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

By • 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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