From cyphers to surprise faculty performances, Columbia’s “Hip-Hop: A Sonic History” class brought the heat Thursday, May 8 at “Timeless Flows: hip-hop Through the Ages,” a student-produced pre-party launching the start of ManiFresh week or “hip-hop week” at Columbia.
The event in the Conaway Center featured student performances in a course taught by faculty member and hip-hop club faculty advisor Amina Norman-Hawkins. Students filled the space with performances showcasing the sounds, styles and stories that shape hip-hop.
The celebration opened with a performance from Andres Rios, an independent artist and senior music major from Chicago’s West Side who writes, produces and records his own music.
“A lot of people have forgotten what hip-hop is about,” said Rios. “ It’s just about being real to you, and being real with others.”
The show was co-hosted by junior music majors Janae Spradley and Pavlik Laska, both enrolled in the hip-hop class. Laska, who performs under the name “Paul Nostalgia,” reflected on his initial hesitation about the class.
“Honestly, it was something that just piqued my interest, but naturally, I was skeptical,” said Laska. “It’s like a class about hip-hop, is that something you teach in a book?”
Laska discussed his introduction to hip-hop through artists like Kendrick Lamar and Eminem. He emphasizes the importance of self-expression in hip-hop, both as a listener and a creator.
“I’m one that doesn’t separate art from the artist,” said Laska. “A big part of hip-hop is self expression, and that goes for both when I listen and when I make music, if I feel like they’re not saying anything real, it’s hard for me to stick with it for a long time.”
Senior music business major Uriel Blunt, known onstage as “Yung URI,” closed the preshow with a genre-bending set that blended hip-hop, neo-soul and spoken word.
“Since this is like a student-run curating event, some of the students had reached out to me to perform a set,” said Blunt. “I definitely want to perform on bigger stages and this is just the beginning.”
In a surprise mid-show moment, Norman-Hawkins herself joined the lineup for a faculty performance. For her, the event represented more than just an end-of-semester showcase, it was a tribute to the legacy and future of hip-hop at Columbia.
“At the end of the semester, students are charged with curating a hip-hop event for the community; it is a free event,” said Norman-Hawkins. “It is open to the public, but it’s really here to support and celebrate not only hip-hop culture, but hip-hop here at Columbia.”
Norman-Hawkins co-founded ManiFresh in 2015 as a space for Columbia’s hip-hop community to be recognized within the broader annual Manifest urban arts festival.
“This is actually the 10th year, when we created it, it was really just to give our hip-hop community a space, because Columbia hip-hop has been very instrumental in the city and really impacted work in the city and around the world,” she said.
A raffle giveaway included Questlove’s book “Hip-Hop is History,” tying the theme of reflection and reverence for the genre’s roots into the night’s celebrations.
“I love hip-hop, it’s a part of culture,” said Spradley. “It is culture.”
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