Report: UiF Up and Running
Cats: united in flow journal|Posted by Duke
First, a belated Happy April Fools’ Day. No pranks from me this year.
Now to business…
Believe it or not, “United in Flow: Celebrating the World of Hip-Hop” is already out of control… in all the right ways. Already we’ve received a few videos (and votes) for the United in Flow mixtape. Local indie rappers TroNic, Richilous and Truth have submitted the following entries:
Want in? To recap the entry process:
1) Download one of the beat samples we got here.
2) Make a short video of yourself dropping a 16-bar verse on said beat.
3) Upload the video to YouTube.
4) Email your name & the video’s URL to us at: submissions@unitedinflow.com
United in Flow will take place in October at the Berkeley Church. A few of us went down last week to check it out, and it’s nothing short of perfect. It’s wide-open & huge (capacity: 800 people). The balcony allows for discrete presentation of the visual arts side of the show, without separating it from the performance art side; you’ll be able to watch graff artists & the live music/turntablists/dancers in action at the same time.
The rep we met is a thoroughly pro, down-to-earth guy too. That means a lot. We hammered him with logistical questions (on a Sunday morning, no less), and it is apparent that this crew knows their craft like nobody else. Dude even answered a couple questions we hadn’t asked yet.
Every time I get together with the team on this project, I get more psyched about it. This is the first time Euphonic Sound has engaged a strictly hip-hop venture of this magnitude, and it promises to be a momentous occasion worthy of the name. All this before you even consider where any money we raise is going…
To answer that, it is all but confirmed. Unity is down with what we wanna do. Makes sense. If you ran a charity with a focus on improving the range of choices for Toronto youth at risk of violent death, and somebody came up to you and said “We want to raise thousands of dollars and hand it over to you,” what would you say? In that position, I’d say “Hell yeah.”
This has become the reason I’m in this thing. It all started out as just a mixtape. I went to Shawn and James & basically said “If all these Hip-Hop artists are coming through Studio 2.0, and it’s a collaborative culture to begin with, why haven’t we released a mixtape yet?”
That was all I said, far as I remember. Hadn’t even considered using it to raise money or awareness for charity.
Since then, United in Flow has become a collaborative brainchild – the result of powerful imaginations and a whole heap of legwork by many people. These are the kind of people who remind you why you’re here – to leave the world better than you found it.
