Hip-hop culture is here to stay, according to Marc Bamuthi Joseph, a National Poetry Slam champion and featured artist on HBO's groundbreaking Def Poetry."" Bamuthi will be making waves on campus this week as a key figure in ""Line Breaks: The Remix,"" a week-long symposium based on a class Bamuthi taught last year while serving as an artist-in-residence at UW-Madison.
""I brought in a series of artists over the course of three months last year,"" Bamuthi said. ""We're kind of conflating that energy into one week.""
After the success of his class, Bamuthi is excited to develop this week's events, sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives and the Multicultural Student Coalition as part of Hip-Hop as a Movement Week, which runs through Friday.
""Line Breaks: The Remix"" will feature classes and performances by renowned hip-hop and spoken word artists, as well as singers, hip-hop dancers and scholars. The all-star lineup includes Chuck D of Public Enemy, journalist Davey D, dancer Rennie Harris and spoken word artist Maya del Valle. The performers will present hip-hop as a multi-faceted art form with free classes like ""Hip-Hop 101: Remixing Education,"" ""Hip-Hop Theatre,"" ""Turning the Page: Hip-Hop Poetics"" and ""Issues in Hip-Hop Dance.""
""You have all these different elements that now are really fusing,"" OMAI Program Director Josh Healy said. According to Healy, Bamuthi is the perfect man to host hip-hop events on campus.
""He really opened a lot of doors,"" Healy said. ""He's one of the leading, if not the leading, spoken word artists in the country. [He's] really pushing the boundaries.""
For Bamuthi, blending different aspects of the hip-hop movement is what makes ""Line Breaks: The Remix"" so interesting.
""I think that we want to continue the trajectory that we started on last year in terms of really initiating a great deal of excitement on campus,"" Bamuthi said. ""But more so, subverting some of the ideas around hip-hop culture as one that just propagates incendiary and destructive thoughts and behavior.""
According to Bamuthi, the week will emphasize the positive cultural impact hip-hop continues to make.
""What we did last year with ""Line Breaks"" and I'm hoping to duplicate this year, is we generated community around these thoughts and ideas,"" Bamuthi said, hoping the event will help the Madison community better understand the history of the hip-hop movement.
Thursday will boast the biggest event of the week with ""Line Breaks Showcase: Hip-Hop on the Main Stage,"" at the Memorial Union Theatre, hosted by Bamuthi.
Bamuthi hopes to draw a big crowd to all the week's events, which are free except for Thursday's ""Showcase.""
""Last year we basically shut down the Historical Society,"" Bamuthi said. ""Every event was packed, hundreds and hundreds of folks, but it wasn't just UW students ... there was a high degree of interaction with the community.""
One of the best parts of hip-hop, according to Bamuthi, is its ability to create community across all boundaries, including age.
""One of the most encouraging things was that it was totally an intergenerational event,"" Bamuthi said of last year's show, pointing out that the audience was a mix of students, adults and people outside the campus community.
""That just added to the flavor and excitement of what we did,"" Bamuthi said.
Even with Bamuthi's numerous awards and accolades, he's excited to see what the combination of hip-hop dancers and performers produce.
""All these folks are coming through and it was my honor to be among the crew.""
