Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts: A 2011 Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival Recap and Reflection [Words, Photos, Video]

TEACH THE TRUTH: The Bodega Education Initiative

Detractors of hip hop generally have difficulty seeing past the more lowbrow examples of the culture and music, and while this critical mindset is often perpetuated by uninformed and, at times, biased mainstream media, it is up to hip hoppers as a whole to offer the yin to that yang, and the Bodega Education Initiative, held at Pratt Institute on the third day of the festival, helped that cause.

Panel discussions with professionals and contributors to hip hop were held revolving around topics such as journalism, the music business and the film Copyright Criminals, an acclaimed documentary on the history of sampling. For artists, intellectuals, journalists and businesspeople involved in hip hop, events like this that exist without the need to travel to other areas of the country or pay exorbitant registration fees are frustratingly far and few in-between.

If you had gone, you would have been wowed by the performance of the J Dilla Ensemble, and heard from Berklee College of Music’s Dr. Larry Simpson, who awarded Emcee Jermaine a scholarship for a free course at the acclaimed school.

You would have been able to meet politician and activist Ras Baraka or talk music business with Duck Down Records executive Dru Ha.

You could have discussed Christopher Weingarten’s rant against blog journalism with Christopher Wengarten. If you are an artist or journalist, you could have talked to Jake Paine about music and journalism, the cornerstones of his website, HipHopDX.com.

[Click for pictures from Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival: Bodega Education Initiative]
[Click to see our pictures from the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival Main Day]

For those seeking to extend a burgeoning career in hip hop, as an artist, producer, DJ, label owner, journalist or in any position that can benefit from the shared knowledge of such predecessors, it is hard to understand how one can claim to be fully vested in their craft, yet not have taken advantage of such an opportunity as the Bodega Education Initiative.