Today, the first-ever U.S. We Day kicks off in Seattle with a remarkable lineup of speakers and performers, including Magic Johnson, Jennifer Hudson and Seattle Seahawks Head Coach, Pete Carroll, taking the stage to inspire 15,000 young people at the KeyArena at Seattle Center.
An initiative of international charity and educational partner Free The Children, We Day is the world’s largest youth empowerment event of its kind, created to ignite students’ passion to be active global citizens.
Month: March 2013
Seattle rapper Sax G drops romantic ‘Tu Me Manques’
New CDs released Tuesday, March 12, include Seattle rapper Sax G’s new, romantic “Tu Me Manques”; Eric Clapton’s “Old Sock”; David Bowie’s “The Next Day”; and Devendra Banhart’s “Mala.”
Sax G, ‘Tu Me Manques’ (Cloud Nice)
Seattle hip-hop music is enjoying a creative peak, and there are a few clear narratives running through it. Macklemore is the big one, a chaste, chart-topping success story. His flip side is rude dude with attitude Nacho Picasso. And then there are the spiritual seekers: Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction, OC Notes, Kingdom Crumbs. Add Sax G to that list. He has abandoned traditional rap on his debut album “Tu Me Manques,” which means “I miss you” in French, and decided to explore his newfound passion for producing.
The result is intimate synthesizer funk, a continuous, smoothed-out listening experience that feels like hip-hop but features rapping only intermittently. Sax G would rather cede the vocal spotlight to local singer Choklate and sing a little himself. It works in the context of the album. All the lyrics are about love, and the music sounds like gentle touching. From his previously released mixtape material, we know he can rap, and about lots of topics. Maybe we’ll get that next time. But what we have here is a statement of style and focused emotionalism.
Previously published at http://www.seattletimes.nwsource.com
DC courthouse holding 14th annual youth law fair
WASHINGTON (AP) — The D.C. Superior Court and the D.C. Bar are hosting an annual law fair for students.
Saturday’s event at the courthouse will include mock trials and tours of the courtrooms and holding cells.
Over 250 students and members of the community are expected to attend the event, which is in its 14th year. The theme of this year’s event is bullying, and the mock trials will be centered on the city’s Youth Bullying Prevention Act.
previously published at http://www.seattlepi.com
HARLEM SHAKE
The Harlem Shake is becoming more and more popular as time goes by. I’ve notice a-lot of students and large groups making their own Harlem Shake videos. I, myself have been apart of some as well. I honestly don’t understand the point of this dance but it is very fun to be in one of the videos. It seems to me that its getting so popular that even churches and parties are beginning to make the videos. So if your bored, and with some friends, find a camera, download the song, get some CRAZY outfits and make a video!
6 from Seattle area named to first National Youth Orchestra
Six young musicians from the Puget Sound area have been named to the first National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, according to an announcement from Carnegie Hall. The 120 NYO-USA musicians chosen from 42 states, all ages 16-19, will will travel to New York in late June for a two-week training residency on the campus of Purchase College, State University of New York, working with professional orchestral players. The orchestra will then embark on an international tour with stops in Washington, D.C., Moscow, St. Petersburg, and London. Valery Gergiev, renowned conductor of the Mariinsky Orchestra, will lead the NYO-USA in its first year, and violinist Joshua Bell will join the ensemble this summer as a soloist.
Chosen from Washington: Audrey Chen, cello, Redmond; William Langlie-Miletich, bass, and Joseph Lorang, violin, Seattle; Marianne Martinoli, violin, Monroe; Karl Ronneburg, percussion, Sammamish; and Sophia Stoyanovich, violin, Bainbridge Island.
Comicon welcomes West Seattle middle & high school cartoonists, authors from YMCA after-school programs
Professional cartoonist and popular teacher Greg Hatcher and his current and past students of the West Seattle YMCA after-school Partners With Youth Cartooning and Young Authors program ran a large booth at this year’s Emerald City Comicon March 1 to 3 at the Washington State Convention Center. This was Hatcher’s eleventh year chaperoning his artistic entourage.
Students represented Madison and Denny Middle Schools, West Seattle and Chief Sealth High Schools. Their cartoon book collaborations were on display and for sale, including their 2013 “Zombies!!” and 2012 “Draw In”. Also available was the bound 2013 “Potpourri, A Young Authors Anthology” by Chief Sealth students.
Joining them on the convention’s main floor were throngs of (other) comic book artists, collectors, enthusiasts, steampunkers, many in costume, including superheroes and sci-fi characters easily recognizable to the self-professed nerds among the more than 50,000 attendees. Upstairs, guest celebrities signed autographs, including the Dynamic Duo, those iconic ’60’s TV actors Burt Ward, who portrayed Robin the Boy Wonder, and Adam West, who was not only Batman, but also Lakeside High School’s most famous graduate, unless you include Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and former Washington Governor Booth Gardner.
“This is our big field trip for the year,” said Hatcher, a Burien resident who seemed to be herding well-behaved cats at times distracted from the excitement in the air, and though the aisles. “We are exhibiting for both the cartooning classes at Madison Middle School and West Seattle High School, and also the young authors program at Madison and Chief Sealth. This is part of the YMCA after-school activity program. We are fundraising here for all the after-school programs. These students are getting experience being professionals. If you talk to our booth neighbors they will tell you the kids are total pros.
“The after-school programs are a great thing for kids because cartoonists tend to not be joiners,” he said. “It can be a thing that they do by themselves and parents tend to think of it as their ‘cute hobby’ and not a real thing. But this is a real thing. It is worthy of respect. It is a profession.”
“I met Greg at Madison Middle School,” said Chief Sealth senior, Shane Feragen continuing with the young authors program. “At first I admit I wasn’t too sure about comic books, but when I saw the worlds that could be portrayed on those pages with the ink I just found it incredible and pretty soon I was collecting them left and right, Transformers, Godzilla, Green Lantern, and, I know some people cringe at this word, but ‘furry’ stories, with anthropomorphic characters.”
Feragen plans to go into the field of entomology or zoology.
Also a Chief Sealth senior from Madison, Carlos Moonguider (pronounced moon ‘GUILLA) clutched a “Bowshi sword” and “Mizza pendant”, expressions of the “Paman culture.”
He explained, “These are from my own novel I wrote, a character I created. I’d like to teach young authors at Sealth.”
Werst Seattle-raised Lindon Schaab is a former student of Hatcher, and now a colleague. She teaches after-school cartooning through the program at West Seattle High School. She said she felt compelled to teach.
“Greg was so busy and couldn’t do it all, and I thought it was a shame,” she said. “I think they should have this program at any school because it gives students a place to be. They have things in common and become friends.”
Anther former member of the after-school programs, Alki-raised Rachel Townsend, is now a freshman at Western Washington University and has helped out at the booth over the years. This time around, however, she decided to hang out at the convention with cartoonist pal, Allie Nelson, a WSHS junior and take it all in. Both were in costume.
“I’m ‘Galactus,'” said Nelson, referring to a popular Marvel Comics character. “He eats planets and he’s cool. He’s this evil thing which just eats stuff.”
“I’m ‘TARDIS,'” said Townsend, referring to the “Time and Relative Dimension in Space” time machine and spacecraft phone booth in the TV program Dr. Who.
“Comicon is amazing,” Townsend said. “It’s where you let your geek flag fly.”
(http://www.westseattleherald.com)
New York Times Magazine profiles Grammy nominee Frank Ocean
R&B singer Frank Ocean has received six Grammy nominations, putting him numerically in the same league as Kanye West and Jay-Z, each of whom is also nominated for six awards.
Among the major awards Ocean could win at Sunday’s Grammy Awards telecast are record of the year, album of the year (for the album “Channel Orange”) and best new artist.
The New York Times Magazine has published an extensive profile of Ocean (which will appear in print on Feb. 10) by writer Jeff Himmelman.
“Before ‘Channel Orange’ was released in July, Ocean was something of a sleeper in the hip-hop and R&B worlds,” Himmelman writes in a story that is highly detailed and illuminating.
“Like Ocean in person,” Himmelman continues, “the album is challenging. It demands to be taken on its own terms, and in places it puts you to work.
“For a first-time listener, things don’t fall into a ‘put this on at your party’ rhythm until the fifth track, ‘Sweet Life,’ and even then Ocean makes you stop immediately afterward for one of the album’s many non musical interludes.
“But once you’ve taken the entire album in, its internal logic — the interludes, the snippets of found audio, the song order, the sudden toggles between bravado and vulnerability in Ocean’s lyric style — begins to reveal itself.
” ‘The best song wasn’t the single,’ Ocean intones at the outset of ‘Sweet Life,’ and by the second or third time around you find yourself singing along, convinced.”
previously published by GENE STOUT
King County Broadcast 