the anniversary. It’s a pilgrimage to the Mecca of hip-hop. It’s a way to get in touch with why they got in to hip-hop, and to meet some of the people that help to pioneer this culture. And what better time and place to do it than NYC in the summer time?”

The Rock Steady Crew 31st Anniversary events will include a celebrity benefit basketball game, b-boy/b-girl battles, some popping/locking and b-boy dance workshops, and live performances.

Everything comes to an end on July 27 with the Free Outdoor Concert and Food Drive in honor of Frosty Freeze. The all-day concert is open to the public, and will feature performances from several amazing artists, including The Beatnuts, Buckshot, Craig G & Marley Marl, Sadat X, Soul Sonic Force, Positive K, Grand Master Caz, and DJ Premier, among several others.

“Our goal as Rock Steady Crew is to help promote hip-hop in the best way that we can. Hip-hop is a natural aphrodisiac for social bonding. We all should all see it for what it is, and embrace all the positive elements that it brings to us and spread that hip-hop love,” said Crazy Legs.

Source:
Baller Status

“I had a great time with the crew for this show and am proud we had a chance to showcase the work we do before a national audience,” said Naison, the principal investigator for the University’s Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Naison was interviewed on the Rose Hill campus for an episode set to air in August. Tukufu Zuberi, Ph.D., one of the show’s “detectives” and chair of the sociology department at the University of Pennsylvania, led the interview.

“Professor Tukufu … asked some great questions which gave me a chance to showcase some of the information we have learned in BAAHP oral history interviews,” Naison said. “He asked what the Bronx was like before the 1970s … and what exactly took place in that community center at 1520 Sedgwick that sparked a musical revolution.”

Naison said the segment will feature background and commentary on the conditions that led to the growth of hip hop in the Bronx, including de-industrialization, urban renewal, middle-class flight, drug epidemics, the Vietnam War and arson by apartment owners.

Naison provided the show’s producers with BAAHP photos of the South Bronx before the fires, when it was burning and when President Jimmy Carter toured the area in 1977.

“I definitely had my say over and over again,” Naison said of the two-hour shoot. “Hopefully, some of the more sensible things I said will make it on camera.”

As for whether 1520 Sedgwick Ave. can be referred to as the birthplace of Hip Hop, Naison says yes.

“This is confirmed by virutally every account of the origins of Bronx hip hop, including the latest memoir by (veteran Hip Hop deejay) Grandmaster Flash titled, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash, (Broadway, 2008),” Naison said. “Flash said parties (held at that location) captured his imagination of Bronx youth, and inspired him and other deejays to begin holding parties of their own exciting dancers with pounding beats made from instrumental fragments of records.”

According to the show’s website, History Detectives is devoted to “exploring the complexities of historical mysteries, searching out the facts, myths and conundrums that connect local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.”

Traditional investigative techniques, modern technology and plenty of legwork are the tools the History Detectives team of experts uses to give new—and sometimes shocking—insights into our national history, the site says.

The show airs on WNET-Channel 13 in New York at 9 p.m. on Sunday evenings from June through September. The episode featuring Naison will air in August and October. For other PBS stations, check the program schedule on the PBS website.

Source:
Fordham University Press

In an unusual move, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development has rejected the sale of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a culturally iconic west Bronx apartment building, to a high-profile real estate developing group, saying that the financing for the estimated $9 million purchase price is not viable under the current rent restrictions, according to an announcement made by government officials on Monday afternoon.  

The letter represents the first time that the department has rejected the sale of a building under the Mitchell-Lama affordable housing program for financial reasons.

“This is a precedent-setting move,” Senator Charles E. Schumer said at a news conference on Monday afternoon in the community room of 1520 Sedgwick, the same room where D.J. Kool Herc presided during the summer of 1973, with a musical sound that eventually helped give birth to the hip-hop genre (though some believe that hip-hop had its origins in other parts of New York, like, for example, farther north in the Bronx on West Tremont Avenue, or point to its cultural beginnings in Kingston, Jamaica).

Mr. Schumer added about 1520 Sedgwick, “That means this building can’t be bought for this huge amount and be flipped.”

Housing advocates hope that this rejection will tamper the speculative sales of other Mitchell-Lama buildings that have drawn concern over the last few years as the buildings have sunseted out of their legal obligations to maintain affordable rents. Housing advocates say they have observed a pattern of Mitchell-Lama buildings being sold to investors who then hold on to the building for a few years before selling it again at a substantial markup to other investors.

“We don’t know where the deals will end, but there is no way it could end in a way that is in the best interest of the tenants,” said Maggie Russell-Ciardi, the executive director of Tenants and Neighbors, a housing advocacy group that has been involved with the effort to create a tenant buyout of 1520 Sedgwick.

In a letter dated Feb. 28, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development informed the landlord that “Because the proposed purchase price is inconsistent with the use of property as a Mitchell-Lama affordable housing development,” the department could not approve the transfer from Frank Phelan to 1520 Sedgwick G.P. L.L.C., an investment group.

The tenants hailed the decision as having repercussions far beyond the immediate building, which had drawn considerable attention in large part because of its role in hip-hop.

“It’s not just about 1520, it’s about all affordable housing,” said D.J. Kool Herc, whose family lived in the building after they immigrated from Jamaica. “Every family needs a piece of the American dream.”

The rejection reopens potential discussion for a tenant-led purchase of the building. The tenants had originally been informed in February 2007 that the building was being sold to an investment group that involved Mark Karasick, who was involved in the flipping of San Francisco’s Bank of America tower. Mr. Karasick offered to sell the 100-unit building for $14 million, which the tenant groups say is far in excess of its $7.5 million appraised value.

Now the groups hope that the landlord would be more receptive to negotiation. “I don’t want to give people the impression that we are home free,” Mr. Schumer said. Mr. Phelan’s lawyer did not return call for comment.

Source:
New York Times

In celebration of Black History Month, Grandmaster Flash has launched his new website. The site will offer innovative ways to listen, read, and hear about this legend. As someone always looking to take Hip Hop up a notch, Grandmaster Flash is proud to take his pioneering spirit to the Internet.

Grandmaster Flash’s memoirs, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash – My Life My Beats are slated to hit bookstores on June 10. The book was penned by David Ritz, author of both Marvin Gaye’s and Ray Charles’ biographies. In this extraordinary book, Grandmaster Flash sets down Hip Hop history, for sharing for the first time his personal and difficult life story—along with no small amount of wisdom and experience.

Today, Grandmaster Flash has a weekly show on Sirius Radio, The Flash Mash. The show is a kaleidoscopic mash-up of his tastes, spanning just about any genre from just about any corner of the world. It airs on Saturdays from 5-8pm. Previously, Chris Rock sought out Grandmaster Flash to serve as Musical Director for the groundbreaking HBO Series, The Chris Rock Show. He remained in that role for five years.

In addition to his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—as the very first Hip Hop artist so honored—Grandmaster Flash has been the recipient of many awards, including VH1 Hip Hop Honors; BET’s Icon Award; The Lifetime Achievement Award from the RIAA; and Bill Gates’ Vanguard Award.

Grandmaster Flash takes his DJ innovations into the future by sponsoring what he calls the best DJ fun and friendly digital application in the market today – “Traktor Scratch” by Native Instruments. The program accents the techniques, flips, tricks, and switches that Flash introduced to the world 30+ years ago.

The Smithsonian Museum of American History in honor of Black History Moth has opened its exhibit RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture in which Grandmaster Flash along with other hip hop artist such as LL Cool J, Erykah Badu and Common will be featured. The exhibition opened on February 8 and will be throughout October 8, 2008.

Source:
News Wire Today

An oldie … but a classic!