We’re very excited to start the new year off with new faces, hopes, and energy! Our new exec board is ready to get to work and trail new roads for the Congress:

President: Sydney Epps

Vice president: Russell Morrow

Treasurer: Chris Summers

Communications: Cotrell Loftin

Marketing and Promotions: Chanel Glenn and Tolulope Osunsanya

Adviser: Akil Houston

Shoot us an email at HipHopCongress_OU@yahoo.com with any questions regarding our activities, and join us at General Body Meetings on Wednesdays @ 8 PM in Baker 231/237!

Spring Quarter Meeting Locations

WE NEED ARTISTS FOR OUR CELEBRATION ON THE 18TH! If you are a poet, singer, emcee, rapper, speaker, wish to recite one of Malcolm X’s speeches, and/or someone who wants to display their art, then be sure to hit us up! You can email Sydney Epps, the coordinator of this program, at se343707@ohio.edu.

Peace.

Although our annual hiphop awareness week is the first week of May, we are starting things off sooner than usual because we have a special guest coming tomorrow!

Tomorrow, between noon and 6pm, the international Hiphop Mobile Museum will be on display on the 3rd floor of the Baker University Center! Accompanying it will be Professor Grif from the legendary hiphop group Public Enemy. He will be at our meet and greet in the Maggie Davis Room on the 1st floor of Baker at 6pm.

Sunday at 3pm we will serve our community in washing cars at Class A Sounds on E. State Street in Athens. So bring your car down to Class A Sounds for a good washing! Donations will be taken for our work.

Monday at 6pm we will have our graffiti workshop in Baker 240! You will get some hands-on experience learning how to draw like the taggers! We have brought in a special guest artist from Art Apocalypse to guide the workshop and help out with supplies.

Tuesday at 5pm we will have our DJ workshop in the Front Room! There you will also get some hands-on experience in another artistic element of hiphop. Hosted by our Advisor, Dr. Akil Houston, he will provide the turntables for you to learn how to spin like the best of them!

Wednesday at 7pm in Bentley 124 is our forum on hiphop as a cultural artifact. There we will explore how hiphop, which started as an American subculture, has become a voice for the entire world! From fashion to politics, we will talk about how much hiphop is the drive for everything that has to do with change, as well as how it effects the community it began to serve. This event will feature a panelists of artists, faculty, and students.

Friday at 7:30pm in Baker 239 is our MC Workshop! Learn how to spit hot fire (and not like Dylan) hosted by some of our prestigious Athens emcees. Learn how important an emcee is in hiphop and to the world. Afterwards, show your skills at this month’s Freestyle Fellowship! The monthly First Friday Freestyle Fellowship will be at 11pm in front of Pawpurr’s on Courts Street in Athens.

Get ready. We coming! Any questions, comments, concerns, hit us up!

Peace.

The theme for this year’s expo is titled “When and Where I Enter: Women Beyond Gender Talk” so you know it’s going to be an engaging experience!

The goal is to combine the expressive and creative elements of hiphop in interactive hands-on sessions, such as a spoken word workshop and performance featuring Ursula Rucker and a discussion surrounding women in hiphop with Michaela Angela Davis. Davis will also be our keynote speaker for the event! There will also be a Speak Out session on what we should do to make a woman’s image in hiphop a more positive one, as well as a woman-run hiphop shop called the SistaCypher!

WE ARE LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS! For our support of this event, we are looking for you guys to help out with volunteering. This ranges from setting up the event, transporting our guests, watching over the time of the sessions, and cleaning up the event. This is a solid chance to get some community service hours done, and a great chance to meet the guests up close.

WE ALSO NEED ARTISTS! Preferably our women in hiphop, whether you dance, spoken word, rap, draw, whatever, we need you to perform at our SistaCypher.

This is an event for all ages, free for everyone, so stop by Grover on Saturday and have a good time!

Peace.

For our general body meeting this Wednesday, we will be having our mixtape exchange.

Bring in a CD full of your favorite tracks (whether it is hiphop or not), and exchange them with other members of HHC. Next week, we’ll discuss our CDs (what we liked, what we didn’t like, what your musical taste says about you, etc).

So make sure you bring your tail to Baker 229 8pm Wednesday with a CD so you can switch CDs and get free music from other people! It’s a great way to get to know your fellow hiphop peers, plus you never know what you’re gonna get!

Peace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

Basically, the state school board in Texas has approved ratifications for the nation’s school curriculum, including social studies, economics, and history. There aim to “add balance” in the classroom is taken because they feel “academia is skewed too far to the left” full of political “extremists” solely trying to “promote their ideology.” Texas, a huge market (and state) for the textbook industry, has the power to influence over 80 percent of the nation’s textbook and ultimately their yearly curriculum. In other words, if these textbook companies take to heart these suggestions made by the board, then the majority of this country’s education will be effected. Some of their changes include the following:

A greater emphasis on favorable coverage on the National Rifle Association, the antifeminist Eagle Forum, the Heritage Foundation, and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. I ADVISE YOU ALL TO LOOK THESE NAMES UP!!!

Less coverage on Hispanic and Latino history and culture.

Changes in terminology, including the change from “imperialism” and “capitalism” to the terms “expansionism” and the “free market.”

A twist in coverage of the Cold War to call documents released by the Soviet Union after President McCarthy’s death “the Soviet’s design to undermine the U.S. government.”

Great Society programs like Title IX and Affirmative Action will be said to create “adverse unintended consequences” in curriculum’s preferred language.

Thomas Jefferson will no longer be included among writers who have influenced American’s intellectual origins because of his input to separate church and state.

The removal of coverage on Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, two of the nation’s recent third-party candidates that actually did get references in school books.

Replacing hiphop with country and western music as among the nation’s important cultural movements.

Before I let you marinate the list of ratifications this state’s school board created for the entire nation in your mind, below is a graphic sample from the New York Times of how the changes have been proposed by the state school board in Texas:

Is this a step towards equality? Really? What do you think about these changes? Please comment below!

Peace.

Pulled from Dailymotion, Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme is a dope little documentary on the culture of freestyling – from cyphers to battles. And since we just rocked the campus with our recent Emcee Battle we hosted with the Betas for the Collins Annin fund, this video is perfect to show you where we’re coming from. Enjoy!

Got your cookies and cakes…of the sort. AND WE ONLY ASK FOR DONATIONS!

So come down to first floor Baker on Friday between 10am and 2pm and get something you know you’ve been craving… goodies from HHC!

from The Cool Kids's Bake Sale EP, HHC-Style

Peace.