DESCRIPTION:
Representing Education, Activism, Community through Hip Hop

This is a trailer of the Hip Hop organized protest R.E.A.C.Hip Hop organized against Hot 97 & Emmis Communications on March 4, 2005 at Union Square. Over 500 Hip Hop participants attended the rally and spoke out against Hot 97 and Emmis. Speakers and Performers included Rosa Clemente, M1 of Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, Grandmaster Caz, Omewale Adewale, Jazzy Jay, Koba Sounds, DJ Boo, Baba Israel, Councilman Charles Barron, Students from Vanguard High Schooland so many more.
video credit: Helen Park
music: koba sounds

=========================================
R.E.A.C.Hip-Hop (formerly known as the NYC Hip-Hop Coalition) is a diverse coalition of artists, activists, hip-hop historians and writers, educators, students, and parents within, and in alliance with, the greater hip-hop community. Our initial call to action was in late January 2005, when commercially owned Hot 97 aired its now infamous “Tsunami Song.” As other communities who were targeted by this incident began to speak out and organize against Hot 97, it became apparent that a crucial voice was missing in this public protest: the voice of the hip-hop community. Thus, with the help of a few hip-hop heads, artists, and community organizers, the Hip-Hop Coalition was born.

Since the birth of our coalition, we have been actively targeting Hot 97 for numerous offenses to the communities they claim to serve. Though we came together in response to the “Tsunami Song,” it is understood that our fight against corporate media includes much more than that. It is a fight to reclaim hip-hop culture from corporate media’s co-optation, unbalanced representation, and exploitation of hip-hop, as well as to support and create the balance that is so direly needed on our airwaves and other public media. We assert that our efforts are to not only demand ethical corporate accountability, but also to protect, preserve, and regenerate the great legacy of hip-hop culture by Representing Education, Activism and Community through Hip-hop.

The Hip Hop Coalition is dedicated to encouraging and creating fair and equal representation of the diversity of Hip Hop Culture, including, but not limited to; race/ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. We are a pro-active body made up of activists, artists, teachers, performers, organizers, and individuals all dedicated to positive change within our communities. We believe Hip Hop’s true legacy belongs to the people, and we strive to utilize Hip Hop as a vehicle of social and political justice to promote education, information, and empowerment for the masses, while preventing the dissemination of negative stereotypes, discrimination, and violence.