Higher Learning: New Design High School uses its scenic rooftop to help save arts programs
By Gabrielle Wooden

New Design High School, located in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, is the school every kid wishes they went to. Imagine that way cool art school in the movie "Step Up," minus the posh reputation and the whole, you know, “ballet” thing...

Planet B-Boy: Headspinning to make your head spin
By James Woodard

Break dancing, once the hallmark of underground urban culture and thought to be a passing fad of the 80s, is alive and well. The spastic dance cousin of hip hop has exploded onto the world stage of pop culture, with rabid fans and b-boy crews coming from every corner of the globe...

Touring for the People: Kiwi raises awareness about politically-motivated killings in the Philippines
By Donna Tam

Kiwi just couldn’t stand by and do nothing when he learned about the kidnapping and killings of progressive Filipino Americans in the Philippines by the Filipino government. The San Francisco-based rapper, formerly of the group Native Guns, decided to use his music to express his frustrations...

Snoop's Survival: An interview with The Wire's Felicia Pearson
By Suemedha Sood, for Wiretapmag.org

Felicia Pearson weighed only three pounds when she was born. She was a crack baby with no parents. Her biological mother and father were both incarcerated at the time of her birth. Just by surviving, she defied all odds...

Character Development: Saul Williams gives life to Niggy Tardust
By Asiana Ponciano, Photos courtesy of Evan Cohen

"With Niggytardust, I’m looking at race and identity, which is a crucial time considering the political climate to have raised that in an album and say I believe race is a social construct that even to call myself black is reactionary..."

Youth Media Blog-a-Thon: L.A. Emcee Bambu Speaks on Violence
By Zoneil Maharaj, Photos by Kirstina Sangsahachart

This month’s Youth Media Blog-a-Thon topic is violence. Oh Dang! caught up with Bambu, a former gang member turned emcee and activist, to discuss violence in his community and in the media. He currently counsels at-risk youth in L.A. while providing the soundtrack to the revolution. After gaining acclaim with the now-defunct Filipino hip hop duo Native Guns, he refocused his energy on his solo career...

In My B-Boy Stance
By Craig Young

It reminded me of high school fights from a bygone era: A circle forms and rivals start jawing and gesturing at each other until one throws the first punch. Some of the b-boys could backup their taunts with dance moves. Others were all bark and got dismissed after the first round...

Delicious Drips: A Toy Story
By Oh Dang!, Photos by Craig Young

Lief Storer, founder of Delicious Drips, paints a 60-inch vinyl toy for his upcoming exhibit, Live or DIY. Storer coined the term "2.5-D" to...

The Duality of Dahlak Brathwaite
By Jamilah King

It might be easy to compare Dahlak to folks like Mos Def or Lupe Fiasco, but perhaps the most apt comparison would be to -- well, no one. Dahlak has a style all his own and his lyrics reflect the most honest parts of himself...

Born Into It: Young women struggle to break free from street life and incarceration
By Craig Young

Seventeen young women gather inside the Center for Young Women’s Development, a non-profit organization in San Francisco. Society has deemed these women unreachable, untreatable and unchangeable because of generational cycles of incarceration, gang and family violence...

In God We Trust: Chief Holyfire Strives to Bring Faith to the Masses
By Len Vinas, Photos by John Coyne

Chief Holyfire doesn’t want to be labeled a “Christian rapper.” He fears he'll be boxed into the religious music category, making it difficult to have a larger fan base, or make it into mainstream hip-hop consciousness.

Time To Get Ill
By Zoneil Maharaj

The Brooklyn duo Iller Than Theirs is not better than anyone, they’re just iller.

The Truth Is Here: Brother Ali Takes an Honest Approach to Hip Hop
By Zoneil Maharaj, Photos by Gretchen Robinette

Brother Ali is the new, unique voice in hip hop, an honest voice of revolt that doesn’t follow the contemporary standard of what hip hop should be. He’s known for showing an honesty that’s often neglected in the hip hop world of alter egos and fake thug personas.

Check Yourself: The Hip Hop Chess Federation Makes History with their First Annual Chess Kings Invitational
By Zoneil Maharaj, Photos by John Coyne

Hip hop’s dirty secret is out the bag…cats is nerds, yo! On Oct 13, the Hip Hop Chess Federation held the nerdiest event in hip hop history, and the coolest event in chess history: the First Annual Chess Kings Invitational. The event featured a panel discussion on hip hop, chess and martial arts, an eight-man celebrity chess tournament and a 16-student scholarship tournament with $10,000 divided between participants.

5 Questions With Nicacelly
By Summer Sewell, Photo by Nathan Weyland

Nicole Markoff, founder of Nicacelly, gained notoriety for her one of a kind handmade women's garments. In 2008, she'll launch her men's line. (Photo...

"The Smartest Black Rapper I Know": A conversation with Hip-Hop Presidential Nominee Murs
By James Monroe Adams IV, Photos by Gretchen Robinette

I am backstage fiddling with my photographer's camera. After four hours of asking, waiting and chain smoking, I will have Murs' attention for at least 30 minutes. He walks into the room, still dressed in his Citgo coveralls, introduces himself, and takes a seat...

Love For the Bay: Ivy Leegue’s Niko Villamor talks about his new singles and his Bay Area beginnings
By Troy Espera, Photos by Kyle Monk

Born in Berkeley and raised in San Francisco, Niko Villamor still claims the Bay with native pride despite living in Atlanta for the past decade. Representing one-fourth of Atlanta hip-hop collective Ivy Leegue, Villamor returns to his roots charged with a mission.

Dissecting the Incipient American Apocalypse: A conversation with El-P
By James Monroe Adams IV, Photos by Gretchen Robinette

El-P is seated in front of me. He is nursing a new tattoo. He is obviously wanting to be anywhere but here. However, I have his attention for 15 minutes, and what follows is what arose from our encounter...

A dream deferred?
By Zoneil Maharaj, Photos by Angelica Flores and Steve Wake

East Oakland Community High School, a school with a progressive perspective and radical approach to education, has had a tumultuous three-year history. This is their saga, broken into four parts...

Sisterz of the Underground
By Dylan Silver | Photos by Steven Simonetti

The Sisterz of the Underground, an all-female hip hop collective of b-girls, DJs, artists and designers, build a support network in a male-dominated culture.

Heroes in Razorblade City
By Zoneil Maharaj

It's not just kids who can learn something from the Lifesavas. The trio continues their mission as humble, positive, socially conscious artists whose creativity stretches wider than the collective overgrown egos of today's pop-rap stars. If you haven't already, start taking notes…

Cleaning blood, brains and bird shit: Somebody's gotta do it...
By Anna Elledge & Photos by James Monroe Adams IV

Dan Lombardi’s first week at Crime Scene Cleaners, Inc. involved removing 20 years and nearly 70 yards of pigeon guano from an abandoned theatre. The next week it was picking up the gray matter of a roofer who had slipped and died…

KEEP IT ALIVE: An Interview with Kero One
By Len Vinas & Photos by John Coyne

OH DANG! sits down with producer, rapper and deejay Kero One to talk about his musical career, influences and growing up in a Korean household

The Mystery of Chess-Hoppin'
By Zoneil Maharaj

In this battle, it doesn’t matter how fast you can freak a fader or how quick-witted your punchlines are, it comes down to patience, logic and precise decision-making. This is Hip Hop, Chess and Life Strategies – the world’s first hip hop chess tournament…

Boac: Still Banging Out the Classics
By Donna Tam & Photos by Constance Cavallas

BOAC’s a man that’s got spunk. He spews energy and he just can’t stop cheesing for the camera. As we talk, there’s a video camera...

Hip hop gets a symphonic mash-up
By Gary Moskowitz & Photos by Colleen Cummins

Musicians on turntables, saxophones, clarinets, congas, trombone, upright bass, electric bass, samplers, drums, keys, violins, viola and cello perform for audiences what the group’s MC calls “a mash-up of everything we can cram into hip hop.”

Destroying submission, one band at a time
By Gary Moskowitz & Photos by Nathan Weyland

Skerik has chops for days. He can play for hours, and thinks nothing of playing a gig until three in the morning. The tenor saxophone, in his hands, is strong, loud and powerful. It can also be soft and melodic, then spastic and distorted.

A Palestinian State of Mind
By Kimberly Castillo and Erika Estrada & Photos by Alan Fackler and Joanne Toth

Members of the General Union of Palestinian Students at San Francisco State University use hip hop to convey a message of Palestinian struggle.

Another Sound Mission
By Asiana Ponciano

Crown City Rockers go through their soundtrack as if it were a memorized dance. The perfect sound each group member is trying to strive for by undergoing a tedious sound check results in what the group feels propels their success – a rocking hip hop show...

Superhero to save Oakland...and mankind
By Gary Moskowitz

Orlando Harding did something nobody’s ever done before. The Bay Area native created a comic book superhero that fights evil in Oakland.

King Dork
By Gary Moskowitz, Photos by Nathan Weyland

Frank Portman aka "Doctor Frank," is the lead singer of the Mr. T Experience and has the band he played in for more that twenty years. A friend who had seen his band play as a kid and was a fan of the lyrics suggested Portman try writing a book. Suddenly things changed for Doctor Frank…

Sky's The Limit
By Summer Sewell

Skyler Clay was waiting for a breakthrough to catapult his clothing line, Kama 4k, to the level it deserved to be. He was building a solid rep in the clothing industry and creating a signature style. His days of being a talented servant were behind him, he thought. But he was wrong….

Revolutionary Rap
By Zoneil Maharaj

Immortal Technique encapsulates the same radical voice as the political pioneers of hip hop within his stout and stocky frame. Hip hop, as he says later, is not the end-all agenda for Immortal Technique. He aims to educate and inform listeners about the issues that mainstream media are afraid to address, and hopes his message gets to the public by any means.

Reinventing the Steel
By Zoneil Maharaj

The Native Guns are more than just another rap group in the oversaturated genre of hip hop – they’re radical activists with the hammer cocked, taking aim at the struggles facing today’s youth by utilizing their past experiences to promote social change.

Shootin' the shit with P.O.S.
By Sam Devine

P.O.S stands for several things, among them Piece of Shit, Promise of Stress, and Pissed Off Stef. But if you really wanna know what and who P.O.S. is, you better click here!

Civil Service: An interview with the Typical Cats
By Zoneil Maharaj

Don’t let the name fool you, the Typical Cats are anything but typical…

Bunnies and skulls and skateboards, oh my! A Q&A with Jeremy Fish
By Zoneil Maharaj

An interview with artist Jeremy Fish discussing his artwork and his recent collabo with Aesop Rock.

Higher Learning: New Design High School uses its scenic rooftop to help save arts programs

Planet B-Boy: Headspinning to make your head spin

Touring for the People: Kiwi raises awareness about politically-motivated killings in the Philippines

Snoop's Survival: An interview with The Wire's Felicia Pearson

Character Development: Saul Williams gives life to Niggy Tardust

Youth Media Blog-a-Thon: L.A. Emcee Bambu Speaks on Violence

In My B-Boy Stance

Delicious Drips: A Toy Story

The Duality of Dahlak Brathwaite

Born Into It: Young women struggle to break free from street life and incarceration