Back Out Into The World: Moving Out of Covid,Part 2

Hip-Hop culture was designed to help people survive difficult circumstances, and the Covid era is no exception. Last time, we discussed how people are weathering the pandemic, and what this has taught them about Hip-Hop itself. This time, we look to the future. What insights have people gained? How will they use these insights as we move forward?  

The pandemic has obviously forced people to think seriously about what it means to develop culture in an online environment, and it has proven to be a more complex issue than we might have imagined. Many of us have gotten used to interacting through social media that is designed to approximate the feeling of community. But at the same time, the reality is still that we are sitting in front of a computer screen, often alone. The community that we build in this environment is still shaped by technology, by other people’s access to that technology, and – more often than we might admit – by our own minds.  

In fact, for Glen “DiViNCi” Valencia, who taught Hip-Hop production on Next Level’s 2016 Honduras residency, exploring these issues can almost become a meditative practice in itself. How you do Hip-Hop can often be as important as what you ultimately produce. How do you open you open your mind to creativity and achieve a ‘flow state’ without other people around?

“The main lesson I learned is ‘if you’re out of flow, you’re in your head’,” DiViNCi says. “All the times that you’re certainly not in the ‘flow’ state, it’s because you’re in your head. And what’s the quickest way out of your head? Get into your body. That’s the quickest way. Everything that people ever say, like ‘Well if you get stuck here, get up and walk around.’ ‘Take a shower.’ ‘You get your best ideas in the shower.’ ‘Breathe.’ All of these things activate physical movement, and get you in your body. And it’s cool because you don’t even have to believe in God or a higher power. You just have to believe in something bigger than yourself. Something bigger than your ‘self’.” 

That connection to something bigger than your conscious self or ego - whether that’s your body in physical space, your crew, your community or the world - has always been part of Hip-Hop culture, and it is all the more important now. But who has access to the resources necessary to participate? How does this shape the culture as a whole? How can marginalized groups use Hip-Hop to develop more and better resources? 

“The pandemic brought so much to the surface,” observes B-Girl Asia One, who represented dance on Next Level’s 2017 Croatia residency. “I feel that marginalized groups are being considered more than ever now, and will be incorporated into aspects of leadership, planning and organizing in ways they were not before, and that is the work that will continue to inform and be ingrained into all missions and work going forward - especially in Hip-Hop. We must help eradicate racism every day in every way, and Hip-Hop has to be on the front lines of this movement.”  

Danny Rodriguez, who represented dance on Next Level’s 2015 El Salvador residency, also sees movement building as an important outgrowth of the specific measures that people had to take to survive and grow during the pandemic. “Everyone went back to the drawing board, and I have been part of discussions of what we plan on doing from here on out. I have witnessed more collaborations with people outside of our community,” he says. “What makes hip hop culture so dope is our interactions with one another in group settings.”

 “Whether it’s a concert or a performance, we evolve because of that energy,” he continues. “I may be wrong about this, but coming back to the cipher is going to be a cold start for many of us. We have just never been in this sort of situation before where we had to shut everything down. We still have to deal with the mental health ramifications of it all. We lost a lot of good people and we are still grieving. Even if we all get the vaccine, we still have to follow certain guidelines. This is going to be very hard.”

“Overall, we all have to plan better across the board. From setting up classes to battles, we have to do everything different with the mindset that we can get shut down again tomorrow. We have to learn how to find new streams of revenue to keep the lights on.”

But if we do learn how to develop these new strategies, it is clear that we will all be the better for it. As DiViNCi observes, “We’re likely to gravitate towards the negative effects from being in this situation, but there’s definitely ways that it’s revealed our best powers, and some of what we actually have at our disposal.” 

“And hopefully we can take that with us as we move back out into the world.”

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….And a late-breaking development: DiViNCi is offering a series of FREE workshops on sustaining a creative life going forward….For more information, visit:  https://studiosensei.com/workshops