Folk ‘n’ Blues gets funky: annual music festival meets Hip-hop culture
A Hip-hop exhibit set the stage for a reimagined Folk ‘n’ Blues festival.
Credit: Christa Story
Record Scratch
For over 40 years, the annual Folk ‘n’ Blues Festival presented folk, blues, rock, and zydeco, and though the festival evolved, the name remained the same. Until this year.
Folk ‘n’ Blues grew out of music events organized by Leroy Jodie Pierson’70 in 1968 and 1970, and according to the Round Table, the first annual festival was in 1972. In the early years, it was held outside Middle College and featured Chicago-based blues musicians, such as Hound Dog Taylor, Buddy Guy, and Willie Dixon. This year, in a mash-up with a Hip-hop art exhibit, the festival got funky.
Day One DNA
This fall, entering Gallery ABBA, the student-run art gallery in the CELEB building, was like walking into someone’s bedroom. The installation, a recreation of DJ Afrika Islam’s 1990s bedroom — complete with unmade bed, clothes, a turntable, crates of records, books, and posters on the walls — was part of the exhibit, Day One DNA: 50 Years in Hip-hop Culture, curated by documentarian Laylah Amatullah Barrayn. The multimedia exhibit, from the personal collections of Hip-hop icons Afrika Islam and Ice T, provided a view into the genre’s early days. In addition to the CELEB installation, more memorabilia was exhibited at the Wright Museum.
Afrika Islam, a Grammy-winning producer, and Ice T, a West Coast rapper who played a role in establishing the Hip-hop scene outside of the East Coast, are longtime Hip-hop collaborators and trailblazers known for their social commentary and innovation.
For many, the exhibit evoked nostalgia. “I grew up with Hip-hop, and the memorabilia reminds me of songs, tracks, and videos,” says Ron Watson, associate provost. “It’s fascinating how [Barrayn’s] aesthetic sense played out. She really has captured these moments in time.”
Watson and Christa Story, academic curator, worked together to bring Day One DNA to Beloit. “It came here in 22 really big boxes … about 400 objects in the show,” says Story. “Typically we do a lot of art … [but] this is ephemera and records and jewelry and clothing, so different types of things.”
Day One DNA tied in to other fall semester programming including classes on Hip-hop as a music genre, Hip-hop dance, and an entrepreneurship course on the business of music. On Sept. 26, Dr. Sonya Maria Johnson moderated a panel in the Weissberg Auditorium on Hip-hop as a form of resistance.
According to Story, the show, like Funk & Blues, drew people from the Beloit community in a way that museum exhibits typically do not. She hopes the exhibit increased awareness of the connections Hip-hop has with social commentary, fashion, and pop culture in general.
Funk & Blues
Credit: Christa StoryWatson saw an opportunity to integrate the exhibit into Beloit life, on and off campus. “It’s a unique exhibit and ties in to the multicultural history of Beloit itself and the college’s desire to create stronger relations with the city,” says Watson. He talked with students from the Programming Board about Folk ‘n’ Blues, asking, “Wouldn’t it be cool to just this once have Funk & Blues?”
Funk & Blues took place Sept. 27 at the Harry C. Moore Pavilion at Riverside Park in Beloit. A diverse crowd gathered at the park, growing as the night went on. Students mingled with members of the community, many sporting Hip-hop fashion, listening to local and national DJs, including DJ Nina, Vic Monsta, and Chicago’s DJ Lalo, while break dancers showed off their moves.
Credit: Ron Watson
