Thug Life Army

On Saturday February 11, 2006, the Hip-Hop Association will participate in the third annual NYC Grassroots Media Coalition Conference (NYCGMC) at New School University.

During a workshop, titled “Using Hip-Hop for Social Change Workshop”, Rolando Brown, Executive Director of the Hip-Hop Association [H2A], will detail the organizations founding principle; facilitating, fostering, and preserving Hip-Hop culture. Rolando will explore how this approach to community organizing is supporting the work of a variety of individuals and organizations that utilize Hip-Hop culture as a tool to encourage critical thinking, social awareness, educational empowerment, and unity.

The conference seeks to address pressing issues of representation and diversity within the NYC community. A projected one thousand students, activists, media makers, community workers and artists will convene in Manhattan for a day of more than 40 workshops, do-it-yourself (DIY) trainings, discussions and panels. The 3rd annual GMC will house a community art exhibition and film screenings presented by the H2O [Hip-Hop Odyssey] International Film Festival, the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, Urban Visionaries, Media That Matters and Third World Newsreel. The conference boasts a youth track of panels for its expected 300 participants under 21 interested in learning more about media production and strategies for realizing change in their communities.

“We are proud to be involved in this year's Grassroots Media Coalition Conference. This event's dedication to forging relationships between independent media and communities organizing around justice and equality is very much in line with our own mission of using Hip-Hop and media to promote community building, social awareness and change,” says Mona Ibrahim, Director of Community Partnerships & Preservation.

The Third Annual NYC Grassroots Media Conference in New York

11:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m: Using Hip-Hop for Social Change | February 11, 2006

New School University | 65 Fifth Avenue at 13th street, New York, NY

A workshop on the founding principles of the Hip-Hop Association [H2A]: facilitating, fostering, and preserving Hip-Hop culture. The workshop explores how this approach to community organizing is supporting the work of a variety of individuals and organizations that utilize Hip-Hop culture as a tool to encourage critical thinking, social awareness, educational empowerment, and unity.

Topics include: The 5th Element - Knowledge of Self, culture & community; Supporting those who exemplify the Hip-Hop Spirit; Keeping it “Fresh”; Building Money, Power & Respect; Using new technology to organize & communicate; Fusing social art and business; True intergenerational and community involvement; Uniting the global Hip-Hop community; etc.

2:40pm-4:10 pm- The Hip Hop Association Presents | February 11, 2006

New School University | 65 Fifth Avenue at 13th street, New York, NY

The Beat Back Bush Workout

Director: Jazzmen Lee-Johnson

Producer: Rhode Island School of Design/ Brown University Collaborative | 18 min.

A captivating and satirical multimedia project that invites people to exercise their minds, bodies, and rights. It is an educational, informational, and motivational video that seeks to ignite the Hip-Hop Generation in their fight for social justice.

Inspired by music videos and other contemporary media, the video features dance, kickboxing, yoga, jazzercise, break-dancing, hip hop, animation, original spoken word and music. The video addresses a plethora of issues and policies including: education, abortion, drug policy, globalization, the war, gay rights, civil rights, and prison issues. While challenging the state of our country, the video also challenges the state of mainstream hip-hop by sampling from rap songs and artists largely viewed as misogynistic, and re-writing them into revolutionary songs of protest performed through the voices and bodies of hip-hop generation women.

Bling: Consequences and Repercussions

Director: Kareem Edouard | 13 min.

Bling: Consequences and Repercussions tackles the issues behind Hip Hop’s obsessin with diamonds and the continued illegal diamond trade in Africa. Kanye West’s music video, Diamonds from Sierra Leone, introduced the topic of conflict diamonds to the urban communities. Bling looks to further educate the Hip-Hop generation about the murder and carnage caused by the world’s greed for diamonds.

Reading Between the Rhymes

Director: Keith Morikawa | 27:58 min

Hip-Hop possesses an influential power over youth, which remains widely unrecognized as a tool of education. The artists of this culture are speaking a language the youth can understand and will listen to. Does Hip Hop have enough attraction to motivate learning in the classroom? Reading Between the Rhymes explores the efforts of a growing number of educators who use Hip-Hop language, dance, and music to improve the educational culture of American schools and hears from those who are opposed to Hip- Hop within academic space.

SlingShot Hip-Hop: The Palestinian Lyrical Front (Trailer)

Director: Jackie Salloum | 5 min.

SlingShot Hip-Hop is a documentary film that focuses on the daily life of Palestinian rappers living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel. It aims to spotlight alternative voices of resistance within the Palestinian struggle and explore the role their music plays within their social, political and personal lives. Coming 2006. For more information, visit www.slingshothiphop.com.

Sun Up Till Sun Down: No More Prisons

Director: Tania Cuevas-Martinez | 22 min.

A lively documentary produced by the Prison Moratorium Project about their campaign against the construction of youth prisons and the growing movement in New York to end imprisonment. Imaginative techniques of conveying the startling reality of the prison industry make this film engaging as well as informative.

About NYC Grassroots Media Conference

The first NYC Grassroots Media Conference in 2004 was convened by a collective of volunteer media activists in response to the outrage over the 2003 FCC attempt to further deregulate the media industry and the public’s desire for a more democratic media. The 2005 Grassroots Media Conference drew 800 participants. The annual conference is part of a continued effort to dialogue and strategize how local media makers can be more accountable to and inclusive of the diverse communities of New York City. The NYC Grassroots Media Coalition is a project of Paper Tiger Television in collaboration with May First /People Link, North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) and the NYC Independent Media Center.

For more information visit www.nycgrassrootsmedia.org