Manchester Stand Up! Agents of Change indeed . . .

So I’m waiting at at London Heathrow for my connecting flight to Berlin. The show at Pangea was pretty solid, though the turnout was a little light. Rabbi and I easily rocked an hour-long set, and it was great to have DJ ZaJazza in town to back us up. Keep an eye out for ZaJazza’s, Rabbi’s and Hired Gun’ “Skillz to Take Brazil” project coming out in October...‘ish is gonna be fiya!

The next morning Rabbi, ZaJazza and myself took the train from Manchester to London and were greeted by an unexpected occurrence...sunshine! Baba Israel and Core Rhythm picked us up from the train station and we made the 5-minute journey to Baba’s RIDICULOUS apartment in Central Manchester.


It’s so great to see someone like Baba finally get his due. The cat’s been working the Hip Hop and Education hustle for quite sometime now. Let me just say that his set up in Manchester is SWEET! He is now the Director of Contact Theatre, Manchester's home for experimental theater. The space is dedicated to giving youth a place where they can grow, learn and make decisions as a young artist, audience members, organizers or leaders. No doubt that Baba is the perfect person to run it!

The show itself was exactly what we needed to keep the momentum going. There were easily over 100 people in attendance (mainly youth) and after enjoying a monster open-mic, a killer set by Core Rhythm and the inaugural running of Say Word’s “The Freestyle Pyramid” (which has found another home at Contact—Keep it going ya’ll!) Rabbi, ZaJazza and I rocked a 30 minute set. The Manchester heads came heavy with the love, dancing from word go. We pushed quite a bit of merch afterwords, but more importantly held down a pretty crazy cipher outside with all the youth.


I was wholly humbled by Contact Theatre, Manchester’s Art Community and Baba’s impending triumphs and successes abroad. I was most inspired however by the youth. Cat’s like Fabian (yes…we share the same name!) are really dedicated to Hip Hop, education and servicing the community. Hearing him ask Baba how to get involved with running workshops and how he knows that working with the community will allow him to follow his passion for music brought a smile to all our faces.


This morning I said bye to all the homies (and homegirl(s)—well really just Dawn—thank you for your hospitality) and began my journey to the next stop...Berlin! Get Up Stand Up 2009 continues...until the next time...Say Word!