Hip Hop Won’t Ever Stop

By Dustin Ellingson
Contributing Writer

What if there was more to Hip Hop than just the hip-hop music genre we see in the media? What if Hip Hop was a lifestyle choice that could serve as a multi-faceted vehicle of personal expression? There are so many people with something to say in our world who can’t figure a way to say it that there needs to be an outlet. Would it change your opinion of Hip Hop if you knew that it could be your outlet?

Even talking about “that rap music” is enough to make my grandma cringe. She’s stuck on that popular image everybody keeps buying about the guns, the drugs, the fame and the fortune, the glitz and the glamour, and the foul language. She doesn’t even know about the other, more positive side of what has, at times, been a controversial lifestyle choice, this hippin’ and hoppin’. But there is a bright side, and Hip Hop Don’t Stop is back for its second year to shine light on this very subject.

Hip Hop Don’t Stop was conceived in October 2008 by two local artists, one a visual artist and the other a DJ, and it aims to bring our community together again for a fun and artistic weekend of positive release. Last year’s successful event turned a 120-foot wall into a 120-foot mural brimming with vivid color, hosted live music and dance events, and was free and open for all to participate.

This year we’re doing it again. Another huge wall is about to be converted into another huge piece of art. More local and regional music is about to be performed. And North Dakota’s first-ever breakdance competition is about to take place, drawing dancers into town from all over the Midwest.

Hip Hop Don’t Stop is a culmination of art, music, culture, and education that includes dancing and costs its participants nothing. What else could it need? Well, it needs you! It can’t be an effective community project if the community doesn’t get involved, whether participating or observing, or just hanging out and having a good time!

Hip Hop has its roots in the beginnings of human intelligence; it just wasn’t called “Hip Hop” until the 70s. People have always been grunting at each other to try and communicate their ideas. Some of the first records humans made were symbols painted on walls - walls in caves, and eventually walls in important buildings, in their homes and everywhere else they could fit them in. Today we’ve practically covered the planet in symbols of some sort.

Hip Hop’s main elements include: Deejayin’, Emceein’, Break Dancing, and Graffiti painting, or Aerosol Art as it also known.
Graffiti writing is not just vandalism. It is self-expression like any other art form, and at the same time unlike any other type of art because of the social stigmas surrounding it.

It’s the same story with hip-hop music getting its bad rap from its “bad rap.” It’s the violent lyrical content that comes up most often in hip hop discussions.

“Graffiti” encompasses many different elements and styles of spray painting. Tagging is a form of street calligraphy that includes the placement of somebody’s stylized identity, a personal symbol, on public and private property, legally and illegally. Piecing generally refers to images painted to reflect an environment or situation, and writing is what it sounds like. Graffiti artists often refer to themselves as “writers” because that’s what they do. They write their names, thoughts, hopes, even desires anywhere and on anything.

Out of the discontentment that results from the imbalanced color messages our city life sends us, Graffiti Art was born. Graffiti Art, especially the brightly colored murals done since the days of prehistoric humans, serves as a balancing of color and light within the mind of the viewer. Graffiti sets out to not only brighten up the color scheme of the city, but also to express the often-ignored feelings of the people living in that same city.

The ignored feelings are the senses of imbalance we received today when we looked around at everything in town – the cars, the lights, the advertisements, the clothes. The ignored feeling is the sense that something I’m feeling isn’t quite right here, where I’m at, so I aim to do something about it. Now what do I do?

Well, here’s what you do. You get some friends together and go to the Hip Hop Don’t Stop 2 event this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and take part in a Fargo-Moorhead, Midwest community-wide art project that aims to shine some balancing and positive light on this Hip Hop lifestyle that anybody can be a part of. The Hip Hop lifestyle is a focus on that little thing inside that makes you tick. It is focusing on who and what you are in this world of 7 Billion people we’re all a part of.

There’s going to be a lot more on this type of discussion so be sure to come check out Hip Hop Don’t Stop 2 because it’s hosting an educational symposium this Friday at 4pm at the Plains Art Museum, and it’s going to be presented by an artist named EAST, the father of Midwest graffiti style. EAST is one of six Aerosol Artists that also include EMIT, QUISP, JAWSH, DAESK, and local artist EH945.

These artists are the cream of their crop and are going to leave us with another huge 100-foot mural, a mural that will stand there beaming us its own message. A message that’s not telling us to stop, go, be careful, pull over, or anything other than, “Hey, check me out. Enjoy. I’m here for you.” The mural location has changed (as of Tuesday afternoon, July 6) and will be painted at Gasper’s School of Dance, 524 7th Street North, by six of the finest graffiti writers in the land.

The stars:

EAST, from Denver, is the acknowledged “Father of the Midwest Graffiti Style.” He’s also giving a presentation at the Plains Art Museum at 4 o’clock on Friday, July 9: “Abstracting Typography Techniques: Structure, Flow, Composition.”

EMIT, aka Emit Malkovich, also from Denver, is nationally recognized, good at “scapes,” has done skylines, hill/house outlines fading into horizon. Work can be convincing, haunting. Not proprietorial, good in a group.

QUISP, from Kansas City, is a master of narrative and menacing callligraphy. Creates scary convincing monsters. More the master of a single place. Remains to be seen if he “works well with others,” as they say on report cards. Has collaborated with SCRIBE.

JAWSH, from the Cities, is a personal favorite. He composes so well and carefully, has some Diego Rivera in him. Famous for staying till he’s satisfied in brutal weather. He goes postal—snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, and all that.

DAESK, from Minneapolis, is a veteran of last year’s fantastic Hip Hop Don’t Stop mural and a fanatic. Perfection is a matter of trifles, said Michaelangelo, but perfection itself is no trifle. DAESK was listening.

EH945, Paul Ide is our local representative, from F-M, credited with showing the community and authorities that graffiti are art, not crime. Energetic, one of the main forces in the graffiti movement, an organizer of Hip Hop Don’t Stop.

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What: Hip Hop Don’t Stop 2
Where: 1101 1st Ave S
When: July 9, 10, 11, from 9am
Info: 701.232.3821

Hip Hop Don’t Stop 2010

::Friday, July 9, 9 am-4pm. Mural creation by some of the Midwest’s finest Graffiti writers. The painting begins Friday morning and
ends Sunday night, at Gaspar’s School of Dance, 524 7th St N.

::Friday 4-5pm. Lecture by EAST, Father of Midwest Styles “Abstracting Typography Techniques: Structure, Flow, Composition,” Plains Art Museum.

::Friday 5:30pm. Battle on the Plains, North Dakota’s first ever Bboy (break-dance) competition. Bboys from Denver, Omaha, Milwaukee, and the Cities. Insane after-party, music by blueprint, Wide Eyes, Big Zach, Kipp G, Stupid Birthday, Toby Beatbox & Slow Kid, Charlie Mizza, Philly Kid.
$10, $12 at the door, ticket includes after-party, All ages, 21+ on balcony. The Venue, 2525 9th Ave S.

::Saturday and Sunday, July 9 & 10. Mural painting and live music from 9ish to 9ish. Live hip hop music from local and regional talent all day both days.