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!
Symposium Website
Facebook Event
The JZ Music Festival (16-18 October, 2009)
In the sprawling and chaotic concrete jungle of Shanghai, it is often hard to find the organic cultural pockets that come so naturally to other cosmopolitan cities. Much of the graffiti on Moganshan Lu, for instance, feels forced upon the walls to enhance the ‘artsiness’ of the M50 art district. This weekend, however, I hoped the chaotic superficiality would calm down for the JZ Music Festival, the city’s largest outdoor music event held across Century Park’s 346 acres. I hit the park in Pudong on the Sunday; armed with sunshine, heat, beers, burgers and good company, and ready for live music and chilling on freshly-cut grass.
The festival’s three stages of Jazz, Fusion and Folk-Rock showcased international acts such as Us3 (UK), Catherine Lambert (Australia) and Florent Brique (France). The latter was mesmerising: two drummers, a beatboxer/vocalist, one organist and a guitarist competing seamlessly with the lead trumpeter in abstract jams in an electro-groove setting. Continue reading Blogging Shanghai Culture
I can’t think of a better way to launch the new site than to tantalize JoC fans with the latest beatiness to come out of Philly. Amanda Blank has worked with Diplo, M.I.A and Ghostface Killah over the past few years, and will be touring North America in November with Toronto’s first lady, Peaches. Collaborating with these major players is sure to put enough cred on anyone’s resume to guarantee a solid following.
Her current tour is to promote her first debut solo album I Love you. She’ll be hitting the UK at the end of this month, with a Halloween-eve show at Proud here in London. Be there—JoC will be!
Check her first single!
It’s not new but it is sweet. DJ Mehdi’s track Breakaway featuring NY graffiti virtuoso Futura 2000 in all his spray can glory. Enjoy!
My first memory of Michael Jackson comes from the very early nineties. The British children’s television show Blue Peter broadcast a brief clip of his ‘Black or White’ video, and spoke comfortably and openly about this superstar whose name had only just started ringing faint bells in my head. I remember asking my mother who ‘this Michael Jackson person’ was, as he danced on a platforms surrounded by native Americans with electric guitars strumming in the background. The presenters then spoke of his new album and his famous glove, and thus cemented this figure in my memory of popular culture.
I will admit that this didn’t, however, cement my love for the superstar: that interest germinated about a decade later. Continue reading Memories of MJ
October 30th, 2009 | 
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