Bright Future Alliance and Industry Magazine Presents “Celebrity community sit down” with youth. A group of young people had the opportunity to sit down with Artists P Reign, Belly, Dj Charlie Brown and T-rexXx of Much Music’s Rap City. follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/sfamedia

A dope hip-hop initiative from CBC and Manifesto.

Blurb taken from theManifesto.ca:

CBC Radio… announces THE HIP HOP SUMMIT, a month-long celebration of Canadian hip hop throughout March 2011. Canada’s pre-eminent artists, community groups and advocates join forces to showcase Canadian hip hop with special programming, interviews, artist spotlights, performances and much more.

THE HIP HOP SUMMIT presents an unprecedented and historic event– an exclusive gathering of the biggest names in Canadian hip hop performing on one stage including: k-os, Kardinal Offishall, SHAD, Saukrates, Classified, Maestro, Michie Mee, Red1 of The Rascalz, Choclair, Ghetto Concept, Reema Major, Cadence Weapon, Skratch Bastid and many more. The event will be broadcast live on CBC Radio 3 and will be taped for future broadcast as well as online streaming. Throughout the month of March, tickets to the taping will be made available through contesting by various community partners and CBC Radio 2.

Hip hop music and culture have been a vibrant part of Canada’s national fabric for more than 25 years. CBC celebrates this unique contemporary art form in partnership with Manifesto Community Projects and Northside Hip Hop, with project mentor broadcaster/author Dalton Higgins and project advisor/MC Adhimu “Mindbender” Stewart.

More details after the jump!

(more…)

Dope!

My City My Story is a community photography project that gives young photographers access to the equipment, resources and mentorship to develop a body of work that contributes untold stories about community and social justice to the public narrative. Within a setting to connect with like-minded artists and mentors, the group will explore themselves as artists and develop technical skills to establish themselves as professionals.

For more info please visit: swb.ca

Video Produced by: Ashley Alexis McFarlane asikereafana.com

Features Music By: Wolf J McFarlane, KJ, and Spek Won
88days.ca

TUMF (Toronto Urban Music Festival) presents  another edition of its “Urban Music Week” conference February 25th and 26th at the Delta Chelsea Hotel (33 Gerard St. W). Keynote speaker this year is Chris Hicks – executive Vice-President of Def Jam Recordings. The conference will also have several panels across its 2-day run with panelists that include Noah “40” Shebib, Dru Ha and Buckshot from Duckdown Entertainment/Cornerstone Marketing/Black Moon, Eternia and many more.

Full conference details can be found @ www.tumf.net and HERE!

Kardi and Rochester take it to the sumo mats during  30-Elephants.com’s “Pachyderm Party Family Day Weekend” event.

Shouts to Strizzy for the footage and the announcing; SFS for the perfect audio accompaniment and Maestro for well, just being the God.

Hilarious!

I think this could be a great alternative therapy for a lot of the nonsensical rap beef in the hip-hop industry.

Via TRF!

Listen HERE!

Last Saturday (February 12th 2011) Mixtape Massacre, The Real Frequency Show & The Powermove Show – 3 of the city’s most influential radio shows in Toronto – came together for what most thought would be the last time hip-hop would ever be heard in the staple 1-4pm time slot on the 88.1 FM dial. As it turns out CKLN ended up being granted a stay on the CRTC decision to revoke their license but the moment is still historic for symbolizing 4 generations of Toronto hip-hop radio (The Godfather Ron Nelson, DJ Mastermind and many other important members of these eras also came by or called in) coming together for the first time in the time slot that birthed the first institutionalized expression of The Mega’s hip-hop consciousness.

Simply put : A great moment in Toronto hip-hop history.

Salute.

The WordTV (part of the GetGroundedTV network) put together a great recap of the 2010 Manifesto Festival

Also features some great convos with Che, Rich Kidd, Eternia and other participants.

Dope.

Info on a nice upcoming initiative started by Voyce over at P&W!

Theo3, Phat Tony and Time Bandits release Yung Santa. In support of Beatz to da Streetz my personal music community and a great organization that provides a platform for self determination through Hip Hop the proceeds from the CD will help to support Beatz to da Streetz‘ showcase in January.

Check out the trailer and stay tuned for the official release this week. Merry Xmas, Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

Aw shit; here we go, lol!

From PoundMag.com:

Humble city dwellers,

After 10 years of existing only in print, the first live installment of Pound for Pound is finally here (like, OMG).

The subject: our upcoming mayoral election (you know, that impeding collective trauma that will take place on Monday, October 25, 2010).

The participants: some of Toronto’s finest MCs representing some of Toronto’s finest mayoral candidates. They are:

Blake Carrington as George Smitherman a.k.a. Smitty
L as Rocco Rossi a.k.a. Roc Ross
Smash Brovaz as Joe Pantalone a.k.a. Joe Pants
Rich Kidd as Rob Ford a.k.a The Notorious R.O.B.

A warning to our fair city? Or just another hilarious Pound escapade? You decide.

Pound For Pound – Mayoral Edition

TED is a non-profit organization built on the understanding that ideas worth spreading can spark the necessary changes contemporary society needs.

In that spirit TedxToronto “brings together the city’s foremost thought leaders, change makers and everyday people from each discipline and challenges them to deliver powerful, unforgettable and unique TEDxTalks.“

This year’s TedxToronto conference takes place on September 30th @ The Glenn Gould Studios and features an array of speakers including Sol Guy and Boonaa Mohammed.

TedxToronto is all about talk, and we at OTA Live LOVE to talk (so much so that we created OTA Talk, lol) so when TedxToronto’s Neel Joshi approached us with the idea of pushing the boundaries of OTA Talk to speak on music from a more socially critical perspective, it didn’t take much convincing.

To that end, check us out tonight (Tuesday) for a special edition of OTA Talk as we invite Remix Project founder and TedxToronto co-chair Gavin Sheppard, and emcees Ian Kamau and Theo3, to discuss the role artists can play as empowered actors tangibly and constructively contributing to the social issues that fuel their art.

I mean, if music reflects life, most importantly the societal ills that affect our greater communities; and artists depend on life and those ills to be artists; is there a moral obligation on their part, as CITIZENS of their communities, to use their position as a platform for something more than just making music? Those questions and more will be on the table.

That’s OTA Talk tonight (Tuesday) @ midnight on OTA Live! and The New Flow 93.5 FM!