EVENT | CERTAIN BLACKS PRESENT ‘HEROES’ AT THE RICH MIX LONDON THIS FEBRUARY

Pho­to­graph­er Andrea Dav­is-Kron­lund

Her­oes

Feb­ru­ary 2–17 2023

Rich Mix, 35–47 Beth­nal Green Rd, Lon­don E1 6LA

Tick­ets Here

 Cer­tain Blacks, the East Lon­don arts devel­op­ment organ­isa­tion returns for their 9^th fest­iv­al this Feb­ru­ary, hav­ing been awar­ded Arts Coun­cil Eng­land Nation­al Port­fo­lio fund­ing spe­cific­ally to sup­port diverse artists and pro­grammes.

Cer­tain Blacks presents Her­oes, a fest­iv­al set to inspire and enter­tain audi­ences begin­ning with a cel­eb­ra­tion of inter­na­tion­al female musi­cians Maria Uzor, Helen Adove Hawk, Daphna Sadeh &  East­ern Strings. As well, Her­oes boasts an exclus­ive event from legendry grime innov­at­ors Ruff Sqwad plus an even­ing high­light­ing the verbal skills, frank­ness and humour of John-Paul Zac­car­ini — LGB­TQ+ poet, stand-up and aca­dem­ic. As a finale, Her­oes wel­comes a rare vis­it from LT Beauchamp (AKA Chica­go Beau), the esteemed Chica­go blues innov­at­or who played on the sem­in­al 1970 album Cer­tain Blacks by Art Ensemble of Chica­go, from which the Lon­don organ­isa­tion takes its name.

Pro­gramme of events:

 Thursday 2 Feb­ru­ary

Launch­ing Her­oes is an even­ing of beguil­ing, female musi­cians includ­ing Helen Adove Hawk, a mul­ti­fa­ceted vocal­ist, com­poser and loop sta­tion vir­tu­oso. Expect a dreamy fusion of sound, dance and per­form­ance, Hawk hav­ing star­ted her career as a dan­cer.

 On the same night, Daphna Sadeh & East­ern Strings join forces. Sadeh is an innov­at­ive double bassist and com­poser whose take on clas­sic­al, jazz and Middle East­ern sounds has res­ul­ted in world-wide recog­ni­tion. Her per­form­ance at Her­oes will be com­ple­men­ted by Bris­tol-based  East­ern Strings.

The line-up is com­pleted by the strik­ing sounds and visu­als of mul­ti­fa­ceted artist Maria Uzor, whose new single Over This blends seduct­ive beats with gritty, ener­gised ele­ments of avant pop, dub and elec­tro. Uzor is a Nor­wich-based elec­tron­ic artist and pro­du­cer. £10/8 8pm

An even­ing of music from out­stand­ing female musi­cians fea­tures Helen Adove Hawk

Fri­day 3 Feb­ru­ary

John-Paul Zac­car­ini — The MixRace Mix Tape — A stand-up, hip-hop, spoken word jour­ney of pas­sion, hope and humour tak­ing audi­ences on a lush poet­ic jour­ney through every­day racism, homo­pho­bia and classism. Zac­car­ini explores the polit­ic­al and emo­tion­al mine­field of Inter­sec­tion­al­ity with poignancy in this highly per­son­al and pro­voc­at­ive per­form­ance. John-Paul Zac­car­ini, Ph.D. is Pro­fess­or in Per­form­ing Arts at Stock­holm Uni­ver­sity of the Arts, an award-win­ning solo theatre artist and a poet. As if this isn’t enough, he is also, a ‘Draga­dem­ic’, work­ing class, queer hip-hop, drama clown queen of col­our. Homo-funky and street spunky, serving up South Lon­don shade and immig­rant work­ing class real­ness, he blends the ‘brains with the b*tch’ and the spec­tac­u­lar with the ser­i­ous. £10/8 8pm

 Sat­urday 4 Feb­ru­ary

Ruff Sqwad presents Lights Up

Foun­ded by Grime Legends Prince Owusu-Agyekum (aka Rap­id) and Ebenez­er Ayerh (aka Slix), the Ruff Sqwad Arts Found­a­tion (RSAF) was set up in 2017 to help young people reach their full poten­tial in cre­at­ive careers and life. RSAF form­al­ises and devel­ops the work that Prince and Ebs have been doing since 2014. Lights Up will include spoken word, rap, Grime, dance, and music­al and per­form­at­ive sur­prises from Ruff Sqwad mem­bers. Con­firmed per­form­ances come cour­tesy of excit­ing new names Tofi The Poet, The Hitrz, Lil Shakz, Kween Deekay, Cas­sie, T Roadz and BZ. £10/8 8pm — 12am

Fri­day 17 Feb­ru­ary

L T Beauchamp

LT ‘Chica­go Beau’ Beauchamp is a musi­cian, writer and pub­lish­er who amongst many oth­er achieve­ments, was a major con­trib­ut­or to the album Cer­tain Blacks by the Art Ensemble of Chica­go. Beau was born on the south­side of Chica­go in 1949, into a house­hold where the music of luminar­ies Dinah Wash­ing­ton, Cole­man Hawkins, Miles Dav­is, Bil­lie Hol­i­day, Duke Elling­ton, Ella Fitzger­ald, Ivory Joe Hunter, Ruth Brown etc provided a con­stant soundtrack.

From the age of 10 until 15, Beau stud­ied tap dan­cing with the great Afro-Cuban dan­cer and cho­reo­graph­er, Jimmy Payne. He par­ti­cip­ated in many Cab­aret-type shows pop­u­lar dur­ing that era. A show could con­sist of per­form­ances by Afro-Cuban dan­cers, magi­cians, tap dan­cers, jazz and blues per­formers, and drill teams. These inspir­a­tion­al shows offered young people an oppor­tun­ity to par­ti­cip­ate with pro­fes­sion­als in a com­munity set­ting.

For Her­oes, Beau will be backed by a band of high cal­ibre UK musi­cians led by bass play­er Miles Danso. The even­ing will include a blues per­form­ance from Beau, read­ings and a Q and A oppor­tun­ity to dis­cov­er more about his work with Art Ensemble of Chica­go and the mak­ing of the sem­in­al record­ing Cer­tain Blacks. £10/8 7.30pm — 10pm

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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