Hello All, Last year when the Bi-Sexual magazine I was working on was still functioning, I got to meet Juba Kalamka who was working on the magazine also. Juba has been doing pretty good with his hip hop group Deep Dickollective (DDC) so I thought I would pass on a show he is directing in San Francisco. For those in the Bay Area check out this homo show! Take note Deep Dickollective observes class issues in this American Society. Doyle Saylor
They're here, they're queer and they homohop. Gay and lesbian artists, long rejected by mainstream rappers, are stretching the genre's boundaries. Neva Chonin, Chronicle Pop Music Critic Wednesday, September 10, 2003 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/10/DD 182424.DTL&type=music The Urban Hermitt was standing outside a school three years ago when she received her first explicit lesson in hip-hop gender politics. Waiting for her turn at a freestyling battle in front of Seattle Central Community College, the aspiring MC watched another rapper clamber atop a bus shelter, strip to his boxer shorts and, clutching a microphone in one hand and his crotch in the other, spit out a rhyme about his anatomy. The assembled crowd cheered. When the Hermitt's turn came, she decided to go with the flow. Peeling down to her own boxers, she grabbed her crotch and proceeded to rap the praises of having a butch, female physique. The crowd froze. A film crew covered its camera. "Put your pants back on!" yelped one of the battle organizers. "We don't want no obscenity!" That day the Hermitt (a.k.a. Andre) learned exactly what the hip-hop adage of "keeping it real" meant for the gay hip-hop fan. "Real" meant the straight world. "Real" meant denying her evolving identity as a transgendered female-to-male MC. "I've always had to fight for my time onstage," says the Hermitt, 25, who recently moved to San Francisco and now identifies as male. "I've had things thrown at me. I've had people try to beat me up." It's a challenge gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender hip-hop fans face every day. Drawn to hip-hop's legacy of free expression, they too often discover that their stories are less than welcome in a genre filled with ethnically and socially diverse, but overwhelmingly heterosexual, voices. For decades, gay hip-hop-heads have toed the line, rapping about everything except their sexuality and stifling their anger at homophobic lyrics by mainstream rappers. Like good street soldiers, they kept it "real" while the music they once embraced as a creative outlet became another closet. Now that's changed. Thanks to the emergence of homohop, a growing genre that's equal parts music and community, gay MCs and DJs are staking their claim in uncompromisingly loud, rhyming terms. Homohop is an international phenomenon -- one of the most comprehensive online homohop sites, Gayhiphop.com, is out of London -- but thanks to a recent QueerYouthTV documentary on the genre that spotlighted local acts such as Deep Dickollective (DDC), Jen-Ro, Hanifah Walidah, Katastrophe, God-Des and Jaycub Perez, the Bay Area is ground zero. At this week's Third Annual World Homohop Festival -- part of East Bay Pride -- gay rappers, DJs and spoken-word artists from across the United States will celebrate their growing prominence as they converge on Oakland's Metro Theatre for four nights of rhythm and revelry. The festival, dubbed PeaceOUT, supplies a safe space and throws down a challenge. "Hip-hop fights against oppression, but at the same time it takes on the role of the oppressor by mirroring society at large: male-centered, patriarchal and classist," says DDC MC and festival director Juba Kalamka (a.k. a. Pointfivefag). ...See the SF Gate site for the rest of the article ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- PeaceOUT: The Third Annual World Homohop Festival: All shows start at 8 p.m. at the Oakland Metro Theatre, 201 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets: $8-$15, sliding scale. (415) 244-8658, www.eastbaypride.org. Thursday: Screening of QueerYouthTV's "Homohop" documentary, followed by party with host Larry Bob and DJ Toph One. Friday: Tori Fixx, Protegee, God-Des, Jen-Ro, Jaycub Perez, DJ Toph One and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Marvin K. White. Saturday: Deadlee, Katastrophe, Johnny Dangerous, Houston Bernard, Scream Club, Cazwell and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Judge "Dutchboy" Muscat. Sunday: Deep Dickollective, Shawree, Kayatrip, Lucky 7, Urban Hermitt, Sergio, DJ Ross Hogg, DJ Soulnubien, DJ Black and DJ Sick Diamond. Hosted by Micia Moseley. E-mail Neva Chonin at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback Page D - 1
