Snap Shot Press Release: Whats The Word on Milwaukee Hip-Hop Week?

Scrolling through our social media feeds, we often find things that interest us, whether it is a status from some old soul dropping gems, pictures of a dope new shoe collabo, or the flyer to an event hosted by any of our local favorites. There is always something to explore. But when a post stating, “Hip-Hop Week MKE...Common Council Support” (or something of that nature) flashes before your eyes, you stop everything!

“Who is responsible for this!?!”

Has the “culture” really found its way into City Hall? Is this actually a “real” thing, or a scheme? 

CopyWrite sat down with Milwaukee’s 7th District, to get the word, on what’s really going down with Milwaukee Hip-Hop Week and what the initiative means for our community as a whole. 

---

Putting Milwaukee Hip-Hop Week on the agenda is a no-brainer from Alderman Rainey’s perspective. As a fan of Hip-Hop, he claims that having conversations about it and understanding the culture is indeed “a part of the lifestyle.”

Some have heard the news, and it has left them a little standoffish about government being involved in its cultivation. Rainey cues us in on the slight politics that will aid in Milwaukee Hip-Hop Weeks hopeful success:

“Well the only involvement the City of Milwaukee really has in regards to the politics of it is, it has to go through an actual approval process by the common council to create an (official) week in the city.” Making it an official city week engages the community and grants more opportunities to highlight hip-hop culture as it is celebrated.

Ald. KR: “We want to celebrate the culture. We understand for some who may be ignorant of what hip-hop is or some who may rely on what the mainstream media presents hip-hop as, they may have a misconception of hip-hop. But for those of us who are a product of hip-hop, have experienced it, and have been inspired by it, we want to give them an opportunity to learn [from it].”

For Milwaukee Hip-Hop Week, which is scheduled to begin on August 27th, 2018, there will be a focus on three major tenets, to cultivate the thematic opportunity of cultural knowledge exchange: Financial Literacy, Health, Civic Engagement.

Ald. KR: “What I envision is creating a framework within the context of hip-hop, where we can have some really important conversations.”

Ald. Rainey mentions that in regards to health, the age of the hip-hop community now includes members in their 50’s. This means the spectrum of health risks, including but not limited to obesity, colon cancer, and high blood pressure, is in fact hampering the lifestyle of many. He notes that there has been a cultural shift, where major hip-hop industry influencers like Jermaine Dupri, Slim Thug, Common, and The Game have been documented parting ways with destructive health choices and promoting positive alternative lifestyles. (Check out the documentary, Feel Rich: Health is the New Wealth (2017) narrated by Quincy Jones III, to catch that perspective.)

Ald. KR: “As a culture and generation, we went from cats talking about drinking 40’s and smoking on the corner to cats actually meditating and being vegan. Still flowing though. You know what I’m sayin’? It’s been an evolution. People have grown as hip-hop has grown.”

One idea is to use this same ideology here in MKE, where there are true health issues like high obesity rates, and where food deserts have created a disconnect with healthy eating to show documentaries (like the one mentioned above) and host conversations to improve the hip-hop community’s wellness.

Talking Financial Literacy, Ald. Rainey notes one of the points he brought up at the Community & Economic Development Committee meeting (where CW was in attendance).

Ald. KR: “...mumble rappers or super lyrical rappers, it does not matter how they rap, they are talking about money. We are talking about being prosperous, comin’ up. One way or another that type of mentality is infused and weaved into your rhymes.”

With that being a part of the hip-hop “mantra”, Rainey believes that setting up opportunities where we can discuss “money moves” like cryptocurrency (a growing market in the eyes of hip-hop advocates like Nipsey Hussle) and stock markets with brokers can increase the quest for wealth, which is vital to this community’s future success. Here the importance of even exposing the community to local resources, like Kiva, can elevate the opportunity for small business (yes, the ones that are a part of the hip-hop community) to level up the grind.

The third tenet, Civic Engagement, covers a wide spectrum, but one of the most important components Alderman Rainey would like to address is voter registration.

He notes that hip-hop artists as of late, have been very vocal about their political perspectives, especially on the presidency. This creates an opportunity for others to express their voices.

Ald. KR: “Right now is the time that we galvanize the people...and share these outlooks and say let’s do something about it...let’s take that same energy and connect it to things going on locally as well.”

#SupportTheLocal

The Civic Engagement tenet also opens the door to have major conversations about violence in our community, where the platform for young people and the institutions who are working on these peace incentives have an open forum discussing the issues (pushing the people and not just the numbers).

Ald. KR: “Milwaukee Hip-Hop Week has the opportunity through civic engagement to effect change socially.”

Just the conversation of having Milwaukee Hip-Hop Week has prompted members of MKE’s growing “underground” hip-hop community to come to the table. At the same Community & Economic Development Committee meeting mentioned before, rappers, producers, videographers, non-profit organization leaders, directors of public offices, artists, press, and the like, showed up to city hall to voice their support for the week and its future impact.

Ald. KR: “It’s an important opportunity to assemble something that brings together people...a bunch of people who were in there had never been to city hall before and that’s powerful to me...I think we have to create more opportunities for the unusual suspects to [be a part of the conversation]. To tap into people who are a-political and make them excited and engaged.”

Side Note: This year in Hip-Hop, a freestyle session broke out in MKE city hall and we have the footage! #ForTheCulture

Even though the week allots for conversations about heavier topics, Ald. Rainey assures us that the five elements of Hip-Hop (MC’ing, DJ’ing, graffiti art, B-boy dance and knowledge), will not be ignored.

Ald. KR: “I just want to have a whole lineup of activities. I want you to look at Hip-Hop Week and be like ‘Damn I missed something.’ But I also want you to break your neck to get to everything too.” He laughed, insistently.

MKE Hip-Hop week is on the theoretical tract to making major waves. In hopes of getting everybody in on the action, planning will highly consider every side of the city, so all communities have access to the celebration of one of the most influential cultures, worldwide. (Look at Nielsen’s 2017 music report...Hip-Hop is out chea’.)

CW: “So you have covered a lot of things here and all of these things sound great. So how are we making sure we include our local artists (and Hip-Hop movement contributors) into the mix? They want to be a part of this and this is their city so they should be.”

Ald. KR: [Following that the week is officially passed by the Common Council, which as of just yesterday February 27th, 2018, it was approved unanimously] “...after that, we have to set up some kind of advisory board that includes people in the community who have value” - And insight into what’s going on out here? *wink wink*

So Milwaukee here is the moment we have been waiting for. Here is the opportunity to shine a positive light on the scene and have some conversations that are way overdue. Where the revolution may not be televised, we guarantee it will be publicized. (Corporate America and the “other” will have their hand in this too. Local big business will be asked to partake...and of course, it is in their best interest that they do.) *This is the moment where we are supposed to digress...Ha!

As Ald. Rainey has become the “spokesperson” for this important initiative, he holds the scrutiny of its authenticity in his hands.

Ald. KR: “I would love for someone to come challenge me on my hip-hop validity. We live this.”

AND WE DO TOO!

/CW

Help us continue the conversation about Hip-Hop by following us on facebook.com/copywritemag and right here on copywritemag.com in the comments. 

---

Share this post or share the PDF of this release here.  

Dirty Thoughts - Watch me 'Red Mercedes'

I have been running Amine lyrics from ‘Red Mercedes’, through my mind all day. More specifically, the part that goes “Attitude like f**k you, pay me”.

But whhhhhhhhy?

I mean it's the ego and vibe. It's being generated at a different speed nowadays. An absolutely uncomfortable speed, but it looks so good, hence the ‘Red Mercedes” (it's all applicable). So as the ego trip is being served with some much-needed humility, there is still a moment to stunt.  

“Looking out my rearview, all I see is haters (hatin') This is just a preview, I use my gas for later (maybe!)”

Really, I have noticed that where my moves have become more public, so does the eagerness to knock me down a peg. It's a rough symbiosis. Where my personal quest has always been to use my skills as an extension to help others, those moves are not always beneficial to self. Where they are not beneficial to self, they are also fuel for the most basic parasitic human beings to latch on and either try to sabotage my efforts or use me for all I have.  But here is the thing, I have noticed. So as I revamp my lifestyle to press on issues that I and other heroes of our time think are important like social equality, faces of color shown thriving in creative fields (Black Panther for the win #WakandaForever), an increase in  institutional humanity (world domination through economic gain is not what we should be going for, as history has shown) and any other “deep” concepts that we wish were common sense, I am encouraging people to “try me”.

Like really, come for me if you have to. It's good exercise for me, to still prosper when obstacles are in my way. It's the age-old mantra (from the O’G’s at least), “let the hateration be your motivation”. I take this up a notch and ask, “But can you pay me though?” and even if the response to that rhetorical question is yes, I still push on and say “well do it then”.

As I play my role in a world that I’m  still trying to help cultivate there is still a moment to “stunt” and  I haven't even collected on my “invoices”... yet. It still looks good from over there and if I must be honest…it actually is pretty darn sweet. I just have to become more comfortable demanding mines.

So my message this time around is this: Stunt with a mission. Then send the bill.

/Dirty

DeJuan Mason - JEDI Mind

Have you ever just wanted to tap into someone's mind and find out what they are really thinking? Artist, DeJuan Mason, gives a chance to do just that with a track of his artistically crude (with intent) E.P “Whispering Architecture”, ‘JEDI Mind’.  

Mason cues us in on some of the social and cultural illusions that have alerted his inner psyche, as he relays the message, he gives off the energy that you might not even be in control of your own understanding. Ownership, self-control, mind control and action are all developed as he serves some reality with a bit of “Jedi” like execution.

Do you understand?

Listen here and let us know if you can break down this artistry.

/CW

#CWEverydaySteez

This Weeks Style: "Red Flair"

/Vato

Check Out The Local - Common Vs. Childish Gambino at Gibraltar

The year is 1973. Somewhere in west Bronx, New York, in a recreation room of an
apartment building, a collective of afros and bell bottoms move and groove to what is soon to
become one of the most evolutionary genres of music. The mastermind of the beat, the DJ,
commands the space effortlessly. He is the birthday girl’s brother, Clive Campbell, but
more famously known as “DJ Kool Herc.”

With the love of the music and the help of a brilliant sound system, DJ Kool Herc
perfects the breakbeat, just in time for not only his sister’s birthday but the largest crowd he’s
ever played for. With much success, this party is one of the first steps towards a musical
revolution of sorts.

Though the term “hip hop” would not infiltrate pop culture for some years, it was that
party on August 11th, 1973 that launched what would eventually become a powerful, global
movement and embodiment of Black and Brown culture.

2018 marks the 45th birthday of hip-hop, and to kick off the celebration, Gibraltar -a
speakeasy style music lounge in Milwaukee’s southside- hosted an event in honor of two
American icons, rappers Common and Childish Gambino.

This event was unique for a myriad of reasons. For starters, these are two rappers I would
typically not group together, as they both represent completely different “eras” of hip-hop: my
father’s hip-hop and my own. This perhaps explains why the crowd was the way it was. At the
height of the event, you could identify folks across the board: young college students, nostalgic
old heads, aunties with their fresh sew-ins, hardworking men who were ready to be set free
on the dance floor. The crowd alone was a testament to the unifying power that thrives in the
depth of hip-hop.

One minute, folks are sipping drinks and nodding heads to the soulful cooing of
Common’s “Love Is…” The next, the squad and I (as well as some dope ass strangers) are diddy
bopping to Gambino’s “All Y’all.” The highlight of the whole shindig, hands down, had to be
the way the room lit up with laughter and appreciation when the first strummings of
“Redbone” shook the space.

Like their predecessor DJ Kool Herc, both DJ Jank Uno and DJ LaMart Young held it
down on the wheels of steel. Both men kept the party going, rotating between the two artists
(with light sprinklings of rappers like Chance the Rapper and A Tribe Called Quest.)
Admittedly, there was an overabundance of Common and not a lot of Childish Gambino’s
music, which I’ll be mad about forever, but I am hopeful that the next pairing of artists will have
more equilibrium on the mix.

Though hip-hop is clearly an ever-changing force, it is important to honor the

consistency of its four elements: MCing, DJing, graffiti art, and b-boying. Gibralter is one of
those gems in Milwaukee that miraculously embodies the four elements at once, easily.
You had your DJs. Check. Though there wasn’t a live artist, the stylings of both Common
and Childish represent the element of the emcee. Check(ish). The impressive collection of art
symbolized graffiti. I mean, the portraits even included the universally-recognized, bold, cursive
spray paint lettering. Lastly, there was a whole b-boy tearing it up the entire night. The b-
boy, somewhere in his early 20’s, spent most of the night top rocking in front of DJ Jank Uno
and LaMart Young. (He did all of this in a leather jacket, by the way, because he was that cool.)
As a Gambino fan, and the daughter of a Common fan, the night was something special.
It was an ode to hip hop’s past, present, and future; it symbolized the past 45 years and what is to come in the next 45.

Common, who emerged during the golden era, is an integral part of hip-hop’s
foundation. Much of his work is a testament to the old-school, influenced by the artists who
came before him and the sounds of the windy city he calls home. Common is what a lot of old
heads would refer to as “conscious”. He’s the poet, the wordsmith. My father plays Common’s
music the way Black moms play Gospel music on Saturdays you KNOW will be spent cleaning.
It is motivational. It’s what brings my dad back to when he was my age. To my father,
Common is cleansing, nostalgic, a piece of the past my father holds on to as he and this
genre he loves evolve.

Common is my father’s hip-hop. Childish Gambino is mine.

Now, I admittedly have a huge soft spot (some may say “bias”) in my heart for Mr.
Gambino. Part A because, like every Black nerd who was called “white” growing up, I felt a
huge connection to his music and story. Part B being, Gambino is this strange, versatile artist
who somehow connects the old school with new. Imagine hip-hop as a spectrum, alright? My
boy Bino easily took rap’s roots in soul and funk and created the Grammy-nominated project,
“Awaken, My Love!” Previously, he created projects that served as odes, commemorating not
only the sound of Atlanta but the city itself (“Royalty”, “STN MTN”). And of course, probably
what will go down as my man’s best piece of work, you have “Because the Internet”, a social
commentary on social media’s influence (the present) and how it can lead to a dystopic society
later (the future). “Because the Internet” is basically a Black Mirror soundtrack, an
AfroFuturistic telling of what is in store for us in the year 3005 and beyond.
This is perhaps what made this event so magical for me. It was this surreal place in which
I was 22, where my father’s memories of 22 thrived, and where people who were 22 and older
came together. Sure, the two artists are drastically different from each other, but they are tied
together by this little thing we deem hip-hop. 45 years of growth, of sound, of stories hailing
from different parts of the country.

To hold space like that with an audience of multiple generations, dancing abilities,
and racial backgrounds demonstrates the magic that is hip-hop. After all, there’s gotta be
something infectious and powerful about a genre of music that not only reaches so many people, but has evolved and thrived for the last 45 years.

An event like this, commemorating that evolution through the two different moods of
both Common and Gambino, could only be successfully held in a space like Gibralter. With its
exposed brick, soft seating, and dim lighting, Gibralter just feels like a scene from “The Get
Down.” The way hip-hop culture thrives and manifests in the space is unbelievable. You can
only really feel that energy by going to another 4 decks spinning ____ & _____ event, or if you and the homies just want some drinks and light complimentary snacks.

So, here’s to another 45 years of hip-hop. Here’s to two rappers that demonstrate the
power and art in both storytelling and bopping. And lastly, here’s to the next DJ party. May
there be more Gambino and aunties f*cking it up on the dance floor.

CW Connect

/Mikey

Check Out: 9 Round Milwaaukee

Is your New Year's resolution to get fit? Maybe workout a tad more? Well, maybe checking out 9 round Milwaukee will get you amped to do just that! It’s never too late to get started! 

The first class is free to try and see if you like, the staff is very personable and the music is actually really good. (It’s hard to work out to a sucky playlist.)

9 Round is just that, 30 minutes and 9 rounds of cardio and core that will give you a good workout and the ever so gratifying sore feeling afterward. It was pretty great!

Its located in the Grand Avenue Mall where the old Radio Shack was located before they went extinct. Make sure to stop in and get your free class. If you choose to sign up, the sooner the better!

9 Round will be opening a new location as well, which we know is exciting for 9 Round Milwaukee owner Delia!

Check it out and let us know what you think! Don't forget to tell them CopyWrite sent you!

/The Intern

"I SAID WHAT I SAID" w/ Garahbrie: Neisha Neshae 'Im'a Go Crazy'

Detroit artist Neisha Neshae first caught my attention with “Im’a Go Crazy” a single that explicitly states PLAY WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO! With 1 million views on YouTube, it’s definitely a banger and I’ve followed her since.

As an intern for CopyWrite and as I amp up for OMGARAHBRIE a new sound is always something that I’m looking for and is always worth mentioning.

Neisha has managed to gain 90,000+ followers on Instagram and performs regularly.  Her online presence is everything, as she makes sure to interact with followers as much as possible. Her vibrant personality shines through in every project she releases and it’s really refreshing to hear an artist claim their own sound and FLAUNT IT!

Be sure to check out Neisha’s single “Im’a Go Crazy” from her project Queenin’ and let us know what you think!

/Garahbrie

Don't FORGET to Subscribe to my Channels for new Music & Videos Thanks!! Twitter. @Cold_Yung_Nigga Instagram. @Seven_Mile_P ORG SevenMile P https://www.youtube.com/user/12PJEEZY12

Kyndal J. - 'Fall'

Soulful songstress Kyndal J. is back at it again with ‘Fall’, a single that captures her signature vocals, relatable concepts, and jazzy backiings.

She reminds us how you can fall into the ways of others being, captivating a different sense of self we had yet to discover.

Give it a listen and comment below if you want to hear more from Kydal J.

/CW

"Never thought finding someone new could case me to lose myself. " -Kyndal J.

#CWEverydaySteez

This Weeks Style: "WhiteSox-Red Swag"

/Vato

Hot $hit - Van Great

Changing up the pace, one of our Local favorites Van Great, is back with his new single ‘Hot  $hit’. 2017 showed to be a good year for the producer/bar spitter /steezy professionado. Winning 88nine Radio Milwaukee Song of the year, opening for BJ the Chicago Kid at Summerfest and much more.

Friday's single release is a cultivation of swagger, layered production and bars that are confident, and a voice that sounds...dare we say it… a little refined (Is that supper grown man status we hear? lol). With DJ One L to the mix, adding classic Hip-hop scratches to the tune, you are in for some “new era/same flavor” aura that the industry needs. So if you haven't heard it yet, here's your chance to dissect it.

Check out Van Greats ‘Hot $hit’, and let us know if he still has the flame!

/CW

Hot $h!t, an album by Vincent VanGREAT on Spotify