Talking about Hip Hop

This morning we had an amazing workshop about gender and power in hip hop.

Hip hop is something I always loved to listen to because not only did I grow up on hip hop, it's a part of my culture. However, what I learned during this workshop was that a lot of mainstream hip hop is controlled by these rich white, old men that have the choice and power on whether to put certain hip hop in the media or not. Also, the media has a way of only showing the public, hip hop that they think should be what the public needs to here. And that the public they are thinking about making money off of is the youth.

There was some great discussion that went throughout the workshop and I was able to give a lot of input on what I thought about hip hop.

I noticed that because a lot of things I see and hear on the internet, such as on youtube and on other cool websites, I think are being held back and sometimes interesting for the public to hear on the radio but are not given that opportunity. To be specific, a lot of music that is always on the radio mostly has the same message...such as talking about the sexuality of both male and female, turf issues, violence, weapons, politics, drugs, and sometimes about where their from and how things set off in their hood/neighborhood.

During this workshop, the group and I were asked an agree or disagree question on whether it matters if you personally care more about listening to the beat rather than the lyrics or vice versa. I told everyone that the beat of the music determines whether or not I want to listen to the rap/song or not. This is because the tone and base of the beat gives me the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the lyrics.

Sorry to say, but if I, JJ, don't have the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat then, something is really wrong with this song because leaning and rocking to the beat gives me a feel to the lyrics and make me want to say, "This song GO"! When I say that, it means that I really like this rap/song/music and when a person such as I, don't know the lyrics to a rap/song, it only frustrates me when I cannot "lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat.

In others people's opinions, they said that the lyrics attract them more rather than the beat because they would like to actually get a message out of the rap/song/music instead of just leaning with it and rocking with and to the beat.

The workshop made me feel open to saying everything that was on my mind about hip hop. It felt like there was no right or wrong answer and that anything I said, other people in the workshop could relate to and speak on more about what I had to say. -JJ

World Savvy Jam Session!!!

Coming to work and knowing that I'm going to participate in a field trip is cool because field trips are rare, and it makes me feel special. Liz, Ari, Joshua, Jule, Wing Yan and myself were the 6 participating in the World Savvy Jam Session. We gathered at Zeum and walked to the SomArts Cultural Center located on 934 Brannan Street. It was a long walk, it took us about 30 minutes. The Jam Session was basically about youths bringing their creative energy and vision to make artworks with professional San Francisco artist while addressing the World Savvy theme: POWER!

Upon arrival we were all hungry, we all signed in and got our name badges. We were all separated into groups; pink, orange, blue and black. We were offered pizza and we all had two slices, they were delicious. After 60 minutes of waiting we were called into a big warehouse art room and we watched 'Kibera Kids.' It was about a young boy who wanted a life of his own because his parent died. He was always forced into doing things that he didn't want to like stealing phones from others and selling them for money. Everyday he would get beat for not stealing phones. Then one day he decided to leave the country Kibera and start a new life. It was about hope.

We got into our groups based on our registration color. I was in the blue group and our main focus is being a POET. Our group was very unique because the other groups did a physical activity and our group did a verbal activity and it was very strong and deep. We separated in two groups the resistant and the non-resistant side. I was in the resistant side and we had to come up with short lines starting with "I am ....... that's why they call me power" and the non-resistant side came up with quotes to support (positive way) the resistant side. My quote was "I am a very smart person and teachers and my peers look upon me for answers and they call me POWER." I had a lot of fun participating in this session. The people that I worked with to come up with different quotes were teenagers around my age and even the instructors were teenagers. Since I am shy in front a huge group a people, this session brought me out of my shell. It made me express my opinion on what I thought about POWER and how I can relate it in a poem.

After preparing for our performance we gathered into the big warehouse art room and group by group we did our presentations. Our group was second to last. I was a little bit nervous because I had to present my quote with the microphone to the big mob of an audience. Can you imagine what you would feel like in this situation? It was ... because I had to say why I was powerful.

The group I liked the most was the Pyramid group and our group Poet group. The pyramid group really showed a lot of self confidence because they had to climb on top of each other and if one person decides to doze off then the whole group fails. If I could change one thing I would extend the amount of time participating. It was very fun and interesting. There aren't a lot of organizations who offer free programs and sessions in San Francisco so I give them a lot of credit for hosting this event. If they're planning to do this again next year I'll indeed do it again.

My Own Powerful Media

My name is WENDY I've been at zeum for about 2 weeks. I like zeum. It's actually really fun - I like seeing the kids have fun and I be having fun too. What I like about everybody who works here is they are really friendly and nice. When i first came I was kind of scared and shy but now that I know everybody and I've worked with almost everybody... its actually pretty fun.

Well this morning we had a workshop with World Savvy and Theo, a photo journalist and Katina from World Savvy came in to talk to us. They talked about Cindy Sheehan how she went to Texas and sat in President Bushes ranch because she was mad that her son died in the war. Theo had taken a lot of different pictures and the picture that was different - the one that ended up getting published - was the one where she was like screaming and she was holding a cross with her son's name up high. We talked about why newspapers choose the photos they choose. They choosed the picture they think is best to one that actually relates to the article they writing about.

All the attention was on Cindy. There was a sign that was against the war and another one that wanted the war to continue. Some one made a poster that said "god bless bush and the troops." There was a chair that had a sign that said "why is bush afraid to talk to cindy?" Then they also showed us another picture where a 9 year old little girl that had another sign that said "thank you Mr. president for staying in Iraq." But in the pictures it seemed like a lot of people were supporting Cindy. After he showed us an article that they used the picture that said "why is this man afraid to talk to Cindy?" and in the bottom it said "i'm so sorry" then it had another picture with a family and Bush they looked pretty sad. Theo told us about a lady that lost her son in the war to and she sent a letter to bush and it said that she still supports him after what happen with her son. Some of these picture were chosen to be in some news papers and some in others. Newspapers have a lot of power -they pick the pictures based on what story they want to tell.

Pictures can be interpreted in different ways. people interpret pictures the way they want. In pictures you can't actually hear or see everything the people do, so that's when they say stuff about the people just by looking at it, even if is not really true.

Then Theo talked about an immigrant family, he showed us a video with pictures. Some girl was talking about how Americans say that supposedly they're taking their jobs knowing that they could get better jobs than them and that they would never do job they do. She also said that almost all Americans think immigrants are criminals when that's not true.

After we finished talking about that we got to make our own article about topics we don't see in the news and that peoples don't actually talk about for example they only talk about teens when they fight or kill somebody but they never say the good things they only publish the negative stuff.

I wrote about how everybody thinks that all immigrants are criminals and that is NOT TRUE. I choose to write about that cause my parents came to San Francisco as immigrants and they are not criminals. They came here because they wanted a better future for my family. The only reason why my parents came here was for more money cause my grandmother was sick and they needed to pay her medical bills cause everything in El Salvador is expensive.

THIS IS SOME OF THE WORK OTHER ZEUMMASTERS WERE DOING THIS MORNING.

My Power In Film

I have always been interested in film making. As a little kid I was always messing around with a video camera. When you’re younger you really don’t know what you are doing but you are just so interested in it that you just keep playing around. As I got older my passion for film was becoming even bigger. I began to watch films that most kids don’t really watch. I paid attention to the methods in which the director portrayed their movie.

When I got into high school I learned the art of editing. I started off simple small little short movies with my friends and I. Then I moved on to creating skate tapes. I never thought I was that good at the process until I was assigned a school project in which I had to use you media to create a story about genocide. I took this project seriously because it was something important to others and not a project that can be half done. When I presented the movie I saw tears in the audience.

Unsure of what that meant I confided in my teacher. He told me that people can speak out through music, writing, and even film. I didn’t really believe until a woman whose grandparents survived the Holocaust told me how power that movie presented. I felt accomplished that I was able to speak out trough film. After that I fell into my slump of writing films and trying to develop new movies but none had that same passion in which I showed in my Genocide film.
It wasn’t until today that I hit point in which I was able to speak out. I was out going to film in downtown San Francisco. I was filming for my online video blog site. As I was crossing the street I heard the sound of a car spin out. As I looked I saw a white truck driven up on to the curb and hearing woman scream. I ran over with my video camera and began to film.

Watch my blog here
http://beta.yourtrumanshow.com/videos/viewVideo.jsp?id=633