"I Was There!" Hamilton Edition digital catalogue by Northside Hip Hop Archive

The Northside Hip Hop Archive is a digital collection of Canadian hip hop history and culture. Northside Hip Hop showcases a diversity of items from Canadian hip hop history, such as the first vinyl recordings, art, performances and literature from across the country. We are a ‘living archive’, capturing and documenting Canadian hip hop culture, past and present. Northsidehiphop.ca does not and cannot capture everything, rather, what we try to do is to begin the ongoing process of documenting our histories. ISBN: 978-0-9958248-0-5 Credits: Northside Hip Hop Archive, Toronto, 2017 Partners: Canadian Heritage, Canada Council for the Arts, The FCAD Forum at Ryerson University, The IMP Labs at the University of Regina, IPLAI at McGill University, Ontario Arts Council and The Cultural Studies Department at Queen’s University Featured Architect: Leon ‘Eklipz’ Robinson, Hamilton, ON

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Table of Contents Statement 04 Curatorial Mark V. Campbell

06 Introduction: “Eklipz Worlds in Rotation” Pamela Edmonds

10 “Enjoy Responsibly:

Reinventing Humanness Creatively” Mark V. Campbell

17 “The World is Yours:

world-making through the art of Eklipz” Ellyn Walker

‘Em Down” 32 “Shut Ylook (Salman Rana) Night, Last Night” 40 “First Theo 3

42 I Was There:

Hamilton exhibition documentation

49 Biographies 50 Acknowledgements & “Dear Steel City” Leon ‘Eklipz’ Robinson

Hamilton exhibit Photos: Leilah Dhore | Graphic Design: Hotcomb Design I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 3

Curatorial Statement By Mark V. Campbell

I Was There! Steel City is a solo art exhibition which showcases more than 20 years of artistic work by multidisciplinary artist Eklipz. Mixing both visual art and archival materials, the body of work Eklipz shares with us intimately details the creation of community, the making of a sense of belonging to the city and a public discourse that values lives of racialized peoples. In many of his original pieces, like Coltan Kills (2015) one can feel an embedded social critique nurtured by hip hop pulsate throughout the work. The heightened consciousness hip hop culture could produce in the late 1980s oozes beautifully out of many pieces in Eklipz’s oeuvre. Involving a range of works including illustration, paintings and mixed media works, “I Was There! Steel City illuminates the intimate relationship of hip hop culture to the city. Half of the exhibition physically rests on exposed brick wall in this non-gallery space. Shut ‘Em Down (2016), Coltan Kills (2015), Slipped Me a Mickey (2015) and Minnie Makeover (2016) make this rugged backdrop their home, suggesting a social critique outside of institutional walls. The messages embedded in these works are not necessarily welcome inside of profit-driven enterprises that do not see marketing to children, coltan extraction nor the pimping of inner city communities as problematic. The exposed brick wall reminds us what is possible and necessary from, and in the streets. If Shut ‘Em Down, radiates multiple colours through transparent (manufactured obsolete) cassettes as if to signal a public welcoming of customers or patrons, one can imagine public consciousness raising en masses after hearing Chuck D spit “I like Nike but wait a minute, the neighbourhoods are poor so put some money in em.” Juxtaposed to this gritty exposed brick, are nicely illuminated, white drywall, imitating a traditional gallery feel. Here one can find autographed portraits of hip hop luminaries Jeru the Damaja, KRS-One and a headshot of Del the Funky Homosapien, all acrylic on canvas. Also situated near the beginning of the exhibition are vinyl recordings that have been massively influential in the Hamilton hip hop scene. Each window and windowsill in the exhibition bring the outdoors inside with an array of archival event posters plastered to the windows as if outdoor postering threatens to enter the neatly arranged order of the gallery. These reproductions of event posters dating back to 1985 visually honour the people and venues that innocently started hip hop in Hamilton. These posters also capture the names of major acts like Xzibit and Public Enemy that have performed in Steel City throughout the years. Miniature replica trains already bombed by Eklipz rest on windowsills, reminding us of this artist’s beginning and of the essential element of bombing— a central tool in hip hop’s continual and generative disruption of the public sphere. I Was There! Steel City advances the city of Hamilton’s vision for ‘Culture’, so that there can be “collective ownership” of the city’s hip hop history and “steadfast integrity” by including racialized and marginalized cultural production in its official narrative. Such bold connections to this federally funded art exhibition (thank you Department of Canadian Heritage!) can lead to ‘courageous change’ on the ground municipally and allow for the city of Hamilton to deliver on its strategic vision for ‘Culture’.

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I Was There: Hamilton Edition

The Art Of Eklipz Leon ‘Eklipz’ Robinson, Dr Disc Hamilton, 1996. Photographer: Milton Lowe Split Image Photography. Photo courtesy of Eklipz.

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Introduction:

Eklipz

Worlds in Rotation By Pamela Edmonds

n Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay - How Art Reprograms the World (2002) French critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud suggests that: “The artistic question is no longer: ‘what can we make that is new?’ but ‘how can we make do with what we have?’” He identifies the DJ, web surfer and postproduction artist as “semionauts” who “produce original pathways through signs”; who imagine “the links, the likely relations between disparate sites.” (19). Bourriaud also coined the hotly contested term “Altermodern” whose manifesto for Tate Britain’s 2009 Triennial described an art that arrived at the end of the postmodern period. Made within a global context as a reaction against cultural standardism and commercialism, this work, Bourriaud claims, has its roots in a cross-culturalism based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing. This is an art that emphasizes what late Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant defined as “creolisation” and which reflects an experience of wandering - in time, space and mediums - transcoding information from one format to another, creating an “All- World” perspective that performs a unity of liberating diversity. The dynamic interdisciplinary mash-up artwork of Hamilton-based artist, Leon “Eklipz” Robinson, represents this ideological spirit through his aesthetic practice of selecting cultural objects and inserting them into new, re-fashioned contexts. This solo exhibition brings together and highlights the pioneering artist’s central position within the legacy of hip-hip geography in Canada’s Steel City, which has evolved from

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a traditionally blue collar town to a vibrant, booming cultural hub. The North Side Hip Hop Archive “I Was There!” Project brings into focus many of the primary players like Eklipz, in the country’s overall hip-hop canon, offering a needed critique that exposes, promotes and preserves Canada’s real histories of the all-encompassing lifestyle and popular cultural genre. Like respected African Griots – historians, story-tellers and wisdom keepers of tribal history, Eklipz has respectfully compiled a significant archive of materials and ephemera from his own productive practice, from his position as an emcee, activist, filmmaker, break-dancer, rapper, entrepreneur and street artist/painter of graffiti-styled portraits which pay homage to early hip-hop icons and cultural figures, including Maestro Fresh Wes and Muhammad Ali. His is a practice that works against the co-opting and mass commercialization of hip-hop and rap culture which has effectively decontextualized the messages of freedom and protest which the culture emerged from, and the social realities of race and class discrimination that it still continues to battle. Eklipz, like the semionaut, fashions a world built on a repertoire of local and global contexts. This universe reflects counter-cultural moments, pulling on fluid identities, cultural references and diverse connotations of assertive blackness, like his name implies, into which all colour dissolves into. Eklipz’s act of re-using, re-envisioning and refusing invisibility challenges a passive culture, while actively creating new ways to see and understand Canada’s role in hip-hop’s universal program. Looking back is critical to moving forward for post-production artists, who by sharing and inserting their own vision with that of others, eradicate the traditional distinctions between production and consumption, creation and copy, readymade and original. Works Cited Nicolas Bourriaud, Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World, (New York: Lukas & Sternberg), 2005. Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation. Translated by Betsy Wing, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), 1997. The Teacha (Autographed by Krsone) 2006. Photo courtesy of Eklipz I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 7

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- Mark V. Campbell, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Politics of Making Home: Opening Up the Work of Richa

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essive texts, hip hop s hyperlocal sensitivities resent one’s locality.

Work of Richard Iton in Canadian Hip Hop,” Souls, vol. 16, no. 3-4, Oct. 2014: 270.

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“Enjoy Responsibly:

Reinventing Humanness Creatively” By Mark V. Campbell

he pleasure derived from the ocular centric Western culture is a celebrated sensation used to fuel an artworld enamoured by its industry affiliations and afflictions. The visual codes that make Western culture dominant at this moment, also make abject specific colours of skin. Interrupting the logic of the ocular are the numerous multifaceted and multidisciplinary engagements, the oral, sonic, and kinesthetic ways the visual gets displaced by Afrodiasporic arts and artists. Hip Hop is central to how a human made to labour divests of the singular perspective of the visual in uniquely layered and complex ways. The body of work assembled by Eklipz over the course of two decades is a multisensory affair, anchored, yet not overdetermined by his prowess in the visual realm. His yet to be titled series, still in process, is a range of bright and shiny, lush collages derived from well-known cartoons and commerical brands.. In Da Cast-e System (2016) the viewer finds animated characters like Sponge Bob, The Great Gazoo and Daffy Duck interspersed with the logos for Crush soft drink and the FedEx purple and orange brandmarks. Similarly, the diamond dust encrusted works of The Minnie Make-over (2016) and Slipped Me a Mickey (2016) capture the smiling faces of Disney’s popular characters. Mickey’s head, against a backdrop of sunset orange, is crowned by his famous ears, now cleverly adorned with a plethora of logos from Starbucks to Nestle. Eklipz here is clearly extending a Warholian pop-like sensibility, but with a focused nuance on young children and the hyperstimuli of a consciously over consumptive society. Disney’s monopoly on the mindshare of young children is not a new concern, yet Eklipz cleverly packages these concerns within the shiny and deceptive modes 10 | I Was There: Hamilton Edition

utilized by brand obsessed corporations. The range of vibrant colours Eklipz chooses are punchy and alluring, and his collaging oozes hyperactivity with almost a digital sensibility, a clearly distracting effort. Minnie’s Make-over, like her partner Mickey, involves a diamond dust foundation and blush. Yet, in contrast to Mickey her adornment of logos are highly gender specific. Logos of the Body Shop, Revlon Continued on page 12

Da Cast-e System, 2016. Photo courtesy of Eklipz.

The Minnie Make-over, 2016. Photo courtesy of Eklipz. I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 11

Slipped me a Mickey, 2015. Photo courtesy of Eklipz. 12 | I Was There: Hamilton Edition

Eklipz & Queen with Erykah Badu, 2001 Continued from page 9

and DKNY gesture towards not just with gender specific marketing codes, and like her pink backdrop, but also how crucial the woman’s body is to the ways in which humans are made into consumers at very young ages. Minnie’s innocence, the key term Disney exploits, is undone by her intimate connections to the exploitation of women by gender specific branding and marketing. In Minnie Mouse’s makeover, at the hands of Eklipz, incorporates the logos of fashion brands such Elle, Calvin Klein and Victoria Secret which reveal and remind viewers how the line between vulnerable girl and consumptive women are too often blurred by profit seeking marketing schemes. By riffing a slogan from Ontario’s provincial liquor crown corporation the LCBO, to title this article, draws attention to how Eklipz’s visual artwork operates as a lubricant for truth. Unlike the liquid courage sold by our government, Eklipz’s art does not numb the senses nor dull our consciousness. Instead, by deeply embedding itself within a social criticism, the work heightens our awareness and represents the potential of hip hop culture to the fullest. The didacticism rooted in hip hop’s knowledge of self oozes out of each of Eklipz’s pieces, reminding

us how to be agents instead of consumers. In fact, these works force viewers into an array of critical responses, urging our ocular indulgences to do more than produce pleasure. When Powell (2008) reminds us that “hip hop influenced the rest of the world to see itself through the prism of blackness”, what becomes clear is that the act of looking is simply not enough for the various significations of hip hop artists. Hip Hop culture, in its multidisciplinary creative modes, allow us to avoid the perils of being solely seduced by the visual. The beatbox, the transformer scratch, the windmills, they are intimate reminders that we cannot live nor be contained solely through the visual. As Black Canadian scholar Katherine McKittrick reminds us, “creative acts and cultural production are life giving, meaningful and humanizing (2015).” Eklipz’s multisensory and multidisciplinary creative acts then “reinvent humanness creatively (Ibid.p. 27).” Works Cited Powell, R. J. (2008). Cutting a figure: Fashioning black portraiture. University of Chicago Press. McKittrick, K. (2015). Skin/Deep/Rebellion. Keynote Lecture at Skin Deep:(Re) Imaging the Portrait, Nia Centre for the Arts, Toronto. I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 13

“

Both entangled, and wilfull the work of Eklipz provides us to view and open up the streams difference is threat and homogen is a stream of consciousnes ‘other/ed’ perspectives ba

- Mark V. Campbell, “Everything’s C A Praxis,” The CRL James Journa

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lfully immersed in modernity, s us with an unique vantage point ams of a constructed reality where ogeneity natural. His vantage point sness that opens up multiple es based in the creative arts.

erythingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Connected: A Relationality Remix, mes Journal, vol. 20, no. 1/2, fall 2014: 99.

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Michael Jordan airbrushed T-shirt, 1993. Photo courtesy of Eklipz. 16 | I Was There: Hamilton Edition

Jordan views, 2014. Photos courtesy of Eklipz.

The World is Yours:

world-making through the art of Eklipz By Ellyn Walker

Whose world is this? [1]

he simple question that begins the song “The World Is Yours” from Nas’s 1994 debut album Illmatic remains a relevant point of social (and self) inquiry today as much as when it was first released. While certain strides have been made since then, the world (still) remains a hostile place in which to live, where “some bodies [continue to be] understood as the rightful occupants of certain spaces” [2] over others. Hip hop as a multifaceted creative practice and living culture speaks back to the political structures that create and sustain these kinds of uninviting spatialities, re-creating alternative ways of being in the world that are generative, resilient and ‘world-making.’ Hip hop doesn’t follow a path. Instead, it makes the way. It is a process of way-making; and a practice of world-making. As such, I use the concept of ‘world-making’ throughout this essay to explore how the art of Eklipz forges new paths and creates new worlds for others. Continued on page 18

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While both historically and culturally-informed, hip hop “emerged out of the poverty-stricken Black and Brown communities of New York City; [and] has now reached the four corners of the world, creating an anthem for the oppressed,” [3] explains hip hop scholar Kyle T. Mays. It is “an expression of community and self” [4] and, in that sense, is both transformational and unbounded. In his book Total Chaos: The Art & Aesthetics of Hip Hop, scholar Jeff Chang describes, “hip hop artists share a desire to break down boundaries between so-called high and low, to bring the street into the art space and the art space into the street, [and] to make urgent, truth-telling work that reflects the lives, loves, histories, hopes and fears of their generation.”[5] Their work combines the personal and the political [6] in ways that remix sites of intertextuality and reimagine spaces of coexistence. In doing so, hip hop’s unique ‘remix aesthetic’ [7] mobilizes different creative vocabularies and fosters a diverse community of voices and multiplicity of experiences that can move us towards new ways of living, together. As a unique visual art form and culturally performative medium, hip hop tells stories and visualizes new relationships between creative practices, texts, histories, and people. Because of this intertextuality and intergenerationality, hip hop’s reality of co-creation marks it as a unique space of co-existence. I take this gesture seriously in our current age of ‘Reconciliation,’ [8] where living together across shared notions and specific histories of ‘difference’ remains of real concern.

Michie Mee, 2009. Photo courtesy of Eklipz. 18 | I Was There: Hamilton Edition

The multidisciplinary work of Leon ‘Eklipz’ Robinson demonstrates that in order to make a world anew, one must make a world for you - a world in which one’s gifts help to represent, define and build new worlds for others. Born in Toronto’s Jane and Finch community before permanently relocating to Hamilton, Ontario, at the age of six, Eklipz’s extensive background in visual arts, fashion, music, radio, community organizing, community-building and entrepreneurship demonstrates the breadth of his creative talents and commitment to hip hop as a diverse world-making practice.

Eklipz’s widespread creative practice offers many opportunities to consider hip hop’s dynamism. Eklipz’s body of work exemplifies, since his early teens, his adept skills in realism. His artworks include paintings, drawings, mixed-media, collage, sculpture and installation, often involving direct pop cultural references and visual language. This recognizable subject matter is not insignificant, as the references we make (in particular, pop culture ones) “force us to grapple with what it means to want the things we want,” [9] explains crunk feminist scholar Brittney C. Cooper. While many artworks appear as if shiny or glittering images (see Minnie Mouse image on page 12), Eklipz’s subjects are ripe with deeper meaning, which include critiques of Monsanto, Western consumerism, racism and police brutality. His series of paintings in response to the Trayvon Martin murder, for instance, remind us that issues of anti-blackness in the US are not so dissimilar from ones in Canada. [10] One of the works features a larger-than-life portrait of a young black boy smiling - caught (in more ways than one) in his moment of youth. His hair is filled in with original poems written by Eklipz, who is also a father to five. The fact that the portrait shows the boy smiling so sincerely (he is shown still missing teeth) in contrast to more hostile poetry like “U CAN KEEP YOUR LIES” creates a visual dialogue between dominant and alternative narratives, such as constructed by Western media versus the actual realities of black life. When I had the privilege of visiting Eklipz’s home studio in the fall of 2016, I was overwhelmed with the sheer volume of works he has amassed amid working on so many other projects. One series, in particular, entitled Hip Hop Homage, features portraits of well-known hip hop artists from across Canada and the US. Included in the series and its public catalogue [11] are portraits of Toronto-based artists Michie Mee and Maestro Fresh Wes – two local ‘pioneers’ who make visible important Canadian black histories that are so often overlooked within both visual culture and mainstream hip hop. While aesthetically, their images function as artistic portraits, they also double as cultural artifacts – documenting and

Continued on page 20

Maestro Fresh Wes, 2009. Photo courtesy of Eklipz. I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 19

Continued from page 20

honouring local hip hop ‘architects’ – an especially important one for me, a woman emcee. Furthermore, the fact that this particular catalogue of works, which includes 50 portraits made over the span of 2 years, is produced for the mass public rather than as rare art objects reflects Eklipz’s belief that art is something for the public, not the elite few. In her writing on institutional inclusion, critical race scholar Sara Ahmed explains, “documents are not simply objects; they are a means of doing or not doing something” [12]. In this way, Eklipz’s portraits (indeed, his whole studio) forms an indispensable archive of Canadian art, black and hip hop cultural histories, reminding us of the fact that ‘official’ histories are not always accurate or inclusive ones. Likewise, ‘high’ or ‘fine’ art, as understood within the (still) conservative discipline of art history, greatly limits the creative practices of artists as well as ignores deeper structural issues within art institutions at large. Outside of these cultural categories falls graffiti, an important element of hip hop visual culture that has been largely ignored by the mainstream art world outside of particular flashpoints. [13] Identified as one of hip hop’s four key tenets – alongside b-boying/b-girling, Djing and MCing [14] - graffiti reclaims and reframes public space and, in doing so, gestures towards larger questions of authority, ownership and sovereignty. “Having grown up scribing the city streets in the early 90’s,” [15] Eklipz’s art still adorns many of the buildings throughout Hamilton ranging from tags and throw-ups to vibrant and alluring murals. As a coming-of-age artist, Eklipz became proficient not only in graffiti writing and mural design, but also at identifying people’s tags and artworks, in a way akin to an art historian. With this coupled knowledge, amid growing relations in the city (both officiously, and otherwise), Eklipz along with David Williams organized Ontario’s first graffiti festival called Concrete Canvas, held on September 1-3, 1995. [16] The festival took place on the roof of Jackson Square in downtown Hamilton and continued thereafter for seven years, and included such notable artists as Brybe, Tasc, Zion, and Spec (all Hamilton); Mediah, Scam, Elicser, Egr, and Love (Toronto); and Water, and Thesis (London); to name a few. As a performer since his teens, Eklipz is well versed with the pen, writing and performing with Toronto-based hip hop collective Crown 20 | I Was There: Hamilton Edition

Eklipz at Crafty Grooves, 1996.

A’ Thornz – composed of Eklipz, DTS, J Wyze and Kolor Brown. Hip hop scholar Mark V. Campbell describes Eklipz’s lyricism as dialogically engaged with “histories of Afrodiasporic orality” [17]. His lyrical ingenuity demonstrates the ways in which “different concepts become brothers, cousins and mothers to one another [through presenting] a wide-reaching social commentary that elucidates connections across a broad intertextual cross section of ideas embedded in double and triple entendres.” [18] To me, this genealogical reference is a powerful symbol, as the act of world-making is something we do for our children and, in turn, our children’s children.

[2] Sara Ahmed, On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life, Durham: Duke University Press, 2012: 2. [3] Kyle T. Mays, “Can We Live – And Be Modern?: Decolonization, Indigenous Modernity, and Hip Hop,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, March 12, 2015. Continued on page 24

Such interconnectedness was clearly part of Eklipz’s entrepreneurism with The Boom Spot, opening in 1996 in downtown Hamilton. The store sold Eklipz’s personal fashion brand Projex, as well as designs by Fubu, LRG and others. Open until 2008, The Boom Spot served loyal customers from the Hamilton and GTA areas, as well as from such faraway places as Edmonton, Alberta, and Buffalo, New York; becoming a key destination for hip hop artists visiting Steel City. It also hosted numerous events, including rap and graffiti battles, community benefits, amongst other types of gatherings. On every level it functioned as more than a store; it was a space of creative interdisciplinarity, merging genres and, in turn, audiences in different ‘remixed’ configurations, akin to a community hub. While the store is now closed, its legacy lives on – as today, one of Eklipz’s mentees, Mouse, runs his own shop in Hamilton called Parlez De Nous, of which Eklipz is a contributing designer. That’s the thing with ancestries, though - they rarely disperse and often come full-circle. They are generative; they are world-making. The art of Eklipz is manifold. Through graffiti writing Eklipz introduced himself to the world; through lyricism he connects to others; and through painting, drawing, photography and design work, he represents vast worlds of black creativity; and through his community organizing and facilitating, he builds new worlds for others. Eklipz’s world-making practice(s) centre intercultural knowledges and propose new possibilities for living together in the present, as well as in the future, teaching us that indeed the world is (y)ours.

[1] Nas, “The World is Yours,” Illmatic, New York: Columbia Records, 1994.

Eklipz at Crafty Grooves, 1996. I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 21

Projex Denim shoot, Eklipz & Mouse, 2003. Photographer: Milton Lowe Split Image Photography. Photo courtesy of Eklipz.

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Eklipz at Concrete Canvas, 2006. Photo courtesy of Eklipz.

Continued from page 21

h t t p s : / / d e c o l o n i z a t i o n . w o r d p r e ss . c o m / 2 0 1 5 / 0 3 / 1 2 / can-we-live-and-be-modern-decolonization-indigenous-modernity-and-hip-hop/ [4] ibid. [5] Jeff Chang, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip Hop, New York: BasicCivitas, 2006: xi. [6] This is an important concept discussed by critical feminist scholars such as Judith Butler, Sara Ahmed and bell hooks. [7] This has been written extensively about by hip hop scholars Jeff Chang, Mark V. Campbell, and the Crunk Feminist Collective. [8] I am referring here to the Canadian state’s recent investment in the project of ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ that aims to re-dress relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

[9] Brittney C. Cooper, “Clair Huztable is Dead,” in The Crunk Feminist Collection, Cooper, Susana M. Morris & Robin M. Boylorn (eds.), New York City: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2017: 239. [10] See the Black Lives Matter - TO website for a fuller analysis. [11] Leon Robinson, The Art of Eklipz, (self-published) 2010. [12] Ahmed, 85. [13] With the exception of graffiti’s brief rise in gallery culture in the early 1980s in New York and Los Angeles. [14] Chang 2006, x. [15] See artist bio at http://www.eklipzart.com/bio [16] Toronto’s 416 Graffiti Expo began shortly thereafter in 1995. [17] Mark V. Campbell, “Everything’s Connected: A Relationality Remix, A Praxis,” CRL James Journal, vol. 20, no. 1-2, fall 2014: 100. I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 23

Concrete Canvas festival, 2006 & 2006. Photos courtesy of Eklipz.

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Concrete Canvas festival, 2006 & 2006. Photos courtesy of Eklipz.

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Black Arm Brigade at Concrete Canvas, 2007. Photos courtesy of Eklipz.

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Black Arm Brigade at Concrete Canvas, 2007. Photos courtesy of Eklipz.

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“

If we situate the kinds of int Eklipz’s art within the context relational poetics powerfull co-authors of a moment of in - Mark V. Campbell, “Everything’s Connected: A Relationality Remix, A

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f interventions suggested by text of a remix culture, Eklipz’s rfully positions his works as of intense cultural evolution.

y Remix, A Praxis,” The CRL James Journal, vol. 20, no. 1/2, fall 2014: 110.

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Original Concrete Canvas advertisement, 1995. Photo courtesy of Eklipz. 30 | I Was There: Hamilton Edition

Cathedral High Talent show, 1991. Photographed: Paul Powell, Gary Williams, Mark Griffiths, Leon Robinson. Photo courtesy of Eklipz. I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 31

but line up, times up / This government needs a tune up - “You’re Going to Get Yours”, on Yo! Bum Rush The Show

My 98’s fly, I don’t drive no junk / No cop got a right to call me a punk / Take this ticket, go to hell and stick it / Put me on a kick

Shut ‘Em Down By Ylook (Salman Rana)

klipz’s ‘Public Enemy’ piece, entitled Shut ‘Em Down (2016), captures the arc of meaning that circulates through and throughout Hip Hop cultural productions, regardless of practice or element. For a Hip Hop head, privileged enough to be schooled by Public Enemy, the piece is a reminder of the lasting impression and pivotal role and place of Public Enemy within the living culture and its foundation. Public Enemy leads an acerbic response to a modernity and materialism that produced much of the structural violence experienced by

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communities of colour and the poor. Responding to the American condition, yet undeniably global, they filled with meaning and emotional resonance, a sonic and visual void left by popular culture. Who count the money in the neighborhood / But we spendin’ money to no end lookin’ for a friend / In a war to the core rippin’ up the poor in da stores / Till they get a brother kickin’ down doors / Then I figure I kick it bigger / Look ‘em dead in the eye / And they wince, defense is pressurized / They don’t want it to be another racial attack / In disguise,

Shut ‘Em Down, 2016. Photo courtesy of Eklipz

so give some money back / I like Nike but wait a minute / The neighborhood supports so put some money in it / Corporations owe / They gotta give up the dough / To da town / Or else we gotta shut ‘em down - “Shut’ em Down”, on Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Back The industrial cacophony of the Bomb Squad, Chuck D’s sermonistic cadence, the principled discipline of the S1W’s, Flava Flav’s parodying of the excesses of pop culture, and Professor Griff’s radical critique of the status quo and Terminator X’s stoicism, fashioned the early critical curriculum studied by young Hip Hop heads. Before philosophy 101, intro to political theory or law, Public Enemy, among others, held class in session, gifting us numerous examples of art and being.

Before the his-story books and the largely formal recognition of marginalized communities, we had reminders through sampling sounds of the place and space inhabited by the likes of Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, the Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad. We were given a space to not give a fuck about Elvis and John Wayne, and for a young South Asian Muslim kid growing up in a racially and ethnically homogenous town, PE’s radical black politics provided a template for an alternative way of negotiating my identity and community. The meaning of all of that / some media is the wack As you believe it’s true / It blows me through the roof Continued on page 34

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DTS and DJ Romeo at Gallery 918 for the The Mixtapes Exhibition, 2016 Continued from page 33

Suckers, liars, get me a shovel / Some writers I know are damn devils / For them I say, don’t believe the hype “Don’t Believe the Hype”, on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back Alternative facts are not just an instrument for Trump, Public Enemy warned us about alternative facts in the late 80’s and had us thinking critically by questioning the hype of authority, the news media and hollywood. They refused to let us forget things like political trauma and police violence. They archived the important stories for the collective Hip Hop memory, like the plight of black spring break students in Virginia Beach. They continue to give generations of heads the means with which to work it out, organize and fight the power. 34 | I Was There: Hamilton Edition

Public Enemy is an education in sonic, visual and textual radicalism, and most importantly, how to approach a politics of resistance through Hip Hop. From the individual in the cross-hairs of a target, Eklipz’s piece, figuratively and literally illuminates the power of Public Enemy and Hip Hop culture. Each transparent cassette, with the tape accurately measured for timing and aesthetic captures the effort, timing and discipline required for the practice and love of Hip Hop. Eklipz’s work doesn’t draw on nostalgia, it draws on the historical linkages between past and present for Hip Hop heads, for those of us who owe so much to this beautiful culture of being. Here’s a music servin’ you, so use it - “Brothers Gonna Work it Out”, on Fear of a Black Planet

Del Transcends (as pictured in the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio), 2014. Photo courtesy of Eklipz.

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“

The work of Eklipz can disqualified knowle culture, and as functio and community d histories of Afrod

- Mark V. Campbell, “The Politics of Making H Canadian Hip Hop,” Souls, vo

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can be understood as both wledge within western tional social commentary ty developer within rodiasporic orality.

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Original show advertisements, 1997 & 2006. Photos courtesy of Eklipz.

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Avatar Custom painted Converse Weapons, 2014. Photo courtesy of Eklipz.

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“First Night, Last Night” By Theo 3

‘S

teel Town’ is a fitting moniker for Hamilton, Ontario - a city full of resolve, strong community foundations and a rock solid music scene ranging from indie rock to underground Hip Hop. The grit can be felt in the delivery and lyrics, the pride felt in the subject matter and spirit. This is not a trend, or a fleeting sentiment. Hamilton is a city with character, and Leon Robinson aka Eklipz is the perfect embodiment of the artistic and altruistic fused into one soul and we met at a rap battle.

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That’s right - the ultimate platform for personal disses, face-to-face bravado and quick-witted skills. The proving ground where many of us Emcees embark(ed) on a trial by fire. One where the weak perish and the victorious get bragging rights, and a temporary buffer zone from the ever-emerging hoard of aspiring wordsmiths. As a respected artist from Toronto, I was called upon to host a hotly contested Hamilton battle with the legendary DJ Grouch and the number one rep for Hamilton Hip Hop, Emcee Eklipz.

It was an unbelievably packed venue with pulsating beats and anticipatory tension rippling throughout the crowd. Heads nodded to the pounding bass, factions separated as freestyle challengers took to the stage and all the while, myself and Eklipz marshalled the night to the best of our abilities. As round after exciting round narrowed the field to the final 4, the spot felt thick with emotion and energy. Something had to give. Two Emcees stepped up to the stage, trading sharp metaphors and rallying the boisterous steel town faithful. Then it happened. After a wild punchline that peaked the crowd’s reaction, a punch was thrown by one of the rappers and all hell broke loose. As myself and Eklipz pushed back the capacity crowd from the stage the size of a god damn thimble a glass beer bottle forcefully plunked off my hard

skull. Thank the Universe for solid genetics, it bounced off my head and inspired me to push the 300+ person audience even harder, just me and Eklipz, while simultaneously calming the crowd and keepin the jam moving. Undoubtedly, Eklipz’s generalship and community respect shone through as we managed to continue a historic night in Hamilton Hip Hop even after the cops literally opened the side wall of the club up (it was on a garage door-like track) and proceeded to scatter the fire code violating crowd. In a further testament to Hamilton’s rap passion, during the fray a rapper asked me if he could rock the open mic. I looked him dead in the eye and said, Sorry b, jam done. If I’m not mistaken the club actually shutdown shortly thereafter, further evidence of the epicness of that night. The same night I met Hamilton’s O.G. Eklipz, and gained a bredren for life. I Was There: Hamilton Edition | 41