The view from the Bodega Booth

It has rained the most I have ever seen in the month of June; actually it has felt like April. Rain can be discouraging, especially in June, the beginning of summer where the sun should be sending consistent rays down your back. So in the days leading up to the 5th annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival we all hoped the rain contingency plan would not be needed. Maybe just for us the rain would stop and we’d have a gloriously sunny day in DUMBO (Empire Fulton Ferry State Park soon to be Brooklyn Bridge Park). This was certainly not the case on June 20, 2009. The rain did not discriminate on our day as it continuously poured, forcing ponchos made out of garbage bags, and arms occupied with an umbrella at a constant ninety degree angle. Despite the anything but ideal weather, the park was filled with thousands of people enthusiastic and hopeful to experience true Hip-Hop. I managed to stay fairly dry as I worked at the Bodega Booth. In fact, I was able to see and hear all the festival-goers as they walked in from Main Street. This excitement grew exponentially as I watched the crowd turn from a few hundred to a few thousand within an amount of hours. Still, it poured no matter how many people arrived. There were groups of young teenage kids, adults, families, partners, best friends, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons and everything in between. What was most impressive was the amount of women young and old, from all different nationalities that attended the Hip Hop Festival. The truth is Hip-Hop events usually do not appeal to a large swath of women because of the far too present misogynistic and sexist lyrical content. The Festival on the other hand attracts a large number of women, which makes it an anomaly in Hip Hop. This is a theme of the Festival—exceeding what is expected of Hip Hop and dispelling myths and preconceptions mostly created by Hip-Hop itself. I probably spoke to hundreds of people that day so all the conversations I had blur together. In retrospect we should have recorded it a la StoryCorps. These specific experiences reinforced my faith in Hip Hop. When three energetic teenage boys approached the Bodega Booth, interested in buying t-shirts, rife with fidgety movements and awkward smiles, I noticed that their speech carried a heavy accent. After some conversation I found out that they were not only from Australia, but also came to New York specifically to attend the 5th annual Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival. Shocked at the distance they traveled, I sold each of them a t-shirt. We did not have a smaller size for one of the young men, and he replied, “This t-shirt will go up on my wall anyway, so the size does not matter.” The Festival has managed to make its stamp on the wall of a teenage boy’s on the other side of the world. To these kids Brooklyn is a mythical place. It was as if these boys had made their journey to Mecca to see and feel the essence of the culture they love so much. For those unaware The Festival is split into two parts, Family Day and the Main Day. Family Day focuses squarely on the educational and community building aspects of Hip Hop. During Family Day a middle aged white woman (a demographic that is not normally present at Hip Hop concerts) vibrantly walked up to the Bodega Booth. She told me she was a middle school teacher and explained that she was “more of a Rock and Roll kind of girl” but attended the festival to stun her students. She knew that her students listened to Hip Hop so she came out to not only rile them but also understand them better. When I was able to sneak into the tent to catch a few performances I noticed a mother holding her daughters hand, helping her dance to Dead Prez. Dead Prez serve as extremely important political educators, and their music should absolutely function as a tool to connect parents with their children, over the important conversations of race and politics. And then there are those relentless Hip Hop fans that will go above and beyond to support the art form. So when I saw a woman in a wheelchair enter in the Festival gates I knew what she would experience during the festival was worth trudging out of her house, in the rain. I overheard her telling a friend that she recently went through surgery, thus she could not walk for a few days. Her immobilization was only temporary; nevertheless she would not let it stop her from attending her 5th consecutive Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. The Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival captures the true essence of Hip Hop. The energy. The extraordinary conditions that birthed Hip Hop. The rebellious nature. The crazy idea of having all of this for $10 is Hip-Hop in and of itself. ----- Tamara is a Bodega contributor and BHF volunteer who when not manning the Bodega Booth was helping write press releases for BHF '09