About

Ever wonder where all the women in Hip Hop have gone?  We did too so we decided to be proactive and honor the contributions of Women in Hip-Hop every week in an event we created in 2009 called “The Foundation: Celebrating Women in Hip Hop”. The social impact of Hip Hop is a cultural revolution which crosses borders, inspires ideas and influences behaviors.

Encouraging freedom of expression, healthy competition, independent thought, & positive self-identity, this weekly event as a movement focuses on redefining the vital role of Women in Hip Hop. Our mission is to educate and empower the community through sharing love of the arts, inspire change and growth, build leadership, and influence the perceptions and roles of women in hip-hop for current and future generations. Hip Hop’s emergence in global cities through multiple, devastating wars (psychological, physical, and cultural) answers and questions global economic restructuring of our communities.

We bring together artists, activists and academics to stage new conversations about women of color and women of color feminisms across Hip Hop’s cultural forms. Using Media to address the role, images, and treatment of women in Hip-Hop we critique and disrupt status quo narratives and present investigations about value systems and structures of violence and human value, the politics of aesthetics, and women of color feminism.

Participants walk away with a greater understanding of the value of women in Hip Hop as a culture across disciplines.: Art (Graffiti/StreetArt etc.), Dance (B-Girling), Technology (DJing/Music Production/Video), Words (Emceeing/FreeStyling/Writing/Rhyming/Poetry), and Culture (the Knowledge Element of reading, observing video and listening to audio media, discussion)

We are also affiliates partners of thestudioArena Multi Media (SAMM) Maker Space. That collaboration includes outreach to young women and girls. We provide education and mentoring in Professional Development, Life Skills Development, Technology Skills Development, Creative Skills Development, and Critical Thinking Development. We provide an opportunity for practical application and real world experience as well through youth entrepreneurship, performance, and digital media arts literacy. Our mission is to nurture and support the next generation of artists through mentoring and training cultivating positive self-identity and provide a safe space allowing youth to explore their creative expression using media as a tool to engage their peers to take leadership in confronting the various issues they face and improving their communities in Detroit. We draw upon our diverse networks of highly skilled local artists to teach media-making skills including– audio recording and record production, online and print self-publishing, digital distribution, social media, video production and streaming, graffiti mural art, poetry, screen-printing, b-girling, photography and DJing.

thestudioArena Multi Media (SAMM) Maker Space is a new group aiming to provide space for personal projects (from programming and electronics to knitting and jam making) as well as a free exchange of ideas, tools and skills. A collective approach to making, building or hacking anything and everything we need, want or love. Our model is a fun, compelling hands-on program that will inspire young learners in the STEAM disciplines. (STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, & Math) by connecting youth to technologies in order to help them realize the creative potential of cutting-edge hardware and software tools.