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This album features the pioneers of Australian Hip Hop including the world-famous Park Bench Royals and AKA Brothers.
This is a tribute to those who overcame the many difficulties of putting Hip Hop on wax Down Under.
Australian Hip Hop gave rise to grafitti artists, breakers, deejays and emcees who worshipped Old School Hip Hop greats.
They were wild times in Melbourne, which had the Richmond Writers Bench and many clubs for crews to throw down in.
Who can forget the Richmond Abbatoir grafitti gallery, Chaser's rap comps or the DMC's?
Big up to everyone who made Australian Hip Hop what it is today.
nemoadamdotcom
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Planners say conference isn't out to slam hip-hop
April 7, 2005
BY DAVID JAKUBIAK
A conference beginning today at the University of Chicago seeks to evaluate hip-hop's role in feminism, as well as find ways to bring positive change to a genre saddled with a reputation for brutal misogyny and hypersexuality.
"Feminism and Hip Hop," a three-day event organized by the university's Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, is expected to draw more than 1,000 and will address the narrowing gender roles of a music that increasingly casts women as sex toys and men as "pimps."
The backlash against these images in rap has come from the editors of Essence magazine, who started a "Take Back the Music" campaign, as well as students from Atlanta's Spelman College, who attracted national attention in their protest of the video for Nelly's 2003 song "Tip Drill."
But Cathy Cohen, director of the center, said one of the goals of the conference is to identify the positive aspects of hip-hop culture. "This conference is meant to provide a space for people to talk about the multiple components of hip-hop and its possible relationship to a more progressive, proactive, positive and even empowering agenda for both men and women," Cohen said. "We're hoping not to condemn hip-hop but have a wide-ranging discussion about what's positive, what's negative and, more importantly, how we can hold the industry accountable."
To do this, the center has invited more than two dozen presenters to the conference. Expected attendees include artists such as poet Jessica Care Moore, who gained fame on "It's Showtime at the Apollo"; academics such as Stanford University's Marcyliena Morgan, who founded Harvard University's Hiphop Archive, and actors like Melyssa Ford, who appeared in videos including Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin' " and Mystikal's "Shake Ya Ass."
The participants will partake in three days of panel discussions, the highlight of which should be Saturday's "Media Representations of Women in Hip Hop," which will include Ford, the Source editor Kim Osorio, author Cheryl L. Keyes and "Soul Plane" director Jessy Terrero.
Chicago rapper Psalm One, who will perform at the conference Saturday night, said she's looking forward to attending.
"I've heard, in the last year or so, women getting bashed a lot more than I remember," she said. "There are more lyrics of really gratuitous sex and violence. And whereas everyone likes to get 'gangster' every now and again, I feel it so blatantly pigeonholes women -- into being either sex slaves or the baddest bitch -- that it misses the complexity of being human."
Registration is closed for the conference. To learn more about the event and to follow up on its happenings, visit the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at http://csrpc.uchi cago.edu.
David Jakubiak is a Chicago-based free-lance writer.
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