Times, sounds, genres, and cultures have changed. What has remained constant is the respect and appreciation of the global phenomenon called hip hop. It has gone through an abundance of permutations, but has continued to inspire and serve as tool for social change and justice.
The terms “empowerment,” “agency” and “responsibility” are commonly employed with a pronounced emphasis toward “conscious hip-hop.” Using politically engaged and pro-social themes and images, along with the merging of local crises confronted by youth with larger national and global issues, we hope to use hip-hop to create dialogue, with opportunities for learning from one another, exchanging aesthetic influences as well as exploring one another’s “best practices” for greater effectiveness locally and globally.
