Photo credit: Chris Clayborne for A3C Media Services
Wednesday’s This Is My Year showcase showed that there is still hope to reviving real Hip-hop. The message in their music was clear that they want to make a change in a community that has been broken down.
Photo credit: Chris Clayborne for A3C Media Services
Mt. Vernon emcee, Breeze Mantana told the story of a young black boy trying to overcome a community that is trying to keep him down. He paints the picture of success for a black man that wasn’t born into it.
Photo credit: Chris Clayborne for A3C Media Services
Host Julien Virgin and DJ King Eron, of The Message on 88.5 helped push the performances forward. During a short intermission, Julien brought up the election and asked the audience how they feel about it. Someone in the crowd yelled, “f**k Donald Trump!” From there, they set the tone for the next set of performers.
Photo credit: Chris Clayborne for A3C Media Services
Next, a surprise performance from a professional poet kept the audience awake and ready to transition to the next act. Hakeem Furious, a Tallahassee poet, matched his words to his name and spoke out about how black people are still treated as the inferior race. The spontaneous performance turned into a masterpiece as he shook the crowd with his rhymes with reason. “If people care about a community, then they will invest in that community.” The irony of his words resonated with the audience.
Photo credit: Chris Clayborne for A3C Media Services
The next performer to come through was Tyke T, a skilled songwriter from Middle Tennessee gave the crowd the word we needed. His rhymes brought up the issues of social injustice in the country that is getting worse day by day. Not only was his performance big, but so was his entourage. Tyke T had a DJ, backup singers and a full staff working the event with him. He ended his performance with his new single, Ce’st La Vie. The song spoke about black men getting shot on camera and how we need to find a way to end this trend.
This group of artists really gave some perspective on how words can be utilized to empower and bring change to the Hip-hop community. Hip-hop has changed so much in the past few years, but these group of artists showed me that there’s still hope in using Hip-hop to make the community better.
