The City College of New York
Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education
Hosts
The Second Annual
“Is Hip Hop History?”
Conference
February 25th and 26th, 2011
25 Broadway, 7th floor New York City
212.925.6625
Attendance Fee: $20 for one day; $30 for two days
Special discount for CCNY/CWE students. $10one day;$20 two days. Must show valid college ID.
The Center for Worker Education at the City College of New York is proud to host its second hip-hop conference, “Is Hip-Hop History?” As the first hip-hop conference hosted by a worker education program, the conference aims to provide a forum that features the work of researchers, hip-hop industry practitioners, artists, and working adult students. The Is Hip Hop History? Conference was created in 2010 to facilitate dialogue between hip hop pioneers, legends, tastemakers, fans, college students, and scholars. The “Is Hip Hop History?” Conference is part of CWE’s annual celebration of Black History Month.
Day 1
Friday, February 25, 2011
Conference Registration 5-6PM
6-7PM
Special live performance by Kool G Mims
George Mims III aka Kool G Mims was born and raised in Harlem. As the son of Kool DJ Red Alert, his love for hip hop and rap was instilled at an early age. Even throughout his high school years when his attention was focused on basketball, Kool G Mims never lost his passion for rapping and started actively pursuing his rap career while attending St. Bonaventure College. Currently, Kool G Mims is unsigned and recently released Up in Smoke, a mixtape hosted by Funk Master Flex and Dj Red Alert.
Keynote Address
Vinnie Brown, Naughty By Nature
As the entrepreneurial and marketing genius behind hip hop icons Naughty By Nature, Vinnie Brown has developed a reputation as a leading panelist and expert on the convergence of new media, Hip Hop music and technology. In 2009, Vinnie initiated a promotional partnership with Microsoft to help launch the Windows HTC Touch Pro 2 mobile device. The successful
partnership included an online contest and helped to dramatically increase
awareness of the new devise. Before Hip Hop clothing lines and websites were vogue and part of the marketing of successful artists, Vinnie was responsible for launching Naughty Gear Inc., Hip Hop’s 1st authentic brick and mortar shop. Thereafter, Vinnie utilized his tremendous business savvy to maximize www.naughtybynature.com to keep the group tapped in to its global fans. Vinnie lectures on issues surrounding hip-hop culture, community activism as well as on the convergence of technology and entertainment.
8-10PM
Hip-Hop Hooray Block Party
Music by deejay Eddie Cleverhand
Day 2
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Conference Registration 10-11:30AM
11:30AM-1PM
Keynote Address
Bakari Kitwana, journalist, activist and political analyst
Bakari Kitwana is a journalist, activist and political analyst whose commentary on politics and youth culture have been seen on the CNN, FOX News (the O’Reilly Factor), C-Span, PBS (The Tavis Smiley Show) and heard on NPR. He’s currently Senior Media Fellow at the Harvard Law based think tank, The Jamestown Project, and the CEO of Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues on Hip-Hop, which conducts townhall meetings around the country on difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation.
His 2002 book “The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture,” which focuses on young Blacks born after the Civil Rights Movement, has been adopted as a course book in classrooms at over 100 colleges and universities. His 2002 book “The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture,” which focuses on young Blacks born after the Civil Rights Movement, has been adopted as a course book in classrooms at over 100 colleges and universities.
Kitwana published his first book, “The Rap on Gangsta Rap” in 1994. Since then he’s been the Editorial Director of Third World Press, Executive Editor of the hip-hop magazine The Source, and co-founder the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention, which brought over 4000 young people to Newark in 2004 to create and endorse a political agenda for the hip-hop generation. Kitwana has been a consultant on hip-hop for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Artist-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago, and senior editor of newsone.com (the internet news presence of Radio One). An active writer, his essays have appeared in The New York Times, Village Voice,Los Angeles Times, Newsday, Savoy and theProgressive.
Panel 1: Planet Rock: A Hip Hop Diaspora
1-3PM
Jeff Chang states in “It’s a Hip Hop World”, “It was the perfect brew-an African-American entrepreneur promoting a Polish vodka owned by a French corporation using Chinese performers practicing an Afro-Latin influenced art form that originated in the inner cities of the United States. Welcome to hip-hop's new world.” What is being exported? What is the relationship of Hip hop culture in the U.S., and especially rap, to the audiences it has spawned throughout the world? How does hip hop around the world compare to U.S. hip hop? “Planet Rock” will begin to address some of these questions.
Moderated by Warren Orange, adjunct lecturer of CCNY/CWE
Cheryl Thompson, Ph. D student
McGill University, Department of Art History & Communication Studies
Cheryl Thompson is a second-year Ph. D student in Communication Studies, Department of Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University. Her dissertation is an examination of how hair and skin products, and images of black beauty circulate within Canada. Her Master’s thesis was an ethnographic study of Canadian hip-hop. It explained the ways in which identity discourses circulate within the genre, and the kinds of strategies used by these artists to define the genre as distinct, and not merely a replica of hip-hop from the US. Thompson has published works in academic journals, as well as in the Canadian Theatre Review, Toronto Star, and Chart Magazine. Born in Toronto, she currently resides in Montreal.
Marissa A. Gutiérrez-Vicario, Alumni
New York University, Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service
Marissa A. Gutiérrez-Vicario is a graduate of USC in Political Science and International Relations and recently received her Master’s in Public Administration in Non-Profit Management and Public Policy at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. Gutiérrez-Vicario brings significant experience working on the ground and around the world: she investigated human rights abuses and worked on a documentary film in Mexico; conducted human rights research in India; and volunteered for a women's rights non-profit in Guatemala. Domestically, Gutiérrez-Vicario has planned and organized service-learning trips, coordinated events for youth, and worked with community organizers to address violations of human rights. Gutiérrez-Vicario is currently working on a project called Art and Resistance Through Education (ARTE), a For-Justice Organization that empowers immigrant youth with literacy and life skills through volunteer hip-hop mural projects, fostering leadership opportunities to train others.
Panel 2: The Rap on Politics
3-5PM
What has Hip hop contributed to politics in the U.S.? Has, or can hip hop alter the political stage? Does Barack Obama owe a special thanks to hip hop? What does his election mean to this generation? These questions and more in the Rap on Politics.
Moderated by Dr. Jared A. Ball, assistant professor of communication studies
Morgan State University
Dr. Jared A. Ball is an assistant professor of communication studies at Morgan State University where his research interests include the interaction between colonialism, mass media theory and history, as well as, the development of alternative/underground journalism and cultural expression as mechanisms of social movements and political organization. Ball is a columnist with, and produces a weekly radio column for, BlackAgendaReport.com. He is producer and host of the “Legacy Edition of We Ourselves” which airs Fridays 10a-11a (EST) on Washington, DC’s WPFW 89.3 FM Pacifica Radio and is also the founder and producer of FreeMix Radio: The Original Mixtape Radio Show, an emancipatory journalistic political mixtape. He is a former editor of and current peer reviewer for the first academic journal dedicated to hip-hop, The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture from Words, Beats and Life, Inc., has been a board member of the International Associationfor Hip-Hop Education, and has served as a Communications Fellow for the Green Institute. Ball is also the author of the forthcoming book I Mix What I Like: A Mixtape Manifesto (Spring 2011/AK Press). He can be found online at voxunion.com.
The Honorable George Martinez
Founder/Chairman of the Global Block Association and Adjunct in Political Science at Pace University
The Honorable George Martinez is an award-winning artist, activist, educator and hip hop ambassador. he is the first hip hop artist elected to political Office in the United States. Martinez is the former Assistant Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Eliot Spitzer. He is currently an adjunct professor of Political Science at Pace University. An entrepreneur, he is the founding Chairman of the Hip-Hop Association, and Co-chair-Founder of the Blackout Arts Collective
Rosa Alicia Clemente
Community organizer, activist, radio journalist and 2008 vice-presidential candidate with the Green Party
Rosa Alicia Clemente has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships and is a frequent contributor on the following media outlets: “On the Real” with Chuck D on Air America, “Democracy Now!” with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, “The Bev Smith Show”, “Hard Knock Radio” with Davey D, “Make It Plain” on SIRRUS and CNN with Roland Martin, and numerous other radio shows. In 2001, Rosa was a youth representative at the first ever United Nations World Conference against Xenophobia, Racism and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa. She co-host, and produces the show “Where We Live”, on Pacifica Station WBAI, 99.5FM in New York City. In 2002 she was named by Red Eye Magazine as one of the top 50 Hip-Hop activists to look out for. In 2003 she cofounded and coordinated the first ever National Hip Hop Political Convention(NHHPC) that drew over 3000 activists who came together to create and implement a national political agenda for the Hip-Hop generation. In 2005, she co-founded the R.E.A.C.H. Hip-Hop Coalition, a Hip-Hop based generation based media justice organization.
About the Founders
Elena Romero serves as academic advisor, communications coordinator and adjunct lecturer at the City College Center for Worker Education. As the former associate editor and a contributing editor for fashion bibles DNR and WWD, Romero has chronicled the rise and growth of some of the market’s pioneering hip-hop brands for more than a decade. Her stories highlighting the business and evolution of hip-hop style have appeared in Vibe, Urban Latino, Latina, Sportswear International, and the New York Post. Romero holds a B.A. in journalism and mass communication and an M.S. in publishing from New York University. Her journalistic excellence and contributions to fashion journalism were recognized with an Urban Fashion Journalism Award at the Urban Fashion Awards Show in 2002. She is the author of the forthcoming book “Free Stylin’: How Hip Hop Changed the Fashion Industry”(Praeger, Fall 2011).
Warren Orange is an academic advisor and adjunct lecturer at the City College Center for Worker Education. He is co-founder of the Center for Worker Education alumni group, and currently serves as the Professional Staff Congress’ representative to the New York Central Labor Council. He holds a B.A. in liberal arts from City College and a M.A. in public administration from Brooklyn College, and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society
Mission Statement
The Is Hip Hop History? Conference announces its ongoing mission to create a platform for serious reflection about the popular and serious art forms of hip hop and its accompanying styles and worldviews. Because hip hop developed as a particularly youth-directed cultural movement, it has often required and exceptional effort for its initial creators and audiences to enjoy-and reconcile with-insider status, and to maintain the early fealty that sustained its precarious birth.
We wish to bridge gulfs of race, class, and age that often threaten thoughtful considerations of this relatively new cultural genre. We also intend that this stage serve as a bridge connecting the disciplinary lens of African American history and culture with that of American urban development.
Student and Alumni Committee
Deborah Edwards-Anderson (Alum)
Sheila Romero (Student)
Terrence Byerson (Alum)
Ayoka Johnson, Chair of Technology (student)
Ben Murray,Chair of Marketing (Student)
Special thanks to the Office of the Dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education, the Offices of the President and the Provost at The City College of New York, CWE Alumni Group and HealthFirst for their generous support of this program.
