Cal Gone Wild
Activism Right There. The closing night to a week of events at UC Berkeley celebrating the roots of Berkeley student activism took place last night.
Unfortunately for me, I arrived late and only caught the tail end of a panel discussion that included Jeff Chang and Bettina Abtheker. From what I was able to catch, I could tell that I missed an interesting interaction of multi-generational representatives from Berkeley’s activist alumni.
Spoken words were said. A middle aged white lawyer spoke about a redrafting of the International Declaration of Human Rights. Rappers and b-boys performed. Then dumbness ensued.
I have seen Amp Live, Zion MC, and Deuce Eclipse control the stage numerous times. Zion I has been a favorite act of mine to see live for quite some time, as they get hyper than a chondriac each time they perform. But to see the response in a large auditorium, as the Zellerbach, was insane to say the least. A mere six or so song set, filled with tracks from Deep Water Slang and True and Livin, was all it took for students/youth/Hip-Hop heads to generate enough energy to put PG&E out of business. And upon closing up a brief performance with the regional anthem “The Bay”, the stage was bum rushed in what was hyphy in its essence. Take a look at the photo above that barely captures what took place, as curtains came down in an attempt to prematurely end the celebration. Administration probably got scared shitless.
Now, this is the first on campus event/concert that I have attended at Cal, so I don’t know if this is how the campus always gets down at shows. Remember that I went to UC San Diego, a campus that throws concerts filled with elbow to elbow squarecrows, who wouldn’t how to have fun if boredom pointed a gun to their temple. I am not accustomed to such a crowd response on a college campus.
Berkeley, bravo.
Forgive me for the image above, the only medium I had to document the moment was the camera from my cell phone.
-Ninoy Brown
February 6th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
[...] Activism Right There 4 02 2008 The boys over at FOBBdeep already gave a pretty good account of how Cal tore it down at Activism Right There last week.Every performance was off the hook, and Zion I brought hyphy back in a huge way. But my favorite performance of the night came from some kids from Philly, a group called Ammo. Check it:Pardon the poor sound quality[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTrwfd06dCQ&rel=1″>And just in case you’re in the mood, check out the other performances:This video doesn’t even do it justice. The energy was unmatched by anything I’ve seen, and there had to have been about 200 people on stage by the end. [...]