RTP-area local music and culture

[Jeffrey Herrick <jherrick AT duke.edu>]

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Lauren Harkrader                Michael McBride
Urban Music Director, WXDU      Co-Event Coodinator
Co-Event Coodinator             P:408.314.6584
P:919.632.8426                  mykmac AT hotmail.com
F:919.493.5908
urban AT wxdu.org
www.wxdu.org
www.chelaonline.com

Duke Hip Hop Conference 2004 Celebrates Hip Hop
Culture and Discusses Political and Social Issues.

Durham, NC, April 1-3. The event is a 3-day conference
featuring a symposium and two concerts headlining
national recording artists Saigon and Cross Movement .
The conference uses Hip Hop music as a point of
departure for an in-depth, cross-disciplinary
conversation on imprisonment, religion, politics and
social-activism.

The conference investigates how Hip Hop music speaks
to the American political status quo and the potential
of Hip Hop culture to function as a tool for change in
our society. The dialogue is modeled after the use of
Hip Hop?s dynamic sensibility of self-expression to
speak truth to power.

The event will begin Thursday, April 1st with the
student panel discussion, ?Hip Hop, Ethics, Social
Imagination, and Today?s Political Landscape? in the
WEL 4B 401 Living Room on Duke?s West Campus at 8pm.
This event is free and open to the public.

On Friday April 2nd the conference will host a joint
performance by the Duke Gospel Choir, ?United in
Praise? and the Christian Hip Hop group, Cross
Movement, in Page Auditorium on Duke?s West Campus at
7pm.  Admission is free and open to the public.

The evening of April 2nd concludes with a concert by
Saigon at Club 9, 746 9th Street, Durham, NC.  The
concert will also feature North Carolina Hip Hop
artists The Away Team, L.E.G.A.C.Y., Jozeemo, K Hill,
and Monte Smith.  Hosted by Mothernature and Shelly B,
with DJ Soundmachine and DJ Chela No. 1. This event is
open to the public (18 and up) and admittance is $8.
Doors open at 10pm.

On Saturday April 3rd , the event culminates with a
panel discussion entitled ?Hip Hop, Ethics, Social
Imagination, and Today?s Political Landscape? with
panelists Saigon, Niger Innis, Min. Paul Scott, Damien
Ty Jackson, Cherryl Aldave, Rev. Michael Walrond,
Ambassador, and moderator Glenn Toby.  The panel is
held in the Richard White Auditorium on Duke?s East
Campus from 1pm-3pm. Immediately following the panel
is a listening party with a preview of exclusive new
material by Saigon, hosted by DVS, Mixshow Director of
K97.5. Both events are free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Black Campus Ministries, the Black
Student Alliance, Center for Race Relations, the Duke
Chapel Pathways, the Duke Student Government, the
Franklin Humanities Institute, the GPSC, the Institute
for Critical US Studies, the Kenan Institute of
Ethics, the Literature Department, the Mary Lou
Williams Center, the WEL, the Women?s Studies
Department, and WXDU.