beautifying the city that i call my (second) home.

Some more graffiti for a Tuesday afternoon. This time, this one has a personal touch. A part of a project to beautify Detroit, artists got together from around the globe. Featuring the talents of big names such as the king Revok.


The Detroit Beautification Project. Chapter 1 from TheSeventhLetter on Vimeo.

the girl pt.2 - ian kamau (city and colour cover)

My homie Ian Kamau is back for the second part of his look at the City and Colour track The Girl. Kamau's new album, One Day Soon drops tomorrow. Be sure to get it.

This video is as visually breathtaking as the first one. Great work by one of our own.

flash mob at manifesto

Shortly after I arrived at Dundas Square a couple weeks ago, I heard this went down. Sorry I missed it. I think I was walking along Queen West at the time. I still would like to take in a real life flash mob someday.

manifesto sunday

Try to hit this up this weekend if you're in the downtown Toronto area. If I get back home in time, I'm for sure going to try to take this in. For more info check the site.

ckln lives. for now.

Thanks to the thousands of people coming together who signed petitions, made their voice heard via Facebook, Twitter and on Blogs, the CRTC has decided to give life to Toronto's CKLN. For now. This afternoon, it was announced that CKLN granted stay of CRTC Decision, will remain on air pending the outcome of CKLN’s motion for leave to appeal. This will give the community voice since the early 80s time to get more people behind them in their struggle to stay on-air. In the memo, a station rep was quoted by saying, "CKLN’s history, role and mandate are crucial to this city’s non-mainstream artists, journalists and to several different communities."

The public can help CKLN by going to www.ckln.fm and signing our online petition which is linked from the homepage, currently 5241 signatures and counting; writing to the CRTC and their MPs, whose contacts and a letter for this purpose also inviting the writer to inform the MP why CKLN is valuable to them can also be found on the homepage; and urging friends, family and colleagues to engage likewise.

toronto's tribute to haiti in lights

old deth throw in old ad..

fauxreel

doo doo rock..

diggin'...

Beat Diggin Art Form Documentary
Real hip hop at its finest, Real producers, none of that keyboard swizz beats garbage.
REAL DIGGIN IN THE CRATES
SHOWING YALL HOW ITS DONE!
REAL HIP HOP
Legends talkin about and showin yall real Diggin in the crates:

innerhaze.com relaunched

Eric Haze, former 70's graf artist from NY, is known as the grandfather of Hip Hop style. He launching one of the landmark clothing lines in the early 90s that later was known as one of the inspirations that gave urban streetwear its name. Haze has finally relaunched his website over here and it's worth a good looksee. I visit it sometimes to just get inspiration. True story.

ain't no love t.o. tees

These are hot. For more check out Goodboy Clothing

roadsworth

Roadsworth is coming to town. For more info check out Manifesto's website

she loves me..

Back in the day when I was a teenager ,
Before I had status, before I had a pager,
I found hip-hop and fell in love with the hits
and though I’ve grown up yeah I’m still pumpin it’

When I fell in love with Hip Hop music and knew SHE had made an imprint on my life, I wanted to give back. I wanted to do something to represent the culture I was falling in love with. I wanted to pay back my imaginary friend. The one who was beside me through many teenage down times. I tired to break dance. Tried for a while, but then my back surgery happened. Had to quit. I wanted to get into radio, so I thought the next natural step would be djing and in a way, I kinda was. I didn't spin but I would make mixtapes with my collection of tracks I picked up from the tape store and stuff I would get from the radio. When I tried to actually use a turntable, I sucked. Never got the hang of it. I then tried to graf. Did that for a while. Love it still. I still bomb once in a while and I use the knowledge I picked up from that in my paintings and graphic art. As a writer, I thought I would be a great emcee. However, I can't freestyle. Last weekend a friend asked me to drop a flow. Couldn't. Ask me to write a paragraph about my day? Sure thing. I can do that. No problem. But ask me to rhyme it out over an impromptu beat at a house party half wasted? You gotta be kidding. For a while there, I thought I had disappointed my friend in the dark. I thought I couldn't give to her as she had given to me. I thought I was a bad friend.

During my confinement of companionship from the culture, I realized that Hip Hop never asked me for anything. Just to be there. It's that type of friend. She never wants anything. Just knowing that you care is good enough. When she was with me when I heard some tracks and lyrics that hit me because they were so true, she realized how much I cared. How much I would have loved to appreciate her more by giving her back something. To this day when an emcee spits a line about the culture I still get teary eyed. I still want to sit down and wonder why this nonphysical life form has effected me so much. But then I remember it is physical. It's physical in me, you and everyone else who practices the culture. The DJs, the emcee's, the graff artists. The breakers. Hip Hop is alive and well and physical in many life forms. Just listen to KRS One speak. That's Hip Hop right there. Kris is just the messenger.

Most recently MC Serch known from his days with 3rd Bass, rhymed a rhyme that gets me every time I hear it. It goes like this;


I am Hip Hop music and I use it to get by
and this culture accepted me for the skin that was on me.....

When I hear a line like that I'm reminded how much love I have for her. And how much she didn't care that I didn't really have anything to give her. Maybe just being there and appreciating the beauty she possess' is good enough for her. Maybe she just needs acceptance back. Maybe she needs us to love her. I think she might need that more than ever.


She knows I'll be there..

stop the violence

three generations of urban portraiture

A night to look at three generations of the urban world from the perspective of three renowned urban photographers including Jamel Shabazz. If you're not too educated about the work of Shabazz, check some of his stuff below.

subway art: 25th year anniversary

The Bible of the Graffiti Movement

columbine left its indelible mark on pop culture

Good article from CNN

The massacre of students and a teacher within the seemingly safe hallways of Columbine High School reverberated so strongly that its reflection can be found in the creations of multiple artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers over the past decade.

"It wasn't the first school shooting, but it became the extreme case," said Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "The word 'Columbine' became a word that represented something much, much larger than that particular high school."

Columbine, in some ways, represents the broad insecurity triggered by extreme acts of violence.

Littleton, Colorado, is as picturesque as the set of a family film.

And thanks in part to the 24-hour news cycle, the world witnessed scenes that appeared to be out of a movie: bloodied victims escaping through windows and frightened teens scurrying to safety as law enforcement descended.

Film critic Desson Thomson said films such as Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" do not have to reach far into the American psyche to tell a tale of horror in a post-Columbine world.

"Columbine is now a little like the way 9/11 is engrained in our cultural perspective, so that something like 'Elephant' doesn't even have to directly allude to it," he said. "Because we were so immersed in Columbine...the filmmakers know that the audience has that reference point, so it doesn't take much to even poke at that for all of that dimension to come swimming through our consciousness."
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"Elephant," which won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, dramatized a normal day at a high school that is about to become the scene of a planned mass slaughter by a pair of friends.

Television shows such as "Law & Order" and "Cold Case" also delved into the lives of fictitious teens on murderous rampages.

But music is the one medium that seemed almost primed for an interpretation of the day's events.

Shock rocker Marilyn Manson weathered speculation that his songs may have influenced the pair of young murderers. He addressed the issue in a Rolling Stone magazine article in 1999.

"When it comes down to who's to blame for the high school murders in Littleton, Colorado, throw a rock and you'll hit someone who's guilty," Manson wrote. "We're the people who sit back and tolerate children owning guns, and we're the ones who tune in and watch the up-to-the-minute details of what they do with them."

The spotlight on Manson didn't discourage other artists from referencing Columbine in their songs, music videos and lyrics. Genres from rock to rap reflected on the tragedy.

Manson himself released an album titled "Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)" that contained songs alluding to the massacre.

In the single "The Nobodies," Manson appeared to reiterate statements from his first-person piece in Rolling Stone with the lyrics "Some children died the other day, We fed machines and then we prayed, Puked up and down in morbid faith,You should have seen the ratings that day."

Music, TV and film were not the only media that reacted to the shootings.

In 2005, an independent video game developer released "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!," a role-playing game that allowed users to imagine themselves as the Columbine gunmen and act out the violence.

Scott Steinberg, publisher of DigitalTrends.com, said the game is not indicative of the game market as a whole.

He pointed out that that 85 percent of video games are rated "E for everyone" "E10 plus" or "T for Teen."

Fewer violent video games are being produced today, Steinberg said, despite the perception that the industry mostly produces "spray and slay" entertainment.

"The industry is becoming a lot more sensitive in realizing that we have a medium that reaches more people than ever," Steinberg said. iReport.com: How did Columbine affect you?

Littleton, Colorado, was also very much on the mind of bestselling author Jodi Picoult when she came up with the idea for her popular 2007 novel "Nineteen Minutes."

"I have three children and I was watching all of them, at different points in their school careers, being bullied," she said. "It got me wondering why, in a post- Columbine world, we haven't figured this out yet."

Picoult's novel told the story of a bullied, alienated high school student who commits an act of violence. Records have since been released disputing that Klebold and Harris were outcasts or the targets of bullying.

Picoult said it was powerful for her to speak with Columbine survivors. She received a standing ovation from families in Littleton during a book event held there.

"It was really moving," she said. "You realize that the people who want to talk about it the most are the people who lived through it. The one thing I think we have learned, and the one thing I thing pop culture is good for, is the more that we see it pop up, the more we are reminded that this is a worthy subject."

look at this fucking hipster

Hipster is a slang term which appeared in the 1940s. In the 1990s and 2000s it was used to describe young, recently-settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock, independent film, magazines like Vice, Clash and Adbusters, and websites like Pitchfork Media.[1] In some contexts, hipsters are also referred to as scenesters.[2] The term is sometimes used in a derogatory manner, referring to someone who moves from trend to trend while claiming to be outside of mainstream culture.

Thanks to Ryan for the Link.