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Block Party: Hip Hop’s 50th Birthday Jam
Aug 11, 2023 @ 12:00 pm
Music. Every genre has its thing. Songs are often, if not usually, about something specific and structured accordingly. While every song is – in different ways – about the human experience, the tones, styles, and methods are different.
Sharpism artist and UHHM Donor Antonio Mcilwaine on his art’s origin: “One of the reasons I chose to become a visual artist is I was paid to make something that came easily to me. I could always create the product. Always.” The product was the portrait. He enjoyed it. Using different techniques. Telling a story. And when he finished, he could look at the portrait and say, “I created this.”
“Caricaturing allows me the opportunity to capture a subject’s unique characteristics in a fun way. In today’s society, we focus on being politically correct or perfect; this type of artwork allows me to step outside of the box.”
“I find inspiration in different things: comic books, anime, ways that people – especially kids – won’t turn on each other by making someone feel smaller, and disrespecting one’s unfortunate situation. Just because one may have less money than another doesn’t make them any less of a person. My version of Hip Hop is about flowing and the art form; it has nothing to do with money.”
This Hip Hop collective’s producer, the RZA, sampled Vargas’ drum beats for tracks such as “Bring Da Ruckus” and “Wu-Tang 7th Chamber”, as well as a then-unreleased version of the hit “C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me).”
“Coming from an analogue upbringing, I appreciate the tools that aren’t digitized. Example: I can go to the library and find a book about something I could also read online. And I choose to go to the library because that’s one way I can really turn things on by turning something off.”
Whether or not you have seen “Breakin’” or “Breakin’ 2,” you have seen Michael Chambers, who began his career as a dancer when he was 16 with the stage name Boogaloo Shrimp.
If you know how and why Hip Hop began, you know how powerful storytelling – for the sake of justice, culture, and entertainment – can be. Thus, you can appreciate why Sulaiman Jenkins and Mutah Beale produced and wrote their book Life is ЯAW: The Story of a Reformed Outlaw. They donated a signed copy to the Universal Hip Hop Museum.
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