December

NYC & Company presents the Holiday Bazaar December 7th, 2009

This past weekend at the Hip Hop Culture Center NYC & Company held a Holiday Bazaar featuring over forty Harlem vendors. Kicking off the event was a fifteen minute performance by the cast of the Broadway musical Memphis. There were also special performances by professional Tap Dancer, Omar Edwards; Musician, Atiba Wilson; and Pioneer, Vy Higginsen & her youth choir. Retail and cultural booths as well as food vendors were spread throughout the venue and NYC & Company provided free trolleys for the public to navigate around the neighborhood.  Click here to see footage from the Holiday Bazaar that took place this past Sunday, December 6th, 2009 from 12pm-5pm. You can also view pictures of the Holiday Bazaar here.

 

1520 Sedgwick Avenue honored by New York Art Committee  December 4th, 2009

Hip-Hop landmark 1520 Sedgwick Avenue will be honored by a New York Art Committee for its cultural significant to the city. The address is noted for it’s role in Hip-Hop history as the place DJ Kool Herc gave a small party in a recreational room inside of the building in August of 1973.

The party helped lay the ground work to help Hip-Hop music to flourish in and around the Bronx in the early 1970’s. 1520 Sedgwick is one of six spots that City Lore and the Municipal Art Society will honor for it’s contribution to New York society and the world.

“1520 Sedgwick Ave is the birthplace of Hip-Hop, creating an art form and culture unique to New York City that would go on to change the world,” said Ray Riccio, CEO of clothing company Sedgwick & Cedar. “This is a very proud day for DJ Kool Herc, The Pioneers, Hip-Hop Culture, S&C Co. and all those that care about preserving history.”

Kool Herc and a number of other pioneers are co-owners of the Sedgwick & Cedar clothing line, which is named after the famous building. In 2007, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue was declared eligible to be considered a historic and cultural landmark in New York City. City Lore is a non-profit membership organization that was launched in 1986 to produce programs and events that showcase New York’s cultural heritage.

 

Jam Master Jay documentary in stores NOW   Decemeber 4th, 2009

Synopsis: Legendary Hip-Hop DJ Jason Mizell, aka Jam Master Jay, is gunned down in his Queens studio. Security tapes of the incident mysteriously disappear, the five witnesses are uncooperative and no one is talking…until now. ‘2 Turntables And A Microphone’ documents the investigation of the unsolved murder of Jam Master Jay, RUN- DMC’s groundbreaking DJ and producer, deftly revealing the history of Hip-Hop and mainstream rap along the way. Exclusive, candid interviews with 50 Cent, Ja Rule, Russell Simmons, RUN-DMC and more offer insight into Jam Master Jay’s life – including information that could finally help police solve the murder that shook the music world to its core.

This DVD is also available with a purchase of 50 Cents new album “Before I Self Destruct” (3-Disc Deluxe Edition) in stores now.

View trailer below:

 

In Iraq’s African Enclave, Color Is Plainly Seen  Decemeber 2nd, 2009

BASRA, Iraq — Officially, Iraq is a colorblind society that in the tradition of Prophet Muhammad treats black people with equality and respect.

Amani Hamid, 16, left school because her family could not afford the bus fare. African-Iraqis are denied even menial jobs. Washing cars is the only source of income for many African-Iraqi boys and men, they said, because no one will hire them. But on the packed dirt streets of Zubayr, Iraq’s scaled-down version of Harlem, African-Iraqis talk of discrimination so steeped in Iraqi culture that they are commonly referred to as “abd” — slave in Arabic — prohibited from interracial marriage and denied even menial jobs.

Historians say that most African-Iraqis arrived as slaves from East Africa as part of the Arab slave trade starting about 1,400 years ago. They worked in southern Iraq’s salt marshes and sugar cane fields. Though slavery — which in Iraq included Arabs as well as Africans — was banned in the 1920s, it continued until the 1950s, African-Iraqis say. Recently, they have begun to campaign for recognition as a minority population, which would grant them the same benefits as Christians, including reserved seats in Parliament.

“Black people here are living in fear,” said Jalal Dhiyab Thijeel, an advocate for the country’s estimated 1.2 million African-Iraqis. “We want to end that.”

Click here for full story.