B-boys and b-girls, it's about that time again! Freshout Media and Goodie Goodie are back again with year two of the Flava Fest, a series of events aimed at educating people about hiphop arts and culture. This year's festival looks like it's going to be huge. I sat down with Chris Anderson of Freshout Media to get the scoop on what to expect.
How did Flava Fest come about?
I co-coordinated The Gathering through Freshout, Philly's longest-running hip-hop event, through 2006, and after seeing The Rotunda packed with 300-400 people every month I thought, "Why not expand this to a larger scale and take it outdoors?" We linked with Goodie Goodie to start laying down the plans, and in September of '06 we produced the first Flava Fest at Clark Park. It was a free outdoor jam with live graffiti, a b-boy battle, vendors, performances, and a dance workshop for kids.
What can we expect this year?
After the success of last year's Flava Fest, we decided to make it an annual series of events. This year we stepped up the programming a lot to have five events spanning over three days. The goal is to highlight each of hip-hop culture's four elements through the events. Tonight we kick things off with a poetry slam, custom sneaker show, and graffiti art displays at Sneaker Villa on N. Broad and Thompson Streets; DJ Phsh will be spinning, Jake Winterstein and Rashid Zakat are hosting, doors are at 6pm, it's all ages and admission is $5. Friday night the focus is on hip-hop dance, so we're having breaking, popping, and locking exhibition battles at FUEL Collection on Arch and 3rd Streets from 8pm-12am (open bar with $10 cover, all ages/21+ to drink). For Saturday we have a free outdoor jam at 40th Street Field (40th and Walnut Streets) from 1-6pm with an open dance floor, performances all day, DJs spinning hip-hop/funk/breaks, graffiti panels on display, and vendors selling all kinds of stuff; this event takes it back to hip-hop's roots with the park jams in NYC. Saturday night is the main event, and we've got some of the best in the game performing at the Trocadero Theater on Arch and 10th Street from 8pm-12am - Pharoahe Monch and Juggaknots are the featured acts, and local representatives Reef the Lost Cauze, Philly Slick, and MAGr will be holding it down too. We also have the finals for the Freestyle Face-Off at the concert, where emcees will take cues from the DJ to flip rhymes off the top of the head based on the words and phrases Phillee Blunt cuts in. The after party will wrap things up for Flava Fest, taking place at The Arts Garage on 15th and Parrish Streets from 11pm-4am with Illvibe Collective on the wheels all night. People can expect a full dose of Philly's hip-hop scene by coming to any and all of the Flava Fest events.
This year's event is pretty huge. Have you started thinking about next year yet?
Yeah we're starting to plan for next year right now. People can expect a lot of the same vibe next time around, with some extra events, educational workshops for hip-hop entrepreneurs, and lots of special guests.
CHECK HERE for a full list of events and details.
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