Hip-hop events weekly

Writer: Jason Oliveros
Photographer: S'meta

An island in the middle of the Pacific is probably the last place you would expect to find a large following to hip-hop. Yet here on Oahu, there exists a rather large and diverse community of people who have coordinated and put on hip-hop events going down every week.

One can find every element of hip-hop right here on Oahu. There are regular emcee showcases and battles, B-Boy jams, producer beat battles, and graffiti showcases like the recent Pow Wow event. The last major event was 808SpeakerBox which was a fundraiser to support local hip-hop. A portion of the proceeds went to DJ Bone of the Got Rice? show, a local hip-hop radio show on KTUH 90.3 FM (www.ktuh.org).
Most of the events are held at venues in Chinatown and around Ward Centers. One of the hot spots for local hip-hop is Fresh Café (www.freshcafehi.com) in Kakaako, most recognizable by the rather large graffiti murals all along the parking lot walls.

If late night bar hopping isn’t your thing, there is another place for you to get familiar with some of the local emcees and their music. If you go online and to hawaiihiphop.bandcamp.com, you can find over 20 different projects and songs released by local emcees for free distribution. The beauty of this site is that it is updated regularly by the Universal Zulu Nation’s Hawaii chapter, making the site open to anyone with something to offer and a chance to be included. The music is listed left to right and top to bottom by the number of downloads the song or project got, so if you’re new to the hip-hop music scene you can start from what’s getting the most love and work your way down the line.

Photos from Pow Wow. What's Pow Wow?

From Feb. 13 to 17, artists gathered to create and showcase their work in small and big spaces in Kakaako in downtown Honolulu. Pow Wow allowed for the public to interact with local, national, and international artists on a personal level. While artists were designing murals on various Kakaako buildings, the public was encouraged to interact with them. Pow Wow’s mission is to allow the public to “witness the creativity in its entirety and become an essential part of the artists’ process. It’s about the breaking down of those closed doors and making art accessible.” The event included a discussion panel at the University of Hawaii and gallery showing at Loft in Space. More online at www.powwowhawaii.com