The Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and The Hip Hop Congress at the University of Michigan held the 8th Annual Midwest Hip Hop Summit on Feb. 3 and 4. The weekend of festivities kicked off on Friday with a live show at the Michigan League. The ballroom was packed with people, performers, bands, DJ’s and an array of colorful lighting. The show featured local acts like Detroit based Foundation All Stars, Ann Arbor’s own Tree City and the Contraband, and even a University of Michigan comedy improvisation group. Headliners of the summit included “alternative” hip hop artist One Be Lo from Pontiac, Mich., Canadian MC The Narcicyst, Mississippi based musician, MC and producer Big K.R.I.T. and Maimouna Youssef of Washington, D.C. “I’m here to share my craft and to learn more [and] to meet other artists who are doing what I’m doing,” said Youssef.
Youssef — whose work with Philadelphia based hip hop group The Roots earned her a Grammy nomination — has a unique style of music that blends genres like soul, blues, hip hop, reggae and many more. “People always say you should choose one genre and just do that … [which is] strange to me because all of these styles of music all have the same root,” she said. “One of the things that I like to do is to break that notion that we’re so separate — that music is separate — and let it get down to the experience of it. I always add the blues into my shows because the sensuality of the blues is amazing,” said Youssef.
Music runs in Youssef’s family. Her mother was a jazz singer and always supported Youssef’s musical career. “I’m from a family of artists, and that’s all they’ve ever done is art … It was a lot like how a lot of kids are in college because their parents are pushing them towards going to college, my parents were pushing me towards a world tour,” she said, speaking of her time spent on the road with The Roots. ”[My mother] would never tolerate me being an artist that didn’t have a message or was not planning on healing the Earth in some kind of way,” said Yousef.
Another featured artist of the Summit was The Naracicyst, an Iraqi artist based in Montreal who grew up in the United Arab Emirates. “I grew up listening to Nirvana, Sound Guard, Stone Temple Pilots, Stevie Wonder [and] Michael Jackson … But my father always listed to classical music like Umm Kulthum, Farid El Atrash and all that Arabic jazzy stuff, like the Rahmani Brothers, Abdel Wahab, et cetera,” he said.
The Narcicyst started collecting hip hop CDs when he was about 13 years old. “I ended up collecting something like 400 CDs between the ages of 13 and 17,” he said, citing Wu Tang Clan’s Forever as his all time favorite hip hop album. “It has 2 CDs and a lot of songs so it’s [an] easy [choice].”
The Narcicyst spoke of his goals in the hip hop community. He works to bring Arabic culture into his music. “I would like to open the door to Arabic culture within the pop culture or within hip-hop culture … Just to be able to bring my people together and put out creative projects and still change or give a new mind state towards our people,” said The Narcicyst.
On Saturday, the Summit consisted of workshops and panel discussions at the Michigan Student Union. High school youth from all over Southeast Michigan gathered for a music mixer facilitated by teens and staff members from the Neutral Zone to introduce them to the summit and each other. Workshops and panel discussions included Women in Hip-Hop, Spirituality and Hip Hop, The Diatribes of a Dying Tribe, L.A.B.O.R., a discussion with One Be Lo, Non-Profit 101, DJ/Turntable workshop, Emcee/Freestyle workshop, Breakdancing and Writers/Graffiti workshop. Workshops were followed by dinner and the screening of the film “Ghettophysics”. The night concluded with a free show at the League featuring; Tree City, Nae Smiles, Progress Report, Nicki P, Naeink and much more.
