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Recap: The Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival 2010

April 17, 2010

[Flick 1: Nomadic Massive on stage]

What’s good, party people?

This past weekend, Nomadic Wax’s first-stringers must have all bailed on them, because Ben was desperate enough (all praises due) to issue me a press pass to the 5th annual Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival. As part-time c-list blogger (and so d-list journalist), I was hyped to see how my online credentials would transfer into the real world. And so, last Friday, with Bboy Andrew in tow as my enlisted photographer, I jumped into a borrowed car and headed north from New Haven on I-91.

Pulling into Hartford a quick hour later with Alchemist and Clipse records on blast, Andrew and I cut our way through the Trinity campus in stealth mode. The festival actually started that morning with a series of in-class lectures, but we planned to hit town just in time for dinner; so we made our way to registration just in time to collect our press passes, introduce ourselves to some familiar faces, and hit the invited delegates’ networking dinner

[Flick 2: Bboy Andrew, me, Jasmine, and DJ Nio]

Over that dinner – throughout the weekend – the Nomadic Wax/Trinity Hip-Hop crew did a strong job of creating community between the invited hip-hop writers, emcees, DJ’s, and activists. Whenever event organizers mingled with the crowd, they were building with guests and introducing delegates to one another – artists, workshop presenters, and even press members all bore the event sponsors’ co-sign. And so it was easy to connect and politic with anyone around – anyone displaying a TIHHF badge was already screened and trusted by at least some true hip-hop heads.

The atmosphere throughout the festival was full of this positivity, with a rare level of mutual respect and comfort among the attendees. The vibe was almost family reunion-style – I heard “brother” and “sister” thrown around like a 70s Blaxploitation flick. I’ve seen “networking”, especially at hip-hop events, often turn into a rodeo of promotional gimmicks and self-important rants. But there was a sense of purposefulness to most of the acts gathered in Hartford.

Many groups – Senegal’s Wagebele, Palestine’s DAM, the multinational Readnex Poetry Squad – have explicitly tied their musical identities to bigger issues, like African/Middle Eastern politics, social justice, and urban education. And even those hip-hoppers without explicit social agendas, such as RAH Zemos, still came across as driven by a vision of hip-hop culture as deeper than rap (no Rick Ross), pushing the culture further and bigger than the mainstream image of hip-hop as 45-second commercial interlude soundtrack. With this shared understanding, it makes sense that we would see each other as brothers- and sisters-in-arms for hip-hop.

That sense of positivity wasn’t just unifying people across regions or languages – all elements of the hip-hop culture were representing side-by-side, from Emceeing, DJing (big ups to DJ Boo [NYC] and DJ Nio [Italy]), Graf writing, Bboying, to Knowledge (the hip-hop scholars out in full force, along with the Temple of Hip-Hop). After waking up on Saturday, I drove over to Trinity’s campus and joined the emcee showcase, hosted by Self-Suffice and Undakova backed by DJ Nio, while local graf artists pieced up canvases feet away.

The second half of my afternoon was dedicated to an ill bboy battle, with a bracket filled by crews from the region. Bboy Andrew and his partner were knocked out in a close battle (1 vote away from a tie) in the first round, but I stuck around shooting flicks and politicking with the bboys in the spot. My Mighty Healthy ASIAN tee was getting a lot of looks and compliments from the heads in the crowd (what up my pinoy bboys and fly girls?) – i noticed that the asiatic representation in the bboy crews was much higher than among the emcees. An observation to come back to in the future.

As I broke it down with bboys, dj’s, and emcees alike, a troubling thought that remained in the back of my head was that, as much unity and love as we were seeing, one area of segregation that remained was between the diverse elements of hiphop. While we all came out to the same locale, I saw MC’s, DJ’s, and journalists building with one another, bboys sticking to themselves, preferring to vibe out to the music or warm up in tight circles; and i didn’t even have a chance to get at any of the graf writers in the spot.

During a 10 minute interlude between the first and second round of the bboy battle, Zulu Nation emcee K-Swift and a couple of other acts performed – but most bboys scattered to eat, drink, or practice, with only a fraction of the crowd sticking around and dancing or vibing to the intermission acts.

I would have loved to see more cross-elemental communication – the visual artists, musicians, and dancers seemed to all have their own spaces during most of the day. Most of the day, that is, until KRS-ONE took the stage to close the Saturday night concert.

Anyone who knows the Teacha a/k/a Blastmaster KRS-ONE knows that he has been at the very forefront of preserving and bringing together hip-hop’s elements, from his legendary crew Boogie Down Productions, to classic albums like Criminal Minded, and the Stop the Violence movement. Having seen his live performance on two previous occasions, I thought that I would have gotten used to his presence – but as soon as he took the stage, he didn’t let up for a minute until it was time to go home. The consummate performer.

Perhaps most inspirational, though, was how generous he was with the spotlight. Calling out the graf heads for their pieces on the walls, inviting bboys up from the crowd to rock with him, and then ceding the stage to other emcees to let them spit for a good ten minutes, he ended the weekend with a bomb of truth, love, and power – reminding us all that, in the end, hip-hop is bigger than any one of us, our elements, labels, or movements.

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