Thank you! Going away party at Bam

I want to thank everyone who came out to BAM Café last week Friday! It was a night that affirmed my strong connections and history with this great city! Moving to a new place and leaving my home is not easy. I am moving for a fantastic opportunity to work with a great organization in Contact Theatre, but I leave behind family, friends, and collaborators. That Friday made me realize that I am not leaving anything behind but expanding my network and community and NYC has got my back with love and support.

On a personal level I had friends in the audience from every chapter of my life, from all my school years, artistic worlds, and students from the last ten years of my work as an educator.

It was truly a night of Hip Hop culture with emceeing, beatboxing, turntablism, popping, and breaking all being represented. I had folks comment that it was one of the best Hip Hop shows they have been to and I want to thank all the guest artists who contributed to that. Thank you to Core Rhythm, D-Cross, Eagle Nebula, Duv, Creature, Kwik Step, Rokafella, P-nerves, Mike Supreme, Bboy Atomic, RU, and all the dancers who got down in the cypher! I also want to thank Playback NYC and Yako 440 for surprising me with a great moment of interactive theater! Shout out AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc. for their great PR. The place was packed with over 300 people! And a big THANK YOU to Darrell McNeill and the whole BAM Cafe crew for hosting us!

It was also special to have my father perform and blow the crowd away with his humor, politics, and spirit and to have my mother who carried me in her womb in that very room 35 years ago when they were rehearsing there. As my friend Mars Jupiter said I went from "rocking the womb to rocking the room!"


The night continued at South Paw with dancing all night to the sounds of DP One and DJ Kevlar. Kwik Step became the spontaneous host and rocked the mic all night! It was a true New York night of culture, community, and good vibes!

check http://www.flickr.com/photos/25155524@N02/sets/72157617594516114/ for more photos!

Shout out to Kamau Ware for taking great flix!

BABA ISRAEL Named Artistic Director of Contact Theatre

PRESS RELEASE

Media Contact:
Thysha M. Shabazz, AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc.
Phones: 718.756.8501 main • 646.410.0246 (direct)
Mobile/Text: 757.450.3655 • 646.522.4169
Email: thysha@akilaworksongs.com

Immediate Release: Friday, April 3, 2009

NYC’s Hip Hop/Theater Artist BABA ISRAEL
Named Artistic Director of Major Theater in Manchester, England!
ISRAEL Continues to Integrate Hip Hop, Theater, and Youth Arts

http://www.contact-theatre.org/ for more info on Contact

New York City - - Hip Hop/Theater Artist BABA ISRAEL announces today that he has accepted the position of Artistic Director of the Contact Theater. Contact is a pioneering theatre in Manchester and one of the most successful theatres for young people in the country. It has an established international reputation for producing exciting new work and nurturing young diverse audiences. Charles Lauder, Contact’s Chairman says “This is a thrilling appointment at a pivotal time for Contact. Baba Israel has an international pedigree and has undertaken remarkable work for and with young people. He brings a range of attributes and talents that make him ideally suited to inspire and lead the young people who are at the heart of Contact’s activities as well as its vibrant management team. We are hugely excited at the prospect of Baba taking us on the next stage of Contact’s continuing development.” Baba Israel shares in the excitement: “In 2005, when I came to Contact, I was blown away and returned to New York describing the place as a model venue for cutting-edge art where young people feel at home, take risks, and grow as people. I have worked there in many capacities and I am now honored to become the Artistic Director of such a forward thinking organization.”

ABOUT BABA ISRAEL
Born and currently living in New York, Israel is a poet, emcee, theatre artist, beatboxer, director, producer, and author. He has toured extensively across the United States, Europe, South America, Australia and Asia, performing with artists such as Outkast, The Roots, Vernon Reid, Rahzel, Afrika Bambaataa, and Bill Cosby. As a teacher, he has worked in a wide range of disciplines and with several cutting-edge arts organizations, including Urban Word, BAM, Arts Horizons, New World Theatre, among others.

As a director, Israel’s work includes Project 2050 (New World Theatre), Maxwell Golden (UK) and Sharpening Sawds (UK). He is also Co-founder and Co-Artistic Director of Playback NYC Theatre Company which aims to bring theater to under-represented communities.


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No stranger to Contact, Baba Israel has performed there previously. Last year, he performed in Process and Boombap! Showtime to rave reviews. “This is a revolutionary moment,” Israel comments. “A Hip Hop-based artist moving into a position of sustained leadership with the purpose of energizing the lives of young people through the arts is major. I bring a background and perspective that is grounded in not only Hip Hop but in theatre, jazz, poetry, and other genres.”

Baba Israel will start his new position at Contact this summer and plans to maintain his career as a hip hop/theatre artist.

For more information on this artist, please visit www.babaisrael.com. For more info about Contact, please visit www.contact-theatre.org. Send an email to Claire Will, Director of Marketing and Communications, at clairewill@contact-theatre.org. All media inquires are directed to April R. Silver or Thysha Shabazz at AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc. at 718.756.8501 or via email pr@akilaworksongs.com.




# # #

A busy week in NYC

Rocking with DP One at the RHINO FX Launch party!

This week was intense, it was a busy one and reminded me of the all the places that being an artist can take you.

I started the week getting styled with Kid Lucky for a Commercial shoot for Panasonic. Wish I could of kept the clothes and kicks-

It is for a new digital camera coming out, I have to say I just bought a Panasonic camera for its dope HD video, so it felt good to be in a commercial for something I use. The commercial is for European TV so I will spread the word when it is up on the web. It should be dope..

Imagine- Me, Kid Lucky, a ferry load of tri-state commuuters, and the Statue of Liberty- Stay tuned for more..

The night before the shoot I rocked a great show with Jason Lindner's Now Vs Now at the Zinc Bar- did anyone take pics?

It was a 4:45 am call for the shoot and me and Kid pushed through and had a great time.

The director was mad cool and let us use our creativity.

The next day I taught a class at NYU for Daniel Bank's program Hip Hop Theater Education in and out of the class room. What a rich and stimulating group of young minds. We had some great dialogue and beginning work in Playback and Beatbox.

We talked about Hip Hop as form of popular education, the creative and cultural tension between tradition and innovation, New York as the birthplace and the growing reinterpretations of Hip Hop globally, and the various schools of thought on defining Hip Hop Theater. It was inspiring and made me want to teach more at the university level. If any one has ideas- hit me up..

Then I rushed to the Launch party for Rhino FX- a super crazy Animation/Video/Production house- I rocked a set there with Dp One on the tables, and Jason Lindner and Jorge Contentinentino on Horns and Flutes. It was a new launch for them and I did some voice over for there new promo reel check it at http://www.rhinofx.com/ There work is amazing! you can find them on Facebook


It was a great vibe! The Next morning after a few hours of sleep I left the BX at 6:30 am to meet Yako and Bboy Frankie to do a hip hop connections show at an elementary school in Jersey. Hip Hop Connections is a show we do that deals with Hip Hop's elements, history, and expression. It was a great show, the principal had a Looney Tunes tie (which is always a good sign) The students were engaged and we talked about creativity, imagination, the importance of reading, finding inspiration from our friends, families, and teachers!

By the end of the Day I was wiped, zombie mode, made it through a revealing and slightly confusing Battle Star episode.

Sat was all about Valentines balloons, chili, vegan banana splits, and communication, plus Krypto-Nate Robinson won the Dunk Contest!

Update for Feb 09- Playback NYC, NY Times, Arts education, and more

It's the second month of 09 and life in NY is feeling good.

I spent most of last year on the road traveling the world. It was Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, philippines, Berlin, Holland, UK, Czech Republic, Australia. Anyway you get the idea..

It was a great and dizzying experience. I met many inspiring artists and new communities. At the same I realized I was running from my life in NY.

New York has changed, we are talking major gentrification, a sort of hipster/young professional invasion, a continued closing of important artistic venues, and the continued displacement of communities of color and poor folks.

Maybe its the uneasy feelings about the economy that are bringing that nervous comfort of my eighties experience. It has been a process to face my feelings about New York and renew my love and commitment to this unique metropolis.

I have to shout out Danny Hoch's Taking Over
His show was a cathartic release for me, it tackled the many angles and contradictions of a changing New York. I also want to shout out the folks who keep New York raw and creative.



This is all said after a two week family retreat in LA, a very intimate conference held by KRS ONE in the LBC( where a vision for a Hip Hop city was laid out), and a show in LAS VEGAS where Yako and I opened for a major computer companies keynote, I am back in New York and staying put.




I am back in the teaching trenches and working on some great education projects with Organizations Urban Arts Partnership, Urban Word, BAM, John Jay College, and Arts Horizons. I am about to start working with an ESL and finished a project called Intersession at New Design High School with fellow UAP teaching artist Bami. We created a multi-media animated comic with Poetic narration and beats. The student explored individuality, self expression, challenging society, and the challenges to the self esteem of young women.

Yako and I were in Australia and were posted up in the bunker studios with Sloth of Meta Bass and did some mad Hip Hop Dub tracks. We are starting to get in the lab and edit that record and an all beat box record. We are planning for a mess of new music to start making a web presence. It has been too long!!!!!!

Playback NYC, the improv theater company I co-founded got together with members of Hudson River Playback, and Big Apple Play to do an important show in Long Island. Big Shout out to Paul McIsaac who spearheaded this effort! “After Grief and Anger — Healing and Change,” the performance was an effort to promote better understanding between Latinos and non-Latinos in the area following the killing last November in Patchogue of Marcelo Lucero in a bias murder. click here for the story in the NY TImes.



That's my first update for 09 and look forward to adding more news, music, and videos. Peace and see you in the cypher.

baba