Female backpackers mount up! Head down to the Eastpak shop on Carnaby Street London on Saturday 10th April and you’re in for nice surprise. Strictly for the ladies, boys are of course welcome, the store will dedicating the day to showcasing female talent in spoken word, dance and street art. The all female Eastpak ‘Tag My Pak’ graffiti artists will be in-store and on hand to customise any Eastpak bought to your spec for free!
More information here
This new documentary from Andrew Lang follows the blood, sweat and tears of three 11 year old Cuban boys in the Havana City Boxing Academy. With their heart’s firmly set on representing Cuba in boxing at the Olympics, ‘Sons of Cuba’ documents the boy’s lives in the gruelling eight month run-up to the Cubais National under-12′s Boxing Championships. Not only do they have homesickness and exhaustion to contend with as they are groomed not only to be world class fighters, but dubbed ‘The standard bearers of the revolution’ by Castro, they must also bear the weighty pressure of Cuba’s unrivaled, 40 year domination in the sport at the Olympics. This documentary gains rare and previously unwitnessed access into a key institution in the Communist state.
Click here from information on screenings
Very clever and powerful concept, really makes you stop and think how big change can start with small actions. I spotted this on http://creamofgold.posterous.com and had to post it up as well.
Click here for more information
Next weekend sees the fourth annual b.supreme festival hit London’s Southbank. Over the long weekend you’ll be able to catch a cross section of female dancers, breakers and some beatboxers from around the globe throwing it down for your delight. There’ll be an array of paying and free events, from performances and workshops to screenings of US Bgirl Rokafella’s documentary ‘All The Ladies Say’.
b.supreme bills itself as ‘the UK’s only festival for women in hip-hop’. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m really pleased to see females getting some spotlight in what is well documented as being a male dominated arena but last time I checked there were four elements to hip-hop (the DJ, the emcee, the breaker and the graffiti artist) and this event only covers one, two at a push. A close look at the festival programme will show you this is heavily weighted towards dance (not surprising as it’s produced by dance company Independance). I’m in no way trying to take away from the merit of what they’re trying to do here but why not call this as it is: a hip-hop dance festival?
Final point: Ms Dynamite is billed above all other artist on the promotional material and is no doubt the festival’s big pull for attracting a wider audience. I’m in no way hating on Ms D, I am pleased to sees her back doing what she does so well, but this really doesn’t sit right with me either. Firstly: I would never label her as a UK hip-hop artist. She’s more of a Garage/RnB/Urban act (she’s billed as a ‘hip-hop and UK Garage star’ on the Southbank’s website) than a hip-hop artist which, I thought, is what we were supposed to be celebrating here? Secondly: We have some amazing, lesser known, female hip-hop talent who live and breath the very thing right here on our doorstep that b.supreme seems to have overlooked. For me b.supreme have opted to play it safe putting all it’s eggs into a commercially viable basket. It maybe the UK’s only festival celebrating ‘women in hip-hop’ but labelling it a ‘hip-hop festival’ when there’s no mention at all, that I can find, of graffiti artists, emcees, spoken word artists or DJ’s on the bill means this falls pretty short of the mark for me.
It’s been a minute since I did this but here’s a classic Friday track to kick start that Friday feeling! They just don’t make them like this any more.
Who knows what big track this was sampled for? Answers on a postcard.
A&G love Nneka. If it were possible to wear the MP3 format out, I would’ve warn her album ‘No Longer At Ease’ clean to the bone listening to it on repeat last summer! You’ve, hopefully, read me harping on about her album in previous posts and my write up of her last gig here so I’ll spare you the repeat performance. She burst onto the mainstream horizon thanks, in part, to that Chase & Status remix of her track Heartbeat and has been touring constantly since winning a MOBO last year. This is an opportunity to catch her only London date if you missed the last one. If you’re not familiar with her music, below is a little taster for you.
Nneka plays Scala 28th April and tickets are £12.50 plus booking fee click here
I stumbled across folk songstress Laura Marling on a sunny Sunday two weeks ago. I remember it vividly because I was instantly swept away in the raw, eerie and beautiful world of her album ‘Alas I cannot Swim’. I was struck that for one so young, she was signed at the tender age of 17, her music was laced with the kind of insight that usually comes with having lived on this planet a little longer. This is clearly not the case when it comes to Ms Marling. This week she released her latest album ‘I Speak Because I Can’ which features the mighty Mumford of Mumford & Sons. I’ve downloaded it but as yet had the time to sit down with it and ‘get to know it better’ but it’s on the list this week!
This is one of my favourite tracks from ‘Alas I cannot Swim’
Scrap the big family lunch and all that talk of resurrection and, instead, grab the Easter bunny, all the Cadbury Creme Eggs you can pocket and hop down to KOKO for a good ol’ skank on Easter Sunday!
Tickets are £15 in advance and £20 on the door click here
No B-girl worth her salt is stepping correct if she aint rockin a pair of gold creole hoops, until now that is….Look closely at the ones below and you’ll spy they’re actually hand crafted from wood. Good Wood is a jewellery brand with a difference, every piece is uniquely designed and hand carved by Kerri O’Connell from, you guessed it, wood. We’re loving these unique, well thought out takes on classic designs. Not one to be slept on, the US hip hop community has shown it’s love for Kerri’s designs with the likes of Capone, Ice-T, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Jay Electronica and Nneka, to name a few, all sporting Good Wood! The Ninja Sonic’s commissioned her trademark knuckle dusters to use on their album cover (above if you missed it).
You can buy surprisingly affordable off-the-peg designs or commission your own here
Shouts to our fam Streettalk for bringing this to my attention. Cop Kevin Lanre’s interviewing Kerri O’Connell for the latest edition of NYC Streettalk here
Although I’m what you’d refer to as ‘fully-grown’ (let’s just say over 29) and thus should be wise, level-headed and approach things with slightly muted tones of excitement, there’s still very much a hyperactive child hiding just behind this, ahem, grown facade. Over the years this child has learnt to behave and remain as if Ritalin dosed: slightly foaming at the mouth and sedately tucked out of sight. That is until something triggers an outburst. You see, no matter how old I get there remains certain things, out of my control I may add, guaranteed to make my inner child jump out doing the running man and sporting full-on jazz hands. Being the big ol’ tomboy that I am, mostly it’s things like: buying new vinyl, seeing things at the cinema in 3-D (big one at the moment), eating too many Percy Pigs (which I’ve decided are as close to crack as confectionary gets), StarWars light sabres in toyshops that light up and have the full array of sound effects, challenging anything that says ‘DO NOT press/touch/swallow’ etc… All these things will get an outburst but one thing ultimately, above all else, one thing that really does it for me is: KICKS, CREPES, SNEAKERS, TRAINERS. Whatever you wanna call them, I love ‘em.
What can add an extra notch of excitement to this experience tipping me close to full moon lunacy? Creating my very own pair of Nike iD’s. Yes, I said it, Nike iD’s. I had the pleasure of this ‘kid in a candyshop’ experience on Friday, thanks to a very generous birthday gift of a voucher, and it very much lived up to my expectations. Being ushered through those smoked glass doors into a room, the four corners of which were laden with examples of the possibilities that awaited me, was as close as I’ve got (to date) to feeling like Charlie Bucket winning that golden ticket. Awaiting me, like the Willy Wonka of Nike town, was Nick my personal iD expert for the hour it would take me to create my masterpiece. To my joy and surprise, Nick was as excitable and passionate (may have been to do with the high caffeine intake he’d consumed that morning) about the whole thing as I, which can’t be easy to feign on a daily basis but added to the unique and magical feel of it all. Although I had several fits of indecision, thanks to some priceless input from the ultimate iD vet, my very good friend Miriam, and Nick aka the ‘Wizard’ (see below) at the helm, we separated the classics from the decidedly chavish and set to work designing some Air Max 1’s* that will take pride of place in my collection.
The best part of the whole experience? I will take great joy in rocking these gems out in say approximately three months time when the palette I selected from is no longer available. Why you ask? The answer is simple my friends. When someone plucks up the courage to ask me where I got my trainers from, which IS inevitably going to happen as they’ll be so dope, brimming with silent glee and sporting a nonchalant yet knowing headshake, my response will be:
‘What these?‘
Action: raises trainer to knee height, I may point for added effect Tone: quizzical
‘Oh, these, they’re one-offs mate‘
Action: lowers trainer, shrug of shoulders,slight smile Tone: a hint of sympathy but only a hint
Judge me all you like, true sneaker heads will concur, there’s nothing like rocking a dope pair of kicks no one else can have!
*For those that are bothered, my love of the Air Max is what I’m known for, hence the name ‘MillyOnAir’ on occasion and the very reason this blog was named AirsnGraces
