Tag: Showcase

A ‘Labor’ of Love, Education & Hip Hop

Keepers of the Art kick off 6^th annual Showcase with EPMD, Kid Capri, Dee-1 and more at Lock 3

 

AKRON, OH – It’s that time of year again for the Keepers of the Art Music Showcase (formerly known as the Akron Hip-Hop Showcase), an annual family friendly event celebrating the golden age of hip-hop culture with true school hip-hop artists, youth outreach, food vendors, shopping and live graffiti art demonstrations. Held this Labor Day weekend in downtown Akron’s Lock 3 (located at 200 S. Main St, 44333) the lineup for this 6th-year event is open for all ages and will feature performances by EPMD and DJ Scratch, Kid Capri, Grand Puba, Masta Ace, J-Live and J.Rawls the evening of Saturday, Aug. 31, all for just $10. Doors open at 6 p.m., show time is 7 p.m.

 

“This is the hip-hop event northeast Ohio looks forward to all year. With this year’s lineup of iconic hip-hop figures we would like to invite the rest of the state and surrounding areas to Akron to see what we have taking place here,” said Bay Shaun Seay, special events coordinator for Keepers of the Art.

 

Keepers’ of the Art Executive Director, Ismail Al-Amin added, “In the midst of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, hip-hop culture is often misrepresented and demonized. It is time to honestly examine and re-define the images of Black and Brown people in mass media. One way that this can be accomplished is by restoring diversity of content and imagery via radio and television. The Keepers of the Art Music Showcase does just that. It provides a nostalgic look back at “Golden Age” or pre-commercialized rap music when individualism, diversity of image and artistic freedom was the rule, and a time when it was impossible to put all Black and Brown youth in a box and label them violent, under-educated and degenerate.”

 

To kick things off, Keepers of the Art will also be producing the “Teen Forum” television program that deals with the everyday issues impacting teens and attempts to bring them into a positive light to uplift and motivate the teen audience and viewers. The first taping of the Teen Forum will take place on Saturday, August 31 at the Buchtel Community Learning Center. Topics of interest are – popular culture and the media, education, history and culture, mental health, criminal justice/penal systems, family, drugs/alcohol, teen sex, youth violence and civic engagement. Special guests for the taping will be hip-hop artist and former educator Dee-1, a native of New Orleans, LA and Columbus, OH native, J.Rawls, a hip-hop producer. This event is not open to the public.