REVIEW | THE HIP-HOP COMMUNITY BRING WEMBLEY TOGETHER AT THE URBAN ARTS FESTIVAL

By Faizah Cyanide • On Reviews

The event was scattered across five dif­fer­ent areas mak­ing use of the space. As I ven­tured into Olympic Way I saw a dif­fer­ent sight to the usu­al crowed of con­cert of foot­ball match hoers, there was a cus­tom built skate park on Olympic Way’s ped­way. The wedge ramps and grind rails was impress­ive. Skate­boarders and BMX­ers show­cased their skills. I found the children’s smal­ler ramp undeni­ably cute and inclusive.

Across from the skate park was the black and white United Bor­ders mobile music record­ing bus and hop on board. A cre­at­ive use of space and innov­at­ive idea hos­ted by a char­ity from Har­les­den. It gave people the oppor­tun­ity to record their own short piece of music.

The Main stage saw the MCs, spoken word artists, sing­ers and poets show­case their skills. A mix of loc­al and more well-known artists there was a vari­ety of styles as well as a live band at one point.

Fol­low­ing the aware­ness and cloth­ing stalls which included EPIC, I Am Hip Hop Magazine and Hip Hop­era Found­a­tion were the live graf­fiti walls. All led to a con­crete jam space and DJ, where all dance styles cyphers were going on in between rounds of the 1:1 Breakin competition.

Big con­grat­u­la­tions to B‑Boy Manny for tak­ing the win as there was a live drum­mer in the back­ground, a nice touch.

Through­out the fest­iv­al there were free work­shops in each ele­ment for com­munity involve­ment which made it access­ible to every­one. From dance to an open mic to a DJing work­shop. In addi­tion to all of this, around the park there were tem­por­ary art install­a­tions under­neath the ped­way designed to be, ‘ins­tagram­able’. Vegan food was also avail­able from pop up stalls or if you wanted more choice you could grab a bite to eat from the twenty res­taur­ants at the Box­park which served a vari­ety of cuisines from Japan­ese to Indi­an with plenty of seating.

The event also ended with a free after party. Bring­ing the com­munity togeth­er, there was some­thing for every­one. I can only envis­age big­ger and bet­ter this for this fest­iv­al in my loc­al com­munity. Massive props to Inspir­a­tion­al Arts, EPIC (Every Per­son Is Cap­able), Tadao Pro­duc­tions, AQ Arts for bring­ing it all together.

Find our more about Epic and the work they do here: www.everypersoniscapable.com

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Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clin­ic­al research by pro­fes­sion and has been an avid Hip Hop lov­er since the early 90’s, hav­ing cre­ated her own Hip Hop event, ‘Breakin’ Bound­ar­ies’ in the early 2000’s which was pre­dom­in­antly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al events pro­moters and dan­cers to inspire oth­ers through this artform.

About Faizah Cyanide

Faizah works in clinical research by profession and has been an avid Hip Hop lover since the early 90's, having created her own Hip Hop event, 'Breakin' Boundaries' in the early 2000's which was predominantly based around the concept of bboy battles, she has worked with several international events promoters and dancers to inspire others through this artform.