Can't say enough good things about the Hip Hop Karaoke event that went down last night in my hometown. I'm Trenton through and through, and while there is a lot of negativity that goes down in the streets and in the media, there's a lack of accentuating the many positive attributes and activities within this city. Especially when it comes to Hip-Hop.Aside from just the overall LOVE for classic Hip-Hop (shouts to DEEJAY007 for setting the tone EARLY and having many of us rap along to the tracks he was throwing down), we got to see a couple of young MCs from the area overcome their fears and touch the stage. @EastTrentonPoet was in the building and competed, as was local graf talent Leon Rainbow, and I was surprised when the man with the most votes in Trenton's recent mayoral election, Tony Mack, stepped into the arena. Wow - homey shook my hand and everything!
But yeah, @LiborJany's article about the show was posted on The Trentonian's website, and as per usual, cats had a grip of negative comments for it - everything from "there'll be squad cars outside the building" to "no cover = trouble" and all of that, and I'm gonna say they are either purposefully trying to get a rise out of people, or just plain ignorant about life. Whatever the case may be, neither of those things went down. Hell, a lovely little girl took the stage and kicked her own original rap about being appreciative to Snoop's "I Wanna Rock". Talk about positivity!
All in all, I wanna shout out cats like @EmceeJermaine, who is a new contact and has some things brewing (including plans for an EP and an LP to drop sometime this year); he was a great host and kicked some ILL tracks of his own over the course of the evening. Shouts to Eva and the Trenton Downtown Association - I actually first starting talking toEva after my post regarding the Rakim show last winter, and we've chatted on twitter and such since. She helped promote and put this together, and both of them were instrumental in my black ass being a judge, which was definitely fun. Shouts to Andreas T. Jackson and Ayo Goode, who were my fellow judges - Andreas is a true Hip-Hop head, and we looked like a karaoke duo out there LOL. Shouts to anyone I'm missing right now, the crowd was mega live.
I ran into an old friend from high school out there, and I remarked on how I was surprised to see her. She was kinda like "why you saying that", and I realized - I'm surprised I'm out! I'm usually at work then right to the crib. I may run into a store and after that, I'm home. I'm a homebody, but when it's my people or my city, and I can make it, I have to support. And with things like Heritage Days being canceled, we need more nights out like this.
I DO want to also shout out my wife, who has my back all day. She nudged me about getting out more, and having her support means a lot. That's love, y'all.
To wrap this up, keep supporting Hip-Hop. Keep supporting your city. Have fun with it, and don't let the classics die. Too much "swag" in today's Hip-Hop scene... part of the reason I do what I do here! Fun night, great city, great people. Hope to do it again sometime!
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