"PICK UP THE MIC" will make it's world premiere at the 30th Annual Toronto International Film Festival, Sept 8-17 2005.

Shot over a three year period, PICK UP THE MIC chronicles events in the lives and careers of numerous out LGBTIQ artists in the burgeoning subculture through interviews and performance footage at the PeaceOUT festivals in Oakland, California and New York City. Genuine in its intent and broad in its scope, the film is an important record of the history of a dynamic underground music community and its artists and its affect on mainstream culture now and in the future.

for more info on future screenings and distribution, please visit

http://www.pickupthemic.com

WORDS ON  CYPHER 2001:

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On August 31, 2001 a diverse and eclectic congregation assembled at Nile Hall in Oaklands Preservation Park to celebrate and insist on something so often denied in the Hip Hop Nation: that gay hip hop is not an oxymoron. Indeed, same gender loving folk have been consumers of hip-hop music, it has pretty much replaced house as the music of choice at our clubs and bars. But so often when articles are written about gays in hip hop, it is either to romanticize the spectacle of studs or homothuggs listening to (presumed) straight hip hop at secret clubs or an article about a suspect and closeted homiesexual who is almost always quick to deny the gay rumor. When there is mention of gays and lesbians on the production end of the hip hop industry, emcees, b-girls, and deejays are often passed off as not being popular or mainstream enough (we should question whether this is about lack of talent or a monster known as homophobia). There is a buzz about Caushun The Gay Rapper, a brotha who is being promoted as everything from our first to a savior. But banji boys and b-girls are cautious about the implications of such spotlighting, fearful that it necessarily shifts the focus off of the hundreds of gay hip hop headz whove courageously been holding it down and out since hip hops inception. The focus of the mainstream media on the gay rapper many of us believe works to ease the angst of a hip- hop nation fearful of homosexual infiltration.

Cypher 2000: ONE was an extension of a series of hip-hop influenced shows I had been putting together since 1999: Cypher (1999) and De-Cypherings (2000). The cipher is commonly referenced in Hip Hop culture as the call, response, and deciphering of stories shared through the medium of lyricism. Ciphers occur commonly on street corners and are a place where mobilized black bodies engage in a (often) confrontational battle of wits. Accentuating the cipher, I was interested in stylizing a show that would honor the history of the cipher in Hip Hop and Slam poetry cultures and yet be a site for introspective critique of Hip Hop by some of its most outspoken advocates in the SF Bay underground. A statement about Cypher (1999) read:

The concept for Cypher comes out of a desire to express the self-reflective, self-critical elements of hip-hop culture as embodied by contemporary Spoken Word Artists. Moving into the 21st Century represents for many young people an opportunity to salvage the best things about Hip Hop culture. Which are, you might ask? And Cypher is one attempt at an answer. Because black performance in Hip Hop is most prominently represented as market driven, individualistic, and heavily scripted performances of African-American youth, we hope to share with you voices, sentiments, and visions not likely to be represented by the mainstream cultural media of radio, television, and print. Cypher is a spiritual decoding, a communicative message, and the sounding-off of a collective vision emphasizing that me, and she, and he be nothing without we. This spirit of collective cultural production represents an alternative to the ego driven, all about the benjamins-chasin attachments privileging flashy images over conscious activism and apocalyptic nihilism over activist optimism.

As the kickoff performance for the Stanford University conference, Making the Spirit of 20th & 21st Century Culture: Placing Black Popular Culture and Performance, Cypher (1999) created sensibility to communities overlooked by B.E.T., MTV, VIBE, and Source. Especially troubling about its reception, however, was the erasure of the LGBTQ folk who made the event a smash (Juba Kalamka, DJ So Much Soul, Marvin K. White, Bahiyyih Maroon, among others). Same gender loving erotic tribute somehow got (mis)read as straight, lesbian womynist critique was overshadowed by the beauty of the bodies that delivered it, and comment on black gay men living with HIV was all but ignored by the heterosexual imagination. As a curator for these shows, an artist and an activist, I wanted to be sure that we would not be rendered invisible again. So, in 2000 I produced a show De-Cypherings (Oakland).

De-Cypherings was clearly a deliberate attempt to celebrate the place of queer Hip-Hip performance in the Bay and featured Phillip Huang, Venus Opal Reese, Nafis Garonne, Dazie Grego (Ms. Edge of D/DC) and yours truly as host. A stylistic break from Cypher each artist was given two minutes to create responses to the performances before them in what turned out to be a creative and dynamic orgy of Slam Poetry and improvisational lyricism. An event sponsored by Louie Butler and his monthly black LGBTQ event A Poetic Experience, De-Cypherings was a more intimate gathering of queer artists of color who shared particular sensibilities around Hip Hop. While successful, some would say it was like preaching to the choir. There were no media people there to hear our calls for visibility and representation in the larger Hip Hop and SLAM cultures.

The title for Cypher 2000: ONE was both a phonetic play on the year (2001) and a call for the mobilization of queer Hip Hop people internationally (e.g., one = unity, peace). Several things had occurred that made the event monumental. Gay and lesbian hip- hop artists had made a shift from marginality to visibility in a way not before imagined. There existed a number of gay Hip Hop artists who had gained audiences and media representation in both marginal and mainstream press (gayhiphop.com, Deep Dickollective, Hanifah Walidah, and Rainbow Flava among them). Realizing the ridiculousness of the question who is the gay rapper? several of us, having connected with others through our internet sites and mainstream chat boards like Rawkus (Mos Def) and Okayplayer (Common and The Roots), wanted to insist upon our visibility-not just as a new thing-but as a presence essential to hip hops origins. As with any cultural Renaissance, LGBTQ people have always been present and influential. Hip-hop is no exception to this.

The Press Release statement written for Cypher 2000: ONE declared:

We are artists carefully negotiating a queer community that has long denied much of its angst about the urban black culture from which hip hop began and a hip hop culture increasingly tense about the infiltration of its perceived safe boundaries. And to this hoopla, we say: Chile Please! LGBTQ hip hoppers have responded with collective thunder: breakbeats, underground EP s, websites, collaborationsand yes, convening for the first time ever to this degree at a Pride Festival to share with their community another aspect of Queer Rhytes. We will no longer be ignored. While many or most of us are clearly allied to movements concerned with racial, gender, and sexual oppressions, we see hip-hop as an ideal platform for challenging all of the above. Our politics insists upon a hip-hop beat as its rhythm. It insists upon challenging the racism, sexism, and homophobia not only in the heterosexual community, but in our own community.

And we did just that.

Gayhiphop.com (an international hip hop site for queer hip hop headz) along with thagenda, (a Bayarea based coalition of black queer music-makers) along with East Bay Pride decided to seize upon an opportunity to bring people from around the nation and beyond to Oakland to celebrate our unity. Cypher 2000: ONE involved lots of media coverage (Hip Hop Network among our most enthusiastic supporters), two shows (the larger of which included a showcase at the Urban Stage of East Bay Pride and attracted thousands), and more important, an opportunity to discuss the strengthening of our community that would result in the months to follow.

Deep-Dickollective moved the crowd with their conscious lyrical odes to Essex Hemphill, James Baldwin, Marlon Riggs, and Pomo Afro Homos (among others). Hanifah Walidah, formally known as Sha-Key from Brooklyn Essentials, delivered her music with the savvy of one who has years of experience in the game. Emcee Chaser (Dallas) challenged any comparisons to Eminem with his own lyrical genius and stylistic distinctiveness. Maker (UK) proved to be one of the most amazing scratch deejays on the other side of the Atlantic. Shunyata and Naomi created a groove diaspora that incited some, admittedly, hot freestyle moments by yours truly and several other emcees. Appearances by Exodus, Jen-Ro and 9 proved that womyn of color have a strong presence in hip hop that will be crucial to its prominence and survival. Sundance and Phukup contributed Graffiti and Flo to our movement. And perhaps most importantly, there was a crowd-moving to the rhythm, celebrating this monumental meeting, breakdancing, sweating, waving their hands, as one would expect with any other hip hop show. Ultimately gay Hip Hop is Hip Hop!

More than anything, Cypher 2000: ONE was one of those events that celebrated the coming together of a community that had previously been linked primarily by the internet (with the exception of burgeoning gay hip hop meccas like: NYC, the Bay area, and Houston). Next years event, which is already being planned for Labor Day weekend promises to be even more of a success-with several shows highlighting the depth of more talent in our community: Cyclone (Baltimore/Washington), Dutchboy (NYC), Cyryus the Lyricist (St. Louis), Doug E. (Oakland), Mz. Platinum (Atlanta), Tru Soul (Houston), Ms. Money (Houston), Maasen (Sweden), Caushun (NYC) Ms. Leema (Germany), Prince Bee (Chicago), DJ So Much Soul (SF), Tori Fixx (Minneapolis), God-des (Madison,Wisconsin), ENS (SF).  I encourage you to support these brave artists for doing their thing out and proud. In a society that still proscribes so much silence and shame to LGBTQ people, we should listen to hip hop for those voices that challenge the trends of homophobia and heterosexism so Common (pun intended) in hip hop music and the society that sanctions it.