[media-credit name=”Juan Casteneda, Staff” align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]Carlos Cervantes and Joe Grant are hip and have things hopping. Hip-hop enthusiasts since childhood, Cervantes and Grant, aka “Grizzo Flowz” and “Swift Skillz,” founded Hip-Hop Nation out of love for the culture.
Cervantes babbles with excitement describing the new campus club.
“Hip-hop is my life, it was what I was born into,” he said. “It influences 95 percent of my decisions. It helps guide me as a person.”
The talented duo said they hope to motivate students to express themselves through the four elements of hip-hop: emceeing, DJing, break dancing and graffiti writing. They also plan on holding spoken word events.
“Hip-hop expresses reality, who we really are,” said Grant. “We want to bring some of the aspects of hip-hop that people might not have been exposed to or maybe they haven’t had enough exposure to and to shed that light more.”
Hip-Hop Nation held its inaugural event, “History of Hip-Hop,” in the cafeteria patio during college hour to showcase the foundation of the form.
“Music from the birth of hip-hop to the Golden Era,” said Grant. “That’s really what it is, how hip-hop started to how it grew.”
Brandon Luna, Mexican-American Studies instructor, manned the turntables to play music from legendary rap groups as A Tribe Called Quest and Wu-Tang Clan, as well as late, great hip-hop pioneers Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.
As a head-bobbing, hip-hopping audience grew, Luna switched the vinyl and began to play a variety of instrumentals, inspiring a freestyle session. Participants rapped a verse for one minute to the beats that were being played.
“I was having fun, seeing everybody there, everybody happy,” said Cervantes. “I got hyped. I was loving it. I was so enthused and happy with seeing how many emcees wanted to be up there.”
Hip-Hop Nation hosted a second event at the SWC amphitheater where students performed Spoken Word, an art derived from the Beat Poetry Movement. Revolutionary poets of the 1950s known as Beatniks created a new form of poetry that is presented verbally with rhythm and emotion.
“Spoken word is more in depth,” said 20-year-old art student Brandon Negrete. “It gives you a chance to dwell deeply into issues that you wish to express.”
Music producer and DJ Jamal Myxz set the mood for the performance by mellow instrumentals and Grant opened the floor for anyone to present their poetry.
“It was a real positive moment,” said Tommy Edwards, 22-year-old business major. “People are able to express themselves the way they want to.”
That works for Cervantes.
“I want to see the excitement in people,” he said. “I want to see people happy. I was thinking, if you want to make a difference, you got to say the right kind of things to people, why not through music then? And that’s when it clicked.”
After a year of trying to get the club organized, the pair agreed to make the long-anticipated project a priority.
“We’ve been working on it for three, four semesters maybe,” said Hip-Hop Nation member Alan Whitfield, a 19-year-old culinary arts student. “We finally got the okay.”
Grant and Cervantes promised much more to come.
“Now that we got it rolling,” said Cervantes, “we’re not gonna stop.”