World Famous Hip-Hop Family Day nears return
Artist Rakim to headline
This past April, the 8th annual World Famous Hip-Hop Family Day was put on hold as the world stopped for an unprecedented global pandemic.
Instead of gathering 20,000 people on Columbia’s Main Street, Love, Peace & Hip-Hop paused its festival plans until a safer option emerged to deliver its highly-anticipated event to an eagerly awaiting audience. During this time of waiting and watching, an uprising of consciousness and activism in the form of Black Lives Matter demonstrations has swept across the country. Turnout at BLM demonstrations has ranged from dozens to tens of thousands of diverse protesters in over 2,500 small towns and large cities—all during the most devastating pandemic in modern history. “This year, our festival isn’t about big crowds, but it is about big ideas,” said festival director Janet Scouten. “In light of the growing Black Lives Matter movement, we believe it’s more important than ever to share this family-friendly event celebrating Black excellence and hip-hop culture. We also believe it’s vital to share it in a way that allows as many people as possible to celebrate joyfully—and distantly—in a difficult year.” After six months of careful deliberation and consultation with local and state authorities, Love, Peace & Hip-Hop presents a revised version of its annual festival that remains true to its mission of spreading love, peace, unity, and having fun. Love, Peace & Hip-Hop announced this week that this year’s revised 2020 World Famous Hip-Hop Family Day will be presented on Sunday, Oct. 4, headlined by legendary hip-hop artist Rakim. The concert starts at 6 p.m. (with a 5 p.m. door) to a limited-capacity live audience. The show will be filmed inside Columbia's The Senate in front of a small, socially-distanced live audience of 250 people in compliance with the governor’s executive order No. 2020-08. To ensure the health and safety of guests, staff, and artists, this will be a seated only show following all COVID sanitation, facial mask, and social distancing guidelines. To further ensure health and safety, tickets will only be sold by the table to maintain social distancing between personal groupings and/or families. Tickets are mandatory for admission and are available for advance purchase through The Senate. A livestream of the show available free to online viewers. As part of its larger fundraising effort, Love, Peace & Hip-Hop is hosting a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the significant livestream costs of the event, which will allow South Carolina families to enjoy the show online in real time. Donors can visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/world-famous-hiphop-family-day-2020 to learn more and donate. “Since my first conversation with Rakim’s camp at the start of the pandemic, they maintained that he wanted to not only honor our contract, but give Columbia an unbelievable show. This made me hopeful that if an opportunity presented itself, we could still deliver our festival to our loyal and supportive audience,” said Love, Peace & Hip-Hop founder FatRat Da Czar. “Under CDC guidelines and state and local mandates, the safest way to pull that off would be with limited people in a socially-distanced and secure space, which unfortunately adds a ticket price. But with 10 days to go, I’m still hopeful that we can raise enough awareness and money to deliver this show free of charge, statewide, in a virtual capacity.”[caption id="attachment_45572" align="alignright" width="150"]
Hip-hop artist Rakim.[/caption]
In addition to performing from his widely acclaimed musical catalogue, Rakim will converse on stage about issues of the day and how hip-hop is uniquely positioned as an important voice on these matters.
Hailed as “the greatest MC of all time” and compared to Thelonious Monk, Rakim first emerged onto the world stage in 1986 as one half of the golden age hip-hop duo, Eric B. & Rakim, with the release of their first single, “Eric B is President.” Rakim has received numerous accolades from Billboard, Rolling Stone, MTV, and a host of others. Few hip-hop lyricists are recognized as having as great an impact on the development of the genre as Rakim. He stood out as the first MC to employ internal and multisyllabic rhymes, which was a change from the simple rhyming patterns used in early ‘80s hip-hop
Finally, because increased voter registration and turnout are key to fair and equal representation for all citizens, Love, Peace & Hip-Hop will combine the power of music with the power of voting.
To support civic engagement by each and every citizen, this year’s World Famous Hip-Hop Family Day will host, for the first time in its history, a non-partisan voter registration drive in partnership with Secure the Ballot and HeadCount. The date of the show, Oct. 4, is the last day to register online to vote in South Carolina, and Love, Peace & Hip-Hop will be promoting online voter registration before the 11:59 p.m. deadline.
