DomingoYu.com

You've reached the home of DJ Chino, Domingo Yu, and Daniel D. Zarazua. Yes, we're all the same person, but each name has its role. As you browse the site, you'll quickly see that my interests revolve around urban music and education. On the music side of things I'm currently affiliated with Underground Resistance/Red Planet Records in Detroit. On the educational side I'm a teacher at Oakland Unity High School. Be sure to click on the student life gallery to get an idea of what's happening! I'm always trying to combine these two worlds and even though I'm California based at the moment I try to stay connected to my other homes, namely Detroit and Taiwan. Feel free to drop me a line! To check out my YouTube clips, click here.

Eve of change

Posted November 4, 2008 2:45 am (about 17 days ago)

I don’t tend to write about electoral politics much, mainly because I often don’t feel well-versed enough to add anything new to the conversation. However, on the eve of Obama’s potential victory I need to throw in my two cents. First, I haven’t watched many of the videos that have been flooding my inbox, but here’s one I’m glad I did. It had me laughing out loud, yet is super serious. It wasn’t the only reason, but I finally found myself getting excited about the race, just two nights before election day. Mind you, I’ve read some of Obama’s writings, watched the debates, followed the campaign, helped with a fundraiser, attended a rally and even drove by his house a few times the last ...

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2008 Dia de los Muertos Celebration-Oakland Museum of California

Pics from their 15th Annual Community Day. Among those volunteering and contributing murals were Oakland Unity High School.

Recent Additions

• Ise Lyfe Impresses in the ClassroomCurriculum Earlier this week my school, Oakland Unity High School was fortunate to have hip-hop artist and educator Ise Lyfe present. Beyond his performance ability, one reason we hoped to have him come in was his skill as an educator. Too often, even the most conscious of performers aren't good in the classroom. They're good at entertaining, yet not always good at actually educating. From our past discussions, it was obvious that Ise had experience working with youth and respected school policies and goals. In some cases, artists feel that they should swear in the name of "keeping it real" or "relating to the kids," smell like weed, or talk about totally inappropriate subjects. Ise isn't scared to address controversial topics, yet knows HOW to do it. You can talk about nearly anything when presented properly.
• Hip Hop Tried 2 Kill MeHip-hop Book Review Quite frankly, I’m pretty burnt out on “hip-hop literature” and between the title, the cover art, and the description on the back, I was expecting another clichéd tale from the ‘hood. Well, some of that is here, but it’s worth peeling back the layers as Fleetwood has some important things to say in his true account of his efforts to carve out a career in the field of hip hop. Included are many first-hand experiences addressing traps to avoid and tips on being successful at the independent level.
• Eve of changeBlog / Journal Entry I don’t tend to write about electoral politics much, mainly because I often don’t feel well-versed enough to add anything new to the conversation. However, on the eve of Obama’s potential victory I need to throw in my two cents.
• 2008 Dia de los Muertos Celebration-Oakland Museum of CaliforniaGallery Pics from their 15th Annual Community Day. Among those volunteering and contributing murals were Oakland Unity High School.
• 2nd Annual Living Word Festival, Oakland, CAGallery This event reminded me of why hip hop is so important to my life and why I've made Oakland home. Free performances by three of my favorite performers-Mos Def, Goapele, and Los Rakas-would've been enough, but the Scraper Bike Expo, Graffiti Battle (sponsored by Samurai Graphix), Hood Games skate competition, and all around good vibes put this festival over the top. Youth Speaks was behind the eco-friendly festivities, while other performers included DJ Leydis, and Urban Word NYC as Marc Bamuthi Joseph hosted. In case we need more, Natural Builders constructed bamboo installations to educate folks on sustainability issues and I saw people ranging from Desi of The Weekend Wake Up to youth from Visual Elements to Sincere Justice mingling in the crowd.
• WBL Hip Hop Conference-SFSUBlog / Journal Entry Reflections on the recent Words Beats & Life conference at San Francisco State University.
• Oakland Food Connection Farmers' Market Grand OpeningGallery This much-needed addition to Oakland, CA's Laural District was founded by the Oakland Food Connection, whose program includes teaching youth how to grown and cook their own healthy food. Students from E.C. Reems Junior High School and Envision High School were on hand, as well as youth with the East Oakland Boxing Association. Adult supporters including staff from Oakland Unity High School and Principal Contreras of Melrose Leadership Academy. Iya Khan supplied the live music, while yours truly manned the turntables, and Chef Florida oversaw the cooking duties. You can check out the market every Saturday, year round, at 4173 MacArthur Blvd. Special shout out to J & P Organics for making that drive down from Moss Landing. All pics taken by Rohland and Terry Moland.
• Mexican Trivia GameCurriculum UPDATED-2008. (Remember that every day is Mexican history! No need to wait until '09 to use these.) In honor of Mexican Independence Day, September 16th, we played trivia in my World History class. There are a mixture of questions related to Mexican and Mexican-American history. As we weren't specifically studying Mexico at the time, I used movies, music, and anything else that students were familiar with to engage them. Basically, the class was broken up into two teams and they picked the difficulty of the questions that they wanted each turn. I read the questions out loud. This activity went over well. I'm sure the taquitos and tacos we had didn't hurt.-Sept. 2003
• Around Town-Oakland, CAGallery Pics and links related to the new Oakland Food Connection farmers' market in the Laurel district, the Oakland Museum of California's "Cool ReMixed" exhibit, the annual "Stepping in Shades of Brown" Chicago stepping event at Sweet's Ballroom, the Chinatown Street Festival, and more dancing at Anton's. Some notes: The pics from the "ReMixed" exhibit are from the Museum's website. I used up the memory in my camera for the dance battle and you can find clips at You Tube. There are also some Chicago stepping videos as well. All of these were great events, but I was especially impressed with the "Cool Remixed" exhibit for the simple reason that I've never seen so many teenagers at a museum on their own will, including some I've taught. Their efforts in connecting with young people was quite impressive.
• Vinyl Preservation Society Top 10Playlist I connected with one of the founders of this newsletter during a recent trip to Detroit and he asked me for 10 vinyl releases I was into. My top 10 of all time? Nope, but stuff I definitely recommend. For more info on this newsletter, hit Chris up here.
• Across Asian Middle AmericaIdentity/Culture Journal Entry The current issue of "Hyphen" magazine has a feature called "Across Asian Middle America," which includes a short piece about ya' boy's time in Montgomery, Alabama. (for those Detroiters reading this, that would not be Kwame)
• Always into somethingBlog / Journal Entry Part of the appeal of place such as The Bay Area is that it always seems that something is happening. Yet mostly due to the high cost of property, I’m always thinking of possible places to relocate. While I’m hardly saying anything new, one thing that’s going to attract young professionals such as myself is the feeling that things are happening, or could happen.
• A Thousand Splendid SunsHip-hop Book Review If you’re familiar with Hosseini’s first book The Kite Runner, or the movie of the same name, you already know what to expect; living in Afghanistan is hard. Someone asked me what’s one thing that stood out to me about this book and I simply told her, “I’m glad I wasn’t born a female in Afghanistan.”
• Feeling goodBlog / Journal Entry As the old saying goes, travel is the greatest enemy to ignorance. Even though I returned to Detroit, a place I called home for some years, it was an eye-opening trip. (Detroit dance, Underground Resistance, family reunion)
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• Toledo Mud Hens Latin Heritage NightPlaylist On Sunday, July 27th, the Toledo Mud Hens of Ohio celebrated the Latin heritage of their players and fans. My friend JaMay Edwards, who serves as the Manager of Promotions, asked me to put together some music for breaks during the day's game. Thanks for the opportunity JaMay!
• Def Prof Picks: Hip Hop and EducationCurriculum San Francisco State University professor gives her recommendations for hip-hop related education resources.