Bay Area Slang Top 100 (The Grinch song). From Rafael Casal — 100 Bay Area slang terms in under 3 minutes.
Originally from Oakland and Berkeley (
East Bay all day!), at age 18
slam-poet-turned-rapper Rafael Casal was the
youngest poet to appear on
Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO.
His videos range from more polished (both
simple, shot-in-a-studio and
with sets and actors) to
raw and
unedited. (He can also be found holding forth about
things you do not want to know about your girlfriend's ex and
the difficulties of dating via IM.)
While some common hip-hop tropes appear in his work (hustling, pimping, untimely violent death, sweet
Cali chronic, and
cars that go boom), he's also been getting
recognition for his
examination of
feminism and
misogyny. With fellow members of the
Getback Crew, he's continued to consider issues such as "the intersection of race, class, gender, etc. in times of national crisis and what happens when people are pushed to the edge" in
War Peace: The One Drop Rule. Directed by
Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the collaboratively-written and -performed play premiered in
San Francisco and recently had a special presentation in
New Orleans.
These days he's acting as
Creative Director of
First Wave at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the first university program in the country centered on spoken word and hip-hop culture, and, in his spare time,
remixing the University of Wisconsin fight song.
If you like what you hear, you can download his first and second albums and the Getback mixtape
here.
Holla!
posted by Lexica at 12:14 AM on May 15, 2010 [1 favorite]