For anyone in or around Montreal this weekend, be sure to hit-up Concordia’s 5th Annual International Symposium on Hiphop Culture. While hip hop heads will feel at home here, I would particularly urge those of you who are naive about the history and significance of the art form to attend. If you think that hip hop is only about angry gangsters promoting violence, then this is the place for you to be re-educated. With films, performances, discussion panels and lectures given by experts in the field, it promises to be a significant event.
Canadian Floor Masters. Image/canadianfloormasters.com
JoC picks
All of it. Seriously. The lectures and screenings are free! Pack a lunch and make it an all day affair. I tried to pick highlights to list but they were too numerous. But…
If you do anything, make it the keynote speech (Sunday@6).
Entitled “BluePrint for Life: Social Work through Hiphop” the lecture will be given by Stephen Leafloor of the Canadian Floor Masters (Canada’s oldest Bboy crew, and my first introduction to breaking over a decade ago), and will discuss BluePrint for Life, the CFM’s creative consultancy which develops “programs throughout Canada’s north and in Canada’s inner cities specialized in the education, guidance, and development of youth through the positive elements of HipHop.” (Check the news reel below).
Other lectures include: “Youth and ‘Cultural Citizenship’: From Islam to Rap;” “Towards a critical Hiphop Pedagogy: The Challenge of Interpretation;” “The Oral Tradition Trail: from Africa to the Caribbean to Rap,” and “The 6th Element: Hip Hop Cinema.”
Check it out!
October 30th, 2009 | 
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