Live Peformance

BzyBee

Born Brittney Abernathy, Bzy Bee is a 22-year-old emcee whose carbon flow, charisma, and energy define her music. Bee already has two mixtapes under her belt (”Bee Alert” and “Legally Speaking”), and will soon be releasing the highly anticipated mixtape “Abstrak.” Among her many accomplishments, she has collaborated with Bad Boy South/Block Entertainment’s J Lotto, and has opened for Cassidy and Trey Songz. Bzy Bee will also be featured in the Crescent City College Tour, which spans eight universities and colleges in the Louisiana area. Bzy Bee’s motto is “to share music to ears that are willing to listen while maintaining my own sound and image.” No one knows what the future may bring, but just know it includes BZY BEE!

DJ Dynamite DaveSoul

Those who know him or have heard “The Dynamite DaveSoul” spin acknowledge him for his boundless taste in music and ability to bridge the gap between young & old music lovers alike. Upon listening to his mixtapes and live performances, it is quite evident that he is the ideal deejay: part-music historian, part-turntablist. In a world full of CD/MP3 DJ’s, DaveSoul continues to rock crowds the way Hip-Hop’s forefathers did back in the day: with 2 turntables, a mixer & a microphone… DaveSoul is one of the most popular and versatile deejays to come out of New Orleans. He has deejayed for a quite a few Hip-Hop & Funk bands, and has been featured in a number of local New Orleans publications such as “WhereYa’At” & “New Orleans” magazine. He has opened for a number of national recording artists including The Roots, Erykah Badu, The Last Poets, Common, and most recently Roy Ayers, Fertile Ground & Bilal. Since the event of Hurricane Katrina, DaveSoul has continued to move forward spinning for events in New York, Norfolk, VA & Atlanta, GA. And while currently residing in Atlanta, he still continues to deejay for gigs in New Orleans quite frequently. DaveSoul firmly believes that the role of the deejay is to “entertain, educate & enlighten the people. I feel that it’s my responsibility as a deejay to expose people to what they don’t hear about on the radio or other forms of the media. Each one of us has to lead by example & be the change that’s needed in the world. So, I feel that it’s important that we say something that means something, because the future is paying attention to us.

E-PROPS

E-PROPS was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn to Haitian parents. At an early age, he showed an affinity for music, in particular Compas, the popular music of his parents’ native land. Born in the late 1970’s in New York City’s melting pot, he was simultaneously exposed to Hip-Hop, early Dancehall, Funk, R&B, and later, 80’s Pop music. In addition to being involved in music, E-PROPS also stayed politically aware during the politicization of Hip-Hop culture. Continuing to support his community, E-PROPS rallied against the police brutality inflicted against Ahmadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond. He has supported the efforts to help Mumia Abu Jamal, highlighting the prison-industrial complex. E-PROPS has also appeared on New York’s Radio Station, Hot 97 Street Soldiers, and participated in the Campaign for Dignity, led by Minster Conrad Muhammad, now known as Reverend Conrad Dillard. Today, E-PROPS’ ultimate goal is to utilize Hip-Hop as a means of social change by synergizing its economic, cultural, and political aspects.

EF Cuttin

EF Cuttin has been one of the top DJs in New Orleans since 1993, playing at all of the major clubs in the NO, from House of Blues to Tipitina’s Uptown. As time went on, he received opportunities to open for some of the industry’s major players––Wyclef Jean, Black Eyed Peas, The Roots, Talib Kweli, Cash Money Millionaires, C Murder, Mos Def, Little Brother, to name a few. EF was also party of the #1 morning show in post-Katrina New Orleans, the Big Ass Morning Show on KNOU Hot 104.5FM as the resident mixshow host, which enabled him to break tons of new music and make some valuable connections in the industry. Unfortunately, poor ownership forced the station to shut down in 2006. Undaunted, EF stayed on the grind, starting a weekly networking/talent event called MySpace Mondays, that ran for the course of 2006. He also began traveling with MC Truth Universal as his tour DJ, going everywhere from New York, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, and all points in between. He became the resident DJ for The Hookah Bar in Octoer of 2006, transforming what was simply a lounge into THE hotspot to be seen in the city for over 2 years. EF was a guest DJ several times on Shadyville Radio on Shade45 Sirius Satellite Radio, giving the nation their first taste of southern artists like Dizzy, Lil Boosie, Rich Boy, Curren$y, and others. EF also helps local artists by producing mixtapes that rival those made by industry heavyweights for a fraction of the price. An accomplished producer as well, EF had moderate success when Dizzy’s “Keep the Party Goin’ (Smoke, Smoke, Smoke)” was in radio rotation. Now armed with a new manager, EF plans to be a force to be reckoned with for a long time to come.

Skipp Coon

Skipp Coon (Joecephus Martin) is academically astute and kind of street-savvy. He has to be. He’s from Jackson…..South Jackson. Not the hood, not the burbs. It’s the best and worst of both worlds. This is one Mississippian that is a by-product of his environment. Skipp Coon acknowledges how being born into a state where history shapes you in many ways. He started rapping in first grade because his “thoughts always seemed to rhyme.” His natural inclination for rhyming became his passion, beyond the others for women, revolution and tennis shoes. These passions now serve him well in his artistry.

Maresa D’amore-Morrison

Luther Gray and Bamboola 2000

Bamboula 2000 is a dance and music ensemble that draws on multicultural roots that reach deep into the soil of Congo Square. The word bamboula refers to a love dance performed to the beat of drums as a dancer performs sensuous movements. The bamboula passed down its syncopated rhythm to strains of music found today in Martinique, Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and New Orleans, including calypso, zouk, and dancehall music. Bamboula 2000 takes its heritage and updates it with its original numbers, blending elements of reggae, jazz, funk, urban, and other genres. In 1996, the ensemble put out its first recording, Cultural Warrior. Members took their show on the road, both at home in the U.S. and abroad, and that same year the group took home an Offbeat Music Award and a Big Easy Award.

Percussionist Luther Gray is Bamboula 2000’s leader. In 1993, he spearheaded the effort to claim a spot on the National Register of Historic Places for the historically rich Congo Square. Along with Jamilah Muhammed four years previously, he helped establish the Congo Square Foundation. The remaining members of Bamboula 2000 are keyboardist Lloyd Daly, percussionist Eric Burt, guitarist Mario Tio, drummer Cameron Woods, lead vocalist Elbert “Moses” Fulgham, bassist Terrence Anderson, and background singers Carde, Drena Clay, and Cheryl Jenkins. Also included in the ensemble are dancers Kai Knight, Erica “Famata” Larkins, Jamilah Peters-Muhammad, and Charlene Tantira Bridges (collectively they are known as the Bamboula Queens).

Suheir Hammad

Suheir Hammad’s work has appeared in dozens of anthologies and numerous publications. She was a co-writer and original cast member in the Tony-award winning Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. An Amherst College Aaron Copeland Fellow, she stars in the movie Salt of this Sea. The author of Born Palestenian, Born Black; Drops of This Story and ZataarDiva, Suheir has won several awards for her writing, including The Audre Lorde Poetry Award, a Van Lier Fellowship, and a Sister of Fire Award.

Michaela Harrison

Slangston Hughes with Blaze the Veral Chemist

Slangston Hughes, THE Connoisseur of Fine Rhyme can be clearly defined in the following quote from fellow New Orleans emcee, Mr. J’ai: “The future of hip-hop has arrived. Slangston Hughes’ music is a fresh blend of sensible lyrics, head bobbing beats, and unpredictably witty wordplay. Slangston is pushing the envelope and destroying all stereotypes of what a Southern emcee is supposed to sound like. He represents the new movement of unheard, progressive New Orleans rap.” The current musical endeavor from Slangston Hughes is the soon-to-be released 19-track mixtape, Money & The Message, which features original production from Blaze the Verbal Chemist, Jon Jackson of American New Wave Media Group & Power 102.9’s own DJ Mike Swift. “Money & The Message” brings Slangston’s coined phrase of “intelligent hip-hop” to the forefront as lyrical tenacity, subject matter and music with meaning are creatively expressed throughout this project. Mr. Hughes believes that “music should bring about change, whether it be a minute action or something on a much bigger scale.”

Kiyoko McCrae

Stephanie McKee

Mondo Bizarro

Mondo Bizarro has been creating original, multidisciplinary art and fostering partnerships in local, national and international communities for the last six years. We are a group of artists that have committed to labor as an ensemble over several years with the goal of establishing a body of work inspired by a particular set of commonly shared aesthetic and civic values. We are a collective of individuals that create, present and produce a wide array of imaginative projects aimed at utilizing art as a tool for understanding what makes us commonly human and individually unique. Our work is intentionally multidisciplinary, ranging from physical theater to large-scale community festivals; from social media to site-specific productions. Everything we do is fueled by the desire to develop brave new works of art that illuminate the beauty and travails of the human condition.

Monique Moss

Mr. Nick

Mr. Nick (Mejia) is not your average DJ. With an extremely diverse musical background, and a history of playing in rock, jazz, funk, blues, and various other outfits, Nick’s obsession with the hip-hop beat began when he first heard Rawkus’ Soundbombing II, and that beat hasn’t stopped playing in his head since.

M.U.G.A.B.E.E.

Men Under Guidance Acting Before Early Extinction (M.U.G.A.B.E.E.), are musicians, singers, songwriters, producers, playwrights, poets and teachers. They do it all, and they do it all well. They are artists, vessels for the word, allowing it to move through them in various forms of hip hop, jazz, spoken word, rhythm and blues, and soul. Maurice S. Turner II and Carlton A. Turner were born into the nucleus of the spectrum of life in America. In their music you can hear the influences of their mother’s Mississippi gospel-bred blues meeting their fathers’ Harlem jazz swing into a crash, a bang, and a boom of late twentieth century urbanization. And just like their parents, they are a perfect compliment to each other. One of their greatest assets is their willingness to learn, grow, and evolve as artists, but truly their greatest strength is their understanding that art is used to empower and uplift all people, assisting the evolution of human beings by providing thought provoking entertainment in a wide range of subject matter. M.U.G.A.B.E.E. has been performing professionally since 1995. With their explosive performances, well-layered and constructed grooves, and thought provoking lyrics, their freshman effort delivered a soul-stirring and mind-pleasing climax. Since 2001, M.U.G.A.B.E.E. has been working in communities across the South in the form of residencies, workshops, performances and lectures. M.U.G.A.B.E.E. works with youth groups, adult learners, community centers, churches and schools. M.U.G.A.B.E.E. is a continuation of the rhythms and sounds that are the foundation of the ancestral spirit of communication. When you hear the music, you hear the fire and soul of evolution.

Onye Ozuzu

Sunni Patterson

More than a poet, more than a singer, more than an emcee–it’s not just what she says, it’s how she says it. Emerging from the musical womb that is New Orleans, artist and visionary Sunni Patterson combines the heritage and tradition of her Native town with an enlightened modern world view to create music and poetry that is timeless in its groove. Sunni has been a featured performer at the many of Nation’s premier spoken word venues, including HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. She has also had the privilege of speaking at the Panafest in Ghana, West Africa. She has worked with several well known artists and performers including Hannibal Lokumbe- singing lead vocals for his score,”King and the Cresent City Moon,” Kalamu Ya Salaam, Sonia Sanchez, Wanda Coleman, Amiri Baraka, Laini Kuumba Afrikan Dance Company, and many more.

Kalamu ya Salaam

As a speaker, dramatist, literary and music critic and reviewer, interviewer, short story writer, photographer, editor, poet, and essayist, Kalamu ya Salaam has aided in the struggle for liberation of his people since his youth. As a journalist, activist, and emissary he has facilitated communication between Afro-Americans and communities all over the world by his travels to such diverse places as Tanzania, the People’s Republic of China, Cuba, Barbados, and Surinam. He places himself in the tradition of Alexander Crummell and W.E.B. DuBois as a black humanist who ascribes to the development of l’homa universale “the all-sided man.” He believes “It is important for us to understand that in today’s world our most valuable vocation must be to be men and women to the fullest extent possible, and everything else can and will follow in due time.” He lives up to his own credo and is always energetically immersed in a large number of different projects.

Reneé Wilson

Reneé is a native New Orleanian now living in Los Angeles pursuing a multifaceted career in both the entertainment industry and the social change community. Ms. Wilson made her television debut in the season finale episode on the sitcom Girlfriends. In perhaps her most recognizable role she played Raylette Pat Lyle in director Taylor Hackford’s Academy Award-winning film Ray, which starred Regina King and Jamie Foxx. She is also an accomplished singer/songwriter, and is recording an album of original songs while currently performing her music at venues in the Los Angeles area. A first-time director, Ms. Wilson is the principal executive in charge of the Crepe Covered Sidewalks project.

Truth Universal

Truth Universal is a Trinidad-born New Orleans-based MC, who is dedicated to the preservation of Hip Hop and the cultivation and liberation of the Afrikan (Black) community. Consciousness of the oppression of people of color worldwide is expressed in his strategic and iconoclastic compositions. Truth draws from the strength and/or example of the Divine Intelligence/Creative Force, the Ancestors, his family, Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, Public Enemy, Just-Ice, KRS1, Poor Righteous Teachers, Z-3 MC’s, Dana Dane and Clark Kent, Slick Rick and Dougie Fresh, Gang Starr, Eric B and Rakim, George & Jonathan Jackson, and Assata Shakur to name a few.

Wise Intelligent

Wise Intelligent was the lead MC and most visible and well known member of the legendary hip-hop group Poor Righteous Teachers from Trenton, New Jersey. Founded in 1989, Poor Righteous Teachers are known as pro-Black conscious hip hop artists who inspired generations of musicians. Wise Intelligent is also known as a solo artist who has continued to define conscious hip-hop.