Teaching. Convening. Presenting. Hip-Hop.

Remixing the Art of Social Change: A Hip-Hop Approach 0

November 16-21, 2010

Below each workshop or event you will see a version of the following key (Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth). This is intended to suggest to you who this workshop or event would be most appropriate for.

Day One Event

Tuesday November 16th / 12-5pm
Josephine Butler Center
2437 Fifteenth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20009

Building an Agenda for the Cipher
As a registered participant in this year’s teach-in, you are now part of the Cipher, the membership arm of Words Beats & Life. This agenda-setting meeting is intended to identify three to five priorities for the Cipher. Over the last few years, a number of national and international hip hop gatherings have developed what were intended to be national platforms out of which hip hop activists were to work collectively to promote lasting social change.

The Cipher’s membership is currently made up of 250 organizations, artists, scholars and activists who have attended past teach-ins. The number of members is expected to grow this year because the teach-in is expanding beyond DC to San Francisco and Chicago. Our goal in establishing a three to five point agenda is to set goals that Cipher members can work to achieve in the next one to three years. These are short-term goals; they are not intended to right every injustice in the world, but rather to play to the strengths of this field. We should select three to five priorities that are inline with the work we do within this field as a means to organize our collective energy and effort to increase our individual and collective impacts in our communities.

Night Events

6pm-7pm
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
2700 F Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20566 Millenium Stage
This event is free and open to the public.

Global Hip Hop Concert Featuring Nomadic Massive

7pm-8:30pm
Lincoln Theater
1315 U Street N.W. Washington, D.C.

Panel Discussion and Book Signing Featuring Common and Kurtis Blow
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, in partnership with Words Beats & Life, will present a roundtable discussion on the emergence of rap lyrics as a social, political and cultural currency worldwide. The panel includes hip hop artist and actor Common, rapper and producer Kurtis Blow and editors of the new book The Anthology of Rap Adam Bradley and Adam DuBois. The event is free, but tickets are required and may be picked up at the Lincoln Theater box office Monday, Nov. 15, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Tuesday, Nov. 16, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information and to reserve tickets call the box office at 202-328-6000.

Day Two Event

Wednesday November 17th / 12-5pm
Josephine Butler Center
2437 Fifteenth Street, NW  Washington, DC 20009

Activism and Advocacy: Building a Hip Hop Activism/Legislative Agenda
This two-part workshop will focus specifically on helping hip hop educators, artists and activists to learn more about the legislative agendas of larger arts advocacy organization. It will include presentations from the Future of Music Coalition, Americans for the Arts.

Part One
Americans for the Arts has an established history of arts advocacy throughout the United States. They will be leading presentations about the role of advocacy, public policy and grassroots level organizing. It is vital that we understand that our power lies not only in direct service or action, but also in the possibilities of advocating on behalf of the communities of which we are a part and work daily to improve.

Part Two
The Future of Music Coalition will do a step-by-step workshop on how to develop a campaign around a specific legislative priority. This is especially important as this field begins to determine what its most pressing legislative priorities are.

Night Events

Wednesday November 17th / 6-9pm
Atlas Theater
1333 H Street, N.E. Washington, DC 20002

The Black August Hip Hop Project Film Screening
The Black August Hip Hop Project strives to promote human rights through supporting and influencing the global development of hip hop culture. By facilitating exchanges between international communities where hip hop is a vital part of youth culture, they promote awareness about the social and political issues that affect our global communities. Their vision is to bring culture and politics together and to allow them to naturally evolve into a unique hip hop consciousness that informs our collective struggle for a more just, equitable and human world. This film documents the movement through a series of interviews and performances with hip hop artists and key members of the black activist movement.

Day Three Event

Thursday November 18th / 12-5pm
Meyer Foundation
1250 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.  Suite 800  Washington, DC 20036

A Hip Hop Approach: Promising Practices for Hip hop Educators
Organization | Scholar | Artist

This is a day for Hip Hop educators to come together to establish promising practices for teaching Hip Hop. One of the major challenges for hip hop educators in school-based and community settings is the challenge of having that which is being taught line up with the academic standards of a particular school district. This will be a daylong workshop designed to establish how to teach the core elements of hip hop and align that with the academic standards of a School District. A portion of the day will be dedicated to helping educators to identify the standards for their geography. Once those standards are found, the facilitator will talk through with the educators in the room specific core content that is inline with those standards that could be part of teaching the core elements of Hip Hop. A portion of the workshop will include in school educators presenting specific strategies for lesson plan development that is inline with core content that is being tested in schools and how Hip hop can be used to teach those things.

Day Four Event

Friday November 19th / 1pm-3pm
Busboys and Poets
14th and V street N.W. Washington, DC 20009-4442

Hip Hop Philanthropy Luncheon
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

There are a number of Hip Hop foundations throughout the United States, all of which are taking different approaches to promoting social change. This brunch is designed to present some of the most effective members of this emerging field of philanthropy to present the work it’s doing. It will be an opportunity for each foundation to talk about the priorities and accomplishments and the successes they have had in the past 3-5 years. As the Hip Hop philanthropic community is physically small but large in impact, this is especially important.

1) Nathan Cummings Foundation
2) Ludacris Foundation
3) J Dilla Foundation
4) Yele Haiti

Night Events

Friday

November 19th / 6pm-11pm
Moderno
12th and U Streets, N.W. Washington, DC 20009-4442

26 WEAPONS
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

Since 1994 the 2DK L.A.B. has practiced and preserved the public name writing tradition in the Washington, DC area. From its roots in Prince George’s County, MD its reach and influence stretched across the country. Now, in its sixteenth year, the collective boasts a membership of over three hundred, in more than twenty states nationwide and continues to grow.

26 WEAPONS is a collection of individually painted graffiti letters on canvas, found objects and antique doors. This collection seeks to simplify the graffiti artist’s formula into an amuse-bouche of graffiti style. Each piece is connected to the next through shared origins, yet at the same time reflecting the endless possibilities each character holds to be manipulated and molded to the artists’ vision.

Day Five Events

Saturday November 20th / 8:30-7:15pm
Walter E. Washington Convention Center
801 Mount Vernon Place N.W. Washington, DC 20001-3614

8:30-9:00 am
Continental Breakfast

9:00-9:30 am
Morning Welcome and Opening Cipher

9:30-10:15 am
Panel  
U.N.I.T.Y.: Visionary Leaders of Our Field  featuring Nominees for Hip Hop Event of the Year Award
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

Hip Hop started with parties in apartments, parks and clubs. Hip Hop has always been about having fun and celebrating, regardless of your status as a “have” or “have-not.” The musical genre has been about making the most out of the least. Over its more than 30-year history, this essence has not changed. In fact, people all over the world have taken the celebratory nature of the culture to a whole new level. Selected by their peers, the speakers on this panel are the preeminent representatives of elements that reflect the best in Hip Hop hop. The panelists will discuss the future of Hip Hop preservations, celebrations, organizations and “edutainment”. As the leaders in this field, we want to not only to learn from what the panelists have accomplished, but to also learn more about their vision for Hip Hop in 2010 and beyond.

Guest Panelists

10:45-12:30 pm
Morning Workshops

Workshop/Panel
All Samples Cleared: Exploring Fair Use
Organization | Scholar | Artist

This workshop and panel discussion is designed to help independent artists, filmmakers, and organizations become more informed about the ways in which intellectual property laws positively and negatively affect the tools at their disposal when creating new work. It will include a screening of the PBS film, Copyright Criminals. This discussion is especially important considering a number of legal decisions have directly impacted the central ethos of Hip Hop, the remix/remake/reinterpretation of older forms. This panel will be relevant for filmmakers, musicians, producers, and the young people training to become any of the three.

Guest Panelists

Workshop/Panel
It’s All About the Benjamins: What About Before the Money Comes?
Organization | Artist

Every organization, program, or event begins with a visionary—a person who sees a need for something that does not exist, or is ineffective in its current state. In our field, we call these people “social entrepreneurs.” Social entrepreneurs believe that because their business exists, the world will be positively impacted. Whether it’s through listening to a woman’s artistic voice, or globally distributing the music of a rural Ugandan boy, visions take many forms. The impacts of individual visions vary but all visions need the resources it takes to catapult the vision from a dream to a reality. This panel is designed to answer the question, “How do I make my vision happen before the money comes?”

Guest Panelists

Workshop
You Must Learn: From University Curriculum to Community Transformation
Organization | Scholar | Artist

The teaching of Hip Hop in a university setting is not a new phenomenon. In many ways, Hip Hop at the university doesn’t just make sense; it makes dollars. However, there is a tension that exists on some campuses between the idea of Hip Hop studies and ethnic studies. One might ask, how can the study of Hip Hop differ from the current state of ethnic studies? How can different groups use Hip Hop studies to work across disciplines, media, communities and nations? What role can the Hip Hop communities that surround the universities play in the education and transformation of university communities?

Guest Panelists

Workshop
All Skools: Bridging the Gap Between Hip Hop Generations
Artist | Youth

As the scope of people affected by Hip Hop culture expands and shapes current generations, the need to engage young people and contemporary cultural consumers in the conversation about “Hip Hop values” continues to grow in importance. As a culture that grew out of the need for underrepresented voices to create their own platform for dialogue and self-expression, Hip Hop communities today are made up of a vast range of age groups, ethnicities, and socio-cultural experiences. Those who fall under the category of “underrepresented” have, in many ways, shifted. The landscape of Hip Hop cultural expression and its effect on the young people living it has similarly shifted. This conversation intends to open lines of dialogue between past, present, and future hip hop generations. It also includes an opportunity for audience members to perform their own original work in the second half of the discussion.

Skill Share
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

12:15-1:15pm
Afternoon Keynote
“I Was There”: Unearthing Hip Hop Hop’s Past Through A First Person Account: A Discussion with DJ Kool Herc
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

As the father of Hip Hop culture, DJ Kool Herc is one of Hip Hop hop’s most important living legends. We are honored to have him participating in this year’s teach-in. Herc has agreed to share how he has seen Hip Hop evolve over the years. He will talk about his life before Hip Hop and life in the South Bronx then and now. From his account, we hope to gain an understanding of the role Hip Hop pioneers have played in media reform, cultural preservation, and shepherding in multiple generations of Hip Hop hop’s leaders.

1:30-2:30 pm 
Lunch

2:30-3:15 pm 
Remix Awards
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

3:30-5:30 pm
Afternoon Workshops

Workshop
Read a Book: Hip Hop in the Classroom
Organization | Scholar | Artist

In the aftermath of the Bush administration initiative, No Child Left Behind, and the emergence of new Obama administration initiatives like Race to the Top, schools from coast to coast are looking for new and innovative ways to improve test-taking and aptitude. Hip Hop educators, on the other hand, have been diligently working in schools and in communities to develop culturally relevant pedagogy that would engage students of various backgrounds in their own education. To this effect, it is understood that the foundation of virtually any education is literacy. Among our guest speakers, we have educators who have developed multiple curricula to meet the literacy needs of our community in community- and school-based settings. The second half of this workshop will be dedicated to reviewing the standards developed earlier in the week for teaching the core elements of Hip Hop Hop.

Guest Speakers
Gabriel “Asheru” Benn, H.E.L.P.
Marcella Runell Hall, Hip Hop Guidebook

Workshop  
Get Up, Get Out: Doing It Yourself (DIY)
Organization | Artist | Youth

This workshop is designed to take new entrepreneurs through a step-by-step process for building a for-profit or non-profit corporation. This two-part discussion includes all the things that the audience expresses a desire to find or use to build their business. The audience receives assessment tools, web-based resources, and “common-sense” tools necessary to build one’s own business.

Part One

Part Two

2) Candace J.Mickens, Ubuntu Management Consulting Budgeting
(organization budget, event/program budget, cash flow)

3) Tyrone Norris, One vs. Many Technology & Brand Building (web, social media and print)

Workshop 
Be Healthy: Cultivating a Healthy Work Culture & Performance Space
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

Facilitated by AJ Robinson, Symphonic Strategies
Are you overworked? Underpaid? Sick and tired of being sick and tired? Well, you’re not alone. According to reports issued by the Meyer Foundation entitled, “The Courage to Lead” and “Ready to Lead,” most non-profit Executive Directors would never be one again. They cite unreasonable fundraising goals, poor support from their boards of directors, long hours, and poor salaries as major reasons for this trend. As any doctor, mother, or friend will tell you, if your mental health is compromised, then your physical health is sure to follow suit. An unhealthy Executive Director will usually create an unhealthy work environment. These trends are also commonplace for too many independent artists and educators. Everyone wants to know how to create an environment that youth, employees and artists can thrive in, and this workshop will show you how.

Workshop
Locked Up: Juvenile (In)Justice…The War on You(th)
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

Facilitated by Malachi Garza and Katina Castillo from Community Justice Network for Youth
The prison industrial complex has been one of the most devastating tools used to impact the poor and people of color in the United States. The juvenile justice system is one of the newest manifestations of the punishment industry. Come learn its history and what organizers and activists are doing all over the United States to reform it, and in some extreme cases, shut it down. Learn what you can do to keep your students, their friends, and family members out of jail.

Skill Share
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

5:45-7:00 pm 
Closing Panel
Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em: More than a Movement
Organization | Scholar | Artist | Youth

We can see that Hip Hop is global in its reach, and few people talk about how that global reach impacts hip hop itself. This panel is dedicated to understanding the ways in which people and communities domestically and globally are transforming hip hop and making it personal. The incorporation of traditional, regional-specific instruments and tools in the production of Hip Hop hop’s cultural artifacts is remaking and remixing how hip hop will look, sound, and feel five to 15 years from today. What does and how will hip hop look when it returns to us?

Guest Panelists

7:00-7:15 pm  
Closing Cipher
MC’s, DJ’s, and B-Boys/ B-Girls

Night Five Event

Saturday November 20th / 4-10pm
The U Street Music Hall
1115 U St N.W. Washington, DC 20009-4442

Top Notch 2 v 2 B-boy/Girl Jam
$1000 prize
On the 1′s & 2′s:
DJ Fleg
DJ Franco De Leon

Day Six Event

Sunday November 21st / 11-2pm
Social: Restaurant and Bar
1400 Meridian Place, N.W. Washington DC 20010

Leadership Brunch at Social (co-hosted by Bloombars)

Remixing the Art of Social Change: A Hip-Hop Approach0

Day One Event

Night Events

Day Two Event

Night Events

Day Three Event

Day Four Event

Night Events

Day Five Events

Night Five Event

Day Six Event