PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival

The PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival, is bi-annual festival of hip hop music and culture created by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) people and held in Oakland, California.

History

The festival was first held in August 2001 (and was known as "Cypher") as a part of the East Bay (Oakland)LGBT Pride and continued annually through 2007, switching to a bi-annual schedule commencing in 2009. There have also been other related festivals held in New York City PeaceOUT East, London,England PeaceOUT UK, and Atlanta,Georgia PeaceOUT South.

The original event began at the suggestion of East Bay (Oakland) Pride organizer Pete King.Though King was not a fan of hip hop music or culture,he was familiar with the numerous out queer hip hop artists performing in the San Francisco Bay Area and felt the growing scene was an important component of the LGBT arts community. In June 2001, King approached Juba Kalamka of the group Deep Dickollective about his ideas (including naming the event "PeaceOUT") and inquired as to the possibility of organizing the event.Though at first reticent as a result of what he viewed as racial and class antagonism toward hip hop at mainstream pride events,Kalamka eventually relented, which led to the organization of "Cypher 2000:One" by his Deep Dickollective bandmate Tim'm West and London-based DJ Christopher "Mister Maker" Harvey,who founded the Gayhiphop.com website in 2000.

The success of the event led to plans to create a larger scale event in 2002.East Bay Pride sponsored the event until its own dissolution after PeaceOUT 2003,at which time main financial sponsorship and organization was coordinated by Kalamka's micro-label Sugartruck Recordings and Matt Wobensmith founder of the zine and record label Outpunk and later the Queercorps imprint.

Among the performers who have appeared at the festival are Deep Dickollective, Katastrophe, Tori Fixx,God-des,Deadlee and soce, the elemental wizard.

Performances from the festival are featured in the documentary Pick Up the Mic which premiered at the 30th Annual Toronto International Film Festival on September 11,2005.

External links

* [http://www.peaceoutfestival.com Official PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival website]
* Chovin, Neva (September 10, 2003). [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/10/DD182424.DTL "They're here, they're queer and they homohop."] "San Francisco Chronicle"
* [http://www.gayhiphop.com GayHipHop.com] Website featuring information on LGBT Hip Hop performers
* [http://www.phat-family.org Phat-Family.org] organization exploring hip-hop music and LGBT identity
* [http://www.pickupthemic.com Pick up the Mic] documentary about the Homo Hop scene