Gabriel Teodros speaks with "We've Got The Jazz"

Gabriel Teodros speaks with We've Got The Jazz

Just did a pretty dope interview with this blog called We've Got The Jazz... reflecting on Lovework, Ethiopia, Abyssinian Creole, my early Seattle influences, the school system, Mexico City and more! Check it out here. Props to Juan for reaching out, and coming with some interesting questions! They also did an interview just last week with my cousin Moka Only... that's whatsup!

THE REVIVAL: A Tour Documentary with Roxanne Shante, Bahamadia + more!

This is the homie Invincible's directorial debut, of what i would most definitely call a legendary tour. I'm super inspired by this... Pay attention. Invincible describes it better than i could on her website...

The Revival (Europe, 2009, 17 min)
Directed by Invincible. Produced by EMERGENCE Media and Iqaa the Olivetone.

The Revival gives a candid glimpse into the first meeting of legendary Hip-Hop pioneer Roxanne Shante and veteran Philly emcee Bahamadia, as they trade stories of their struggles and triumphs in the industry over their long careers. It also shows the exchange of lessons between them and up-and-coming artists DJ Shortee, Eternia, Stacy Epps, and Invincible. This short documentary, a collage of performances and behind the scenes footage, was filmed and directed by Invincible while on the road in Europe as part of We-B Girlz all women in independent Hip-Hop tour. The largest all female Hip-Hop tour of its kind, it spanned over three weeks, six countries, and featured dozens of female artists who performed for tens of thousands of supporters.

In support of the release of The Revival, The Fembassy is featuring weekly interviews with the artists from The Revival.

http://emergencemusic.net/The_Revival

Eternia "GET CAUGHT UP" Free Download!

Eternia "GET CAUGHT UP!"
Mixed by DJ Law

Eternia as an emcee and human being makes me want to go harder in music and life, every single day. I honestly don't think i would be where i'm at now if it weren't for time spent with her and Bocafloja in Mexico this past summer. Download her new mixtape which just dropped today, bump it, love it and share it with all your folks!!!
-- gt

Mexico City

This past weekend i had the honor of rocking Mexico City in celebration of the release of Bocafloja's new album Existo, Preludio Al Piensa. Boca invited me, alongside Toronto / New York-based super-emcee Eternia, Bay Area crew Para La Gente, and from Mexico: Rasheed Allah, Manik B, Soulman and Charlotte Darat. It was an experience i will never forget... an incredible journey with some amazing artists i feel so blessed to call family now. These are just a few of the things i learned while sharing experiences with Bocafloja on how we grew up in the '80s and '90s in different countries: While the symptoms of the diseases that afflict our communities are very different, the root causes are the same. We also grew up with Hip Hop the same way, remembering breakdancing as some of our first memories, and trying every element of Hip Hop before just sticking to emceeing. (We were never really good at the other elements... ha!) But some of the differences are that in Mexico, minimum wage is less than 10 dollars a day. And Bocafloja represents the first generation of Hip Hop in his country. If your not hip... do yourself a favor and check the Autonomo video... the brand new Las Estaciones video... and check the music on his myspace. In addition to just being an incredible emcee, Bocafloja goes above and beyond when it comes to reaching out and building with artists from around the world, in a real way... in promoting other artists who are of like mind... and the hospitality and kindness he showed us when we were in Mexico was just so much! I couldn't believe how many people were so familiar with my music, aaand with Abyssinian Creole when we were out there. The first night we did a radio show called Represent on Radio Alterno. In the interview, the host Daniel Soto, said something along the lines of "whenever i have a hard day, i pop in your music and start to feel better... please do another Abyssinian Creole record!" I said for him, it might just happen.

On Saturday when we got to the venue (2pm) there was already a line forming around the block. From what i was told before i even got to Mexico, Foro Alicia is a unique venue in DF, the shows are All Ages and start at 5pm (because everyone rides the Metro, the show needs to end by 10 so people can catch the train home), and if this venue were here, you would say maximum capacity of the club is around 250... but they PACK it, to where there's over 500-600 people in that one room... sweaty, hot, and a walk from the stage to the restroom is gonna be a constant push, shove, and you literally have to swim through people.

This Quilombo show at Foro Alicia is one i don't think anyone involved will ever forget... because one song into my set, the lights went out on the whole block. I ended up doing the rest of my set either acapella or with Omar from Para La Gente on the drums, no microphone... rocking it harder then i probably would of with electricity. Even if no one understood my lyrics, it seemed like everyone got my spirit that night. The room was dimly lit by 3 battery operated emergency lights... and after i rocked it, so did the rest of the crew... Until the crowd was chanting "...Boca! ...Boca!" So Boca goes on... and what starts as a little hum underneath his lyrics grows into the entire crowd yelling every lyric of every song he did... it was beautiful. We managed to keep everybody there and entertained for over 2 hours until the lights came back on... Eternia rocked as much of her set as she could before the lights went out again... And the crowd was giving her so much love! Eternia's one of those emcees that make you want to better your performance game, no matter where your at... she just goes so hard! (If your not hip, you should do yourself another favor and check the Struggle video featuring Wordsworth & Kenn Starr... plus all the music on her myspace). When the lights came back on Bocafloja rocked what was one of the hypest shows i think i've ever seen... People we're rapping every lyric along with him... crowd-surfing... it was madness. You can catch a glimpse of it in the video blog Eternia put together... also posted below.

The next day we rocked another show in Cuarnavaca, about an hour outside of DF. On the way down, we spent the morning in Tepoztlan, checking out the illest open air market i've ever seen. When we got to the venue in Cuarnavaca for soundcheck... we were informed that there was no electricity on the block, and that a generator was coming in 2 hours. "Welcome to Mexico!" Still had a lovely day sharing experiences with new found family... The show was great... and freestyling outside with babies, graffiti writers, and having the thunder clap for you? Another one of my favorite memories ever... thank you Hip Hop, for touching every part of the globe. If all that wasn't enough... On the way home i bumped into Minister Server while i was changing planes at the Atlanta airport. I met Minister Server when he used to travel everywhere with KRS-One, but the first time i really got to know him was at the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival in 2007... which was the also the first time Bocafloja, Eternia and myself all shared one stage... he co-hosted that event along with La Bruja. No coincidences. 2 things Minister Server said to me back then that i still always quote: "You are a perfect, unrepeatable, expression of the Most High" and "H.I.P. H.O.P... it's a Higher Infinite Power Healing Our People." Life has a crazy way of letting you know when your on the right path.

There were so many adventures, memories, gifts exchanged, lessons learned, good food eaten... i can't even begin to write about all of it here. I just want to thank Bocafloja so much for the experience, the hospitality, and the love... and to every single person i got to build with the last week in Mexico... Para La Gente, Solymar, Leon, Tania & family, every single person that came to the show and showed love...you all helped my spirit more than you could possibly know. And to Auntie Eternia... Thank you. I call her Auntie Eternia cause she gave me some good advice, treated me like family, and did an amazing job of documenting the whole trip... check out her blog and her photo album for more goodness! (Including our visit to Frida Kahlo's house... gyeah!) God-willing we'll be back soon... Thank you Mexico.

"Quilombo’s roots are based in political principles and conceptions that direct our actions. It is thus how we position ourselves as persons of the Left committed to social change, who work in an autogenic fashion and believe in the ability of individuals to change the course of history; especially their own history. We work autonomously, with our own resources and abilities within the Mexican hip hop community. We are linked to existing progressive and revolutionary conceptions worldwide concerning hip hop that believe and work with the transformational force of the culture applied to education and social development. We are the heirs and the continuation of the many efforts of the people and movements that have preceded us, but we work in our own manner as not to limit ourselves to legacies. We took the name ‘Quilombo’, which was originally used by communities in resistance during the colonial period on the American continent by fugitive black slaves, indigenous peoples and others who rejected colonialism’s domination, who preferred to live as free people in communal form. Colonization also left us with dilemmas, one of which was the question of hierarchical divisions between people defined by race. For this reason being conscious of this issue, we consider important to affirm and honor our own indigenous and African roots, fighting as proud people of color conscious of our ancestry, educating ourselves to demystify the racist global vision that was taught to us in school, at home and by mass media, which caused us to unequally value human being always in favor of White people. Our form of political participation and intervention is through education and political foundation, expressing ourselves under diverse artistic methods, like workshops, panels, concerts, and academic meetings. We consider ourselves as part of a global resistance formed under the initiatives of many people and organizations with which we form alliances in different places of the world, and under different premises. Our efforts are focused on promoting debate, the formation and proliferation of progressive and revolutionary ideas. We understand ourselves to be just one part of the efforts in search of the peoples’ progress, and that we are not the only ones in the fight, but at the same time we consider fundamental that the people who take part in political change through hip hop have the ideological understanding in the why, and the how, by any other form their argument would not transcend the cliché. Clarity in convictions will strengthen our QUILOMBO." - from myspace.com/quilomboarte

Trinity International Hip Hop Festival :: April 4-6 (Hartford, CT)

check it out...

Hartford, Connecticut – The Trinity College Temple of Hip-Hop organization is hosting the third annual Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival on the weekend of April 4-6 at the Trinity College campus. Festival Sponsors include Trinity College, Nomadic Wax, Sol Productions, The Temple of Hip-Hop Kulture and World Hip-Hop Market. The event is free and open to the public.

The festival is the first and largest international hip-hop festival in the United States, blending the wisdom of "old school" pioneers with the passions of hip-hop musicians from all points of the globe with a mission of bringing people from all backgrounds and cultures to common ground.

Hip-hop garnered a lion's share of negative publicity in 2007 – DJ Drama was arrested for selling mixtapes, Don Imus pointed a finger at hip hop's misogyny and rapper T.I. was arrested on gun charges spawning a nationwide dialogue over the future of the culture. Among the highlights was the Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival, which was recognized world-wide. The event is sponsored and hosted by the first college chapter of the KRS-One created national organization, the Temple of Hip-Hop. Events and guests will include music artists, activists, pioneers, filmmakers, DJ's, and graffiti writers.

Co-organizer and Trinity College student Zee Santiago said, "This is the first event of its kind that demonstrates how hip-hop has become an international culture as well as an accepted academic area of study."

In past years, the College has hosted hip-hop luminaries such as Fab 5 Freddy; Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop; Byron Hurt, director of Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes; and Charlie Ahern, director of Wildstyle.

Schedule of Events

The 2008 festival will kick off Friday afternoon with a hip-hop theatre performance led by Baba Israel, and opening remarks from Trinity College President James F. Jones, Jr., and Dr. Xiangming Chen, the Dean of the Center for Urban and Global Studies. This will be followed by a keynote address from Bakari Kitwana (author of The Hip-Hop Generation and Why White Kids Love Hip Hop) entitled Can Hip-Hop Make the Transition from Cultural Movement to Political Power?

Artists scheduled to perform Friday night include Baba Israel (Australia/USA), La Bruja (Puerto Rico), Shokanti with Chachi and crew (Cape Verde), Abyssinian Creole (Gabriel Teodros & Khingz - Seattle), Self-Suffice (Hartford), and a Senegalese "Super Crew" featuring several top Senegalese MCs backed by Nomadic Wax's African Underground live band. The performances will be hosted by Canadian lyricist Eternia and Blitz the Ambassador (Ghana) backed by DJ Boo (of the Juggaknots).

Saturday's activities will kick off with a panel discussion about the early years of hip-hop with old school pioneers Grandmaster Caz and Tony Tone from the Cold Crush Brothers, Grand Wizard Theodore and DJ Disco Wiz. Pop Master Fabel of the legendary Rock Steady Crew will host a 2-on-2 b-boy battle Saturday afternoon with music provided by DJ Disco Wiz and a $500 prize on the line. West coast crew and Trinity-alums Trust Your Struggle will present a graffiti workshop and collaborate with other invited artists to create an all new mural in the center of campus. The beat-making workshop will give budding producers tips on how to make hip-hop beats led by Connecticut production team Kemistree and Zaquan.

Saturday night's performance schedule includes Zimbabwe Legit (Zimbabwe/USA), The Perceptionists (Mr. Lif & Akrobatik – USA), Sam the Kid (Portugal), Jewish emcee Y-Love (presented by Trinity College's Hillel House), female super-group Anomolies, spoken word collective iLL-Literacy and Rebel Diaz (Chile/Puerto Rico). Performances will again be hosted by Eternia and Blitz with DJ Boo.

On Sunday, hip-hop educator Melissa Noel Green will present "The Art of Rhyme," a workshop. Global hip-hop DJs will spin at the "Chill Out Lounge" during the course of all three days culminating with an open mic session for MCs on Sunday afternoon.

The event is free and open to the public. For details and schedule information, go to http://trinityhiphop.org