OPINION & EDITORIAL
Madison’s annual hip-hop conference falters
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by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Monday, April 14, 2003
Hip-hop in Madison is in bad shape. It’s not that clubs have too much trouble booking and confirming artists. It’s not that the city has caught itself in a nonsensical debate about the relationship between hip-hop shows and violence. Well, those are also true.
The real sign Madison hip-hop is in trouble is the way the Hip-Hop as a Movement Conference, in just its fourth year, has failed to evolve with the same élan and groove that characterizes the real hip-hop movement and defines the art form.
Instead, this year the conference stagnated — and arguably, it failed. Instead of expanding their scope and swagger, its organizers essentially shrunk from publicity and halted any momentum from earlier years. Entertainment media say the only real source of promotion for the conference was David Muhammad, who successfully organized the event from 2000 to 2002 but was not officially connected this year.
The first three annual conferences pulled significant hip-hop names like Chuck D, Afu-Ra, Afrika Bambaataa and Jaz-O. The headliner this year? Dick Gregory was scheduled to give a keynote address Friday evening on the Capitol steps.
Dick Gregory is not a hip-hop performer. He is a former comedian, an influential activist and a respected author.
Oh — and he didn’t show.
Conference staffers said Gregory became sick and needed surgery earlier in the week, so they rescheduled U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney. But as late as Friday afternoon organizers were handing out fliers printed with Gregory’s name and image without any suggestion of a cancellation.
This is not a hip-hop problem. Hip-hop is still the movement of our time, the pulsing beat and witty hooks of a generation. Hip-hop is an art that has subverted style and could transform politics. As a music industry, hip-hop is well organized and remarkably pioneering, with its artist-controlled contracts and labels.
But that makes Madison’s backward-moving hip-hop conference all the more frustrating. Its problems are all administrative. Attendance at most events required registration at a website that does not exist. Organizers did not return e-mails and phone calls last week asking the location and times of events. They left fans in the dark.
The artists — whose small-time names actually preluded exciting and fresh performances — certainly represent hip-hop’s spirit. But they and fans are slighted by a conference that has become so flaccid.
