Hip-Hop Cultural Summit featuring Chuck D will explore art as activism

Delaware native and AllHipHop co-founder “Grouchy” Greg Watkins was more focused on celebrating hip-hop’s upcoming 50th birthday than his own in the early months of 2023.

The genre is widely recognized as beginning with an August 1973 back-to-school party in the Bronx organized by DJ Kool Herc, who used vinyl records to extend percussive breaks to dance to — and, eventually, rap over. 

Watkins was born five months later. As he grew up in Newark, so did the genre. Living in such close proximity to Philadelphia, Watkins would listen to Street Beat on Power 99, the radio show hosted by Lady B, the first woman to record a hip-hop single. 

“It was a crash course in hip-hop when I was in fourth grade,” Watkins said. “Hip-hop was very new. It was still a subculture, and everybody here (in Delaware) was participating in it.”

Watkins experienced hip-hop’s meteoric rise to the mainstream from ground zero as a music journalist with AllHipHop, the news website he founded with Chuck “Jigsaw” Creekmur in 1998.

After devoting his life to hip-hop, Watkins wanted to ensure the genre’s semi-centennial was properly celebrated. So, he pitched an event — the Hip-Hop Cultural Summit — to Delaware Art Museum Cultural Programs Director Iz Balleto in 2023. 

“We wanted to make sure that we honored the culture by making sure it’s part of history,” Balleto said. “To do it in the art museum, they have to archive it. That means it’s no longer a typical hip-hop event or a rap show.”

The annual event returns on Saturday, Oct. 17, to celebrate hip-hop’s five elements: MCing, DJing, breakdancing, graffiti and knowledge, the wisdom imparted through the artwork. 

The summit will feature dance and music performances by regional artists and organizations, as well as panel discussions by Public Enemy co-founder Chuck D and pioneering Philadelphia graffiti artist Darryl “Cornbread” McCray — a legend who tagged The Jackson 5’s private jet and an elephant at the Philadelphia Zoo.

“I love when I hear our elders saying, ‘You changed the perspective of the way we see hip-hop culture, not from the commercial point of view, but from the cultural point of view,’” Balleto said. “It’s really a mission to always bring people together, unify … because that’s the whole essence of hip-hop culture.” 

Hip-hop history

Household names like Chuck D get people through the door, but the heart of the Hip-Hop Cultural Summit has always been highlighting Delaware’s contributions to the music industry, Watkins said.

The first summit gathered a panel of Delaware hip-hop artists who released records before the digital age. Every year since then, Watkins has found a way to tell stories from local music history. He’s still finalizing what story he’ll tell this year.

Delaware’s contributions to hip-hop are far from insignificant. As an example, Young Guru, the Grammy Award-winning audio engineer who’s worked with Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Kanye West, is from Wilmington. 

Moreover, a man from Dover forever changed the way people listen to music. Eldridge Reeves Johnson improved the gramophone by inventing a spring motor that eliminated the need for manual cranking. That paved the way for DJs. Reeves also created the Victrola, which he sold through his Victor Talking Machine Company. 

Watkins founded a nonprofit, Victor Society, in collaboration with the Johnson Victrola Museum in Dover a couple of years ago. The nonprofit uses the record player as a gateway to get kids interested in STEM, business and the arts. 

Watkins said hip-hop has the power to do the same.

“What better way to get young people involved in a particular pathway into their career … than through the most popular form of culture and music in the world?” Watkins said.

Some educators have already picked up on the effectiveness of using hip-hop to teach. 

For example, The Bronx School of Hip-Hop, a public high school that uses hip-hop as a framework for teaching subjects like math and English, opened last month. 

“I hope that we’re next,” Balleto said.

‘Culture is a weapon’

Balleto grew up in New York City, where there was no end to third spaces for kids and teens to express themselves artistically. 

Balleto said Delaware is lacking in comparison, particularly when it comes to spaces for hip-hop.

“As a museum, I want to make sure that we inspire other institutions to open their doors,” he said. 

Balleto and Watkins view hip-hop, like all forms of artistic expression, as a community-builder that can curtail instances of violence stemming from mental health issues or lack of resources.

“The goal is to show everybody that (hip-hop) is the tool the community can use to combat violence,” Watkins said. “But you have to have a space for it. You can’t be scared of it. You should be scared of the violence that’s on the street corner, not the kids that need a venue to come in and express (themselves). Even if it is their anger, it has to be expressed.”

Balleto’s motto is, “Culture is a weapon” — one people can use to empower themselves and uplift their communities.

Jay Macklin, executive director of Wilmington-based Stop the Violence Coalition, agreed with that assessment. That’s why the nonprofit is participating in the Hip-Hop Cultural Summit for the first time this year.

Macklin and other concerned citizens founded Stop the Violence Coalition in 2001 after the fatal shootings of 5-year-old Damon Gist Jr. and 28-year-old Darnell Evans in a Wilmington barbershop.

The nonprofit’s mission is simple: to bring about peace in the community. In its “Academy for Peace” headquarters on Lower Market Street, Macklin and her volunteers offer financial coaching, family and mental health counseling, arts programming and more. 

“You name it, we probably offer it,” Macklin said. 

And if the nonprofit doesn’t offer a particular service, volunteers will do their best to connect whoever walks through the door with the resources they need, she added.

During the upcoming Hip-Hop Cultural Summit, Stop the Violence Coalition will hold a drumline performance and a “Superheroes for Peace” ceremony honoring individual community members.

Macklin said the event will serve as effective outreach, especially to young people. Besides, she added, hip-hop has historically aligned with the nonprofit’s mission of non-violence. 

For example, a group of rappers, including Chuck D and Flavor Flav, released the charity single “Self Destruction” in 1989 to protest violence in the wake of a fan’s death at a Boogie Down Productions and Public Enemy show. The name the rappers released the single under — Stop the Violence Movement — coincidentally echoes the name of Macklin’s nonprofit. 

Art as Activism

Because social justice is foundational to hip-hop, Watkins and Balleto chose “Art as Activism” as the theme for this year’s Hip-Hop Cultural Summit.

“We wanted to make sure that people knew the social justice aspect of (hip-hop), because in the beginning, it was addressing police brutality, poverty, issues that really mattered in the community,” Balleto said. 

In line with the central theme, Wilmington nonprofit organization Cultural Restoration Project will hold a social justice-themed MC battle featuring 11- to 14-year-old participants.

“The topics we gave them are not easy topics. It’s like, ‘How do you combat violence?’ And they have to rap about this against each other,” Watkins said.

Given the central theme of activism, Chuck D, the Public Enemy frontman known for combating social issues with wordplay, was the ideal keynote speaker.

“To have someone here, living history in the flesh, to talk to us about what we can do to help our young people cope with what I know is a mental health crisis that’s resulting in violence in the city?” Watkins said. “It’s something that should not be missed.”