Black August Hip Hop Concert Recap (8/13), Documentary Premiering at Lincoln Center on 8/26

The Black August Hip Hop Project presented its yearly Black August Hip Hop Benefit Concert on Aug. 13 at Highline Ballroom in Manhattan, in association with The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.

For over a decade, the Black August Hip Hop Project organization has been working “to promote human rights through supporting and influencing the global development of Hip Hop culture.” To bring together culture, music and politics in order to form a consciousness rooted in hip hop, that “informs our collective struggle for a more just, equitable and human world.” Admirable goals.

To promote this message utilizing the culture and music, Black August has been holding benefit concerts since 1998, and sending delegations of artists and activists to Cuba, South Africa, Venezuela, Tanzania and Brazil, in order to help promote their ideals, collect and disseminate information, and promote involvement in politics and human rights issues on a global scale.

In conjunction with the Malcolm X Grassroots movement, the Black August Hip Hop Benefit Concert plays out as part musical edutainment, part rally, supporting the ongoing movement to teach about, and facilitate the release of, a variety of “political prisoners.” To that end, the MXGM is a strong willed group of individuals and affiliated organizations, who declare themselves “an organization of Afrikans in America/New Afrikans whose mission is to defend the human rights of our people and promote self-determination in our community.” The organization states, “we understand that the collective institutions of white-supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism have been at the root of our people’s oppression. We understand that without community control and without the power to determine our own lives, we will continue to fall victim to genocide. Therefore, we seek to heighten our consciousness about self-determination as a human right and a solution to our colonization.”

Heavy stuff.

Between musical performances, elder statesmen (and stateswomen) involved in various movements and organizations spoke to the crowd, expressing fierce conviction around their beliefs, relating stories of fallen comrades in a long, ongoing struggle for racial and economic equality, and were quite fascinating to listen to, as one might imagine. Many of the names they mentioned may be unknown to casual observers, but all of them, jailed, killed or forced into exile, are a part of a larger story, a larger, tumultuous history that is still very relevant in our communities today. Regardless whether one agrees with all of the principles expressed throughout the evening, it is certainly a worthy endeavor to find out more about these individuals, these organizations and their collective stories.

As for the concert, a diverse and entertaining lineup kept the crowd connected, many of them activist artists with quite a bit of knowledge on the theme of the evening. From Muslim artists, to conscious artists, from veterans such as Sadat X and electrifying showman Cody ChestnuTT, a ceiling-rattling performances by Bajah & The Dry Eye Crew and a jawdropping display by up-and-coming rapstress Kalae All Day, the organizers assembled an extremely talented, dynamic lineup, covering several genres. Much of the material from artists like Hasan Salaam (one of our “5 Reasons Why NY Hip Hop Doesn’t Suck“), Hakim Green, Dead Prez and others, were not radio rap. These songs and performances hearkened back to a day when groups like Public Enemy, Poor Rightous Teachers, Brand Nubian and X-Clan worked messages of empowerment and racial pride into hip hop. Despite the prevailing idea thatr this type of “conscious” rap is dead and gone, the lineup and messages of the evening proved that is not necessarily the case, that there are young artists who do pay attention to the world around them, are tuned in to the political process and are eager to learn more about injustices in the world around them and express what they find on the mic. Though the exact messages of the organizations hosting the event may not resonate with everyone, the Black August Hip Hop Project and Concert is at the very least, a formidable example of hip hop’s ability to educate and communicate through music and culture, about highly sensitive, intellectual and moral issues that are deeper than the money, sex, drugs image so often associated with rap music.

To cap off Black August 2010, Black August: A Hip Hop Benefit Concert, a documentary on the concert series, directed by renowned hip hop journalist dream hampton, detailing the work of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Black August Hip Hop Project, will be premiered Thursday, August 26th at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center, in New York City. Visit www.filmlinc.com for information and tickets.

For more information on the Black August Hip Hop Project and The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, visit www. mxgm.org/blackaugust

See photos from the Black August Hip Hop Benefit Concert at Highline Ballroom

Photos by, and special thanks to, Bianca Christiansen (JustBPhotography).