Friday, April 20, 9:00-11:00pm: Hip-hop show featuring Rebel Diaz plus A.D. Carson and Basement Poetry
Fowler Blast Furnace Room at Steel Stacks
101 Founders Way, Bethlehem, Pa.
Rebel Diaz
Fronted by MC’s Rodstarz, and MC/Producer G1, Rebel Diaz shows us the true global power of Hip-Hop. After first performing at an immigrant rights march in New York City in 2006 in front of a half million people, the bilingual crew has taken the international community by storm with their explosive live shows. With influences ranging from Chicago house to South American folk, Rebel Diaz combines classic boom bap tradition with Hip-Hop’s global impact. The group’s versatility has allowed for them to share the stage with the likes of Common, Mos Def, and Public Enemy, while feeling right at home with acts like Rage Against the Machine and Calle 13. Multiple tours throughout Europe and Latin America have only solidified their international appeal.
With roots in Chicago and now based in the South Bronx, NY, Rebel Diaz has also piqued the interest of the academic community with their poignant social commentary and energetic performances. They have spent the last 7 years visiting dozens of colleges and universities, facilitating workshops, speaking on panels, and performing at national conferences. Building on this growing network of positive young people in Hip Hop, the group opened a community arts center in the South Bronx in 2008, the Rebel Diaz Arts Collective.
On the heels of their critically acclaimed Otro Guerrillero mixtape series, and 2011’s #Occupy The Airwaves mixtape, Rebel Diaz will soon be releasing their debut album, The Radical Dilemma.
Follow Rebel Diaz on Twitter: @RebelDiaz
A.D. Carson
A.D. Carson is a performance artist and educator from Decatur, Illinois. He received a Ph.D. in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design at Clemson University doing work that focuses on race, literature, history, and rhetorical performances. A 2016 recipient of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Excellence in Service at Clemson, Carson worked with students, staff, faculty, and community members to raise awareness of historic, entrenched racism at the university through his See the Stripes campaign, which takes its name from his 2014 poem. His dissertation, “Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions,” is a digital archive that features a 34 track rap album and was recognized by the Graduate Student Government as the 2017 Outstanding Dissertation.
Carson is an award-winning artist with essays, music, and poetry published at a variety of diverse venues such as The Guardian, Quiddity International Literary Journal and Public-Radio Program, and Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory, among others. His essay “Trimalchio from Chicago: Flashing Lights and the Great Kanye in West Egg” appears in The Cultural Impact of Kanye West (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), and “Oedipus—Not So Complex: A Blueprint for Literary Education” is in Jay-Z: Essays on Hip Hop’s Philosopher King (McFarland & Co., 2011). Carson has written a novel, COLD, which hybridizes poetry, rap lyrics, and prose, and The City: [un]poems, thoughts, rhymes & miscellany, a collection of poems, short stories, and essays.
Carson is currently assistant professor in Hip-Hop and the Global South at the University of Virginia.
Follow A.D. Carson on Twitter/IG @aydeethegreat.
Basement Poetry
Basement Poetry is a local performing arts group that focuses on giving voices to marginalized groups and
space to learn how to grow and heal from one another. Founded by a group women who felt the need to
create and develop productions to share their powerful stories, Basement Poetry hopes this will inspire others
to do the same.
Performers:
Chloe Cole-Wilson, Kristina Hayes, Zinnia Santiago, Deirdre Van Walters
Follow Basement Poetry on Twitter @basementpoems