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For those who have discovered original songs sampled on hip-hop tracks, or simply enjoy celebrating community and culture, there is an event on Saturday night. Hip Hop DNA returns on Saturday night, October 1, 2022, for the first time since its 2019 premiere.
The performance features over 40 artists at the Marcus Center for the Arts, including 12 bands, and explores live the diverse influences that make up hip-hop music. The goal is to uplift communities and cultures that are otherwise misunderstood or underestimated.
Several dancers, including Karlies Kelley of Panadanza and Deepa Devasena of Philadelphia’s Kathak Dance Collective, choreographed the family-friendly event. Presented by Black Arts MKE and funded by the Performing Arts Professionals Association’s ArtsForward grant.
The event will include mashups and medleys of soul, funk and rock, says creator, director and producer Kiran Vedula, but also traces hip-hop’s roots back to West Africa and the rhythms of the African diaspora. trace.
Courtesy of Kiran Vedula
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Vedula says his own journey as a hip-hop producer, discovering original artists sampled in contemporary hip-hop, inspired the project. “I love the history that the samples create, these layers,” he says Vedula. So many songs I know as rap songs by people like Kanye West and Dr. Fall in love with old music. From a past I couldn’t find on my own. “
Bedula says there’s a Roberta Flack song Killing Me Softly On the show, he was originally associated only as a Fugee song sung by Lauryn Hill. “I didn’t know this was actually a remake of a Roberta Flack song until I heard the original in the opening credits of a Dave Chappelle special on Netflix. And I was like, ‘Oh my God. , that’s an original song from the 70’s.”
Vedula says many people his age who were born in the ’80s or later will associate the song more with Lauryn Hill. It’s one thing, but the part that everyone knows comes in and you just hear the reaction of the audience, everybody singing and cheering along and that’s what I really like about this show. is one of them,” he explains.
Vedula says his mission as an artist, especially his nonprofit Flutes at Dawn, is what he calls cross-cultural understanding or culturally relevant education. “I mean, I think in Milwaukee, a lot of the cultural issues have to do with cross-cultural misunderstandings,” he says Vedula. “As a musician, and with my wife, Carlyse, as a dancer and instructor, I have had the opportunity to engage with different Milwaukee communities. So it’s an opportunity for all of us to find common ground in an otherwise truly divided time.”
Vedula has said that hip-hop is an art form that can be misunderstood in mainstream culture because it is full of references to profanity, violence and drugs. “It’s only a small part of what this culture really stands for,” he says. “For me, the son of immigrants from India, I know other immigrants on the show who have parents from Russia, Ethiopia, or Colombia.Hip-hop is a way for us all to come together and connect different cultures. Yet we remain who we are and we are together.”
He says the performance is a celebration of what makes America truly great: these different works, these different samples, these different cultures coming together. I think hip-hop and sampling as a metaphorical and real musical process allows us to do that.”
Vedula hopes to be able to continue funding the arts, along with this history and culture education, to support this kind of music curriculum. “I think we can really strengthen our ability to connect where young people are, but start with the beet seed they are familiar with and then spread it out,” he says Vedula. “It’s a great teaching tool, and as an educator, it helps me connect with my students all the time, regardless of age.”
He goes on to say that this kind of hip-hop exploration will lead people to a greater understanding of music in general and of how genres blend and emerge from the same impulse.
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