2nd Annual Living Word Festival, Oakland, CA
Posted Oct 20 2008
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.
Peace Brother, I'm really feelin' the site; very much well put together - I'm going to continually check your site out. That day was one of the reasons I love Oakland.
I believe this is a wonderful activity that has taking place in my community. This brings a lot of different backgrounds to the community. This also show that there is lots of people who are talented in there art work. I like how they have different things going on. They have a skate board ramps for the people who like doing that, also spoking word, and graffiti.
I think that it is activities like this that prove the true potential of the young people in our community. Oakland is a city that is rich in culture and talent and when festivals like this are put into place , it is like a attending a multi-cultural concert of positivity.