Critical Frequencies
Marco Pavé: 2019-2020 Georgetown University artist in residence
Sponsored by the GU Department of Performing Arts and the Department of African American Studies
Memphis, TN native Tauheed “Marco Pavé” Rahim II is a hip hop artist, educator, and arts entrepreneurship advocate producing work influenced by Memphis’s legacy of blues, soul, and trap with KRS-One-meets-Project-Pat sensibilities. He is a Memphis Music Ambassador with Music Export Memphis and Founder and Creative Director at Radio Rahim Music, an independent record label working at the intersection of hip hop, arts communities, technology, and activism.
Rahim reached #2 on the College Music Journal chart, earned an Addy advertising award for an anti-gun violence PSA, and is the librettist for Memphis’s first hip-hop opera, Grc Lnd 2030, which debuted in 2018 at Opera Memphis’s Midtown Opera Festival. Work from his 2015 EP Perception and 2017 album Welcome to Grc Lnd has been featured on NPR, MTVU, The Source, The Root, and MTV News.
A former Memphis Music Initiative Teaching Fellow bringing hip-hop music, culture, and activism to middle and high schoolers, Rahim’s work has also taken him to college campuses across the country to talk arts-based approaches to social justice and entrepreneurship. As a 2019-2020 Next Level fellow, Rahim will work as a Cultural Ambassador through the U.S. State Department’s Next Level program, collaborating with emcees in Bolivia to promote cross-cultural exchange across international hip-hop practice.
Through all his work, Rahim demonstrates the importance of hip-hop as cultural and political practice, and his Georgetown University residency features multiple events, detailed on the next page.
A platform for creatives, entrepreneurs, students, thinkers, and artists of all kinds, Critical Frequencies: Live from the Southern Hip-Hop Stage uses southern hip-hop and hip-hop epistemologies to explore entrepreneurship, culture, fashion, politics, social justice, music business.
It features conversations with top scholars in African American Studies, sociology, media studies, alongside performances and talks by acclaimed hip-hop artists, deejays, and cultural workers, to recall and showcase the rich and far-reaching legacy of southern culture and gesture towards the possible futures for American musical cultures and industries. For students in particular, the series offers unique, multidisciplinary opportunities to gain a critical understanding of hip-hop culture and its influence on the world around them.
Friday, September 6, 2019 from 6 p.m.-8 p.m.
THE TONIGHT ONLY SHOW
Hosted by Dr. Charles Hughes with Marco Pavé
The Critical Frequencies: Live from the Southern Hip-Hop Stage inaugural event presents the Tauheed “Marco Pavé” Rahim II in conversation with award-winning music scholar and author of Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South, Dr. Charles Hughes.
Friday, October 4, 2019 from 6 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
PANEL DISCUSSION: SNEAKERS AND SPEAKERS
with performance by St. Louis hip-hop artist Mvstermind
From the most iconic sneaker releases, to gender politics in the culture, to the influence of Kanye West, this panel covers the rise of sneaker culture, its roots in and intersections with hip-hop, and its influence and impact on youth culture worldwide. Featuring Anthony Steele aka Munch215, Marketing Manager at Foot Locker; Mike Thompson of OGRestorations215, a Philly-based sneaker restoration company; Sean of Createinkstudios, graphic artist and sneaker enthusiast; and Kash Aboud, stylist, sneakerhead, and Georgetown alumnus of the M.A. in Communication and Culture program. St. Louis hip-hop artist Mvstermind performs.
Friday, November 15, 2019 from 6 p.m.-9 p.m.
PANEL DISCUSSION: EVERYDAY WE HUSTLIN’
with performance by Harvard Hip-Hop fellow Tef Poe
For young creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone looking to understand the future of arts industries and economies, this panel features S. Craig Watkins, Ernest S. Sharpe Centennial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, on his new book Don’t Knock the Hustle: Young Creatives, Tech Ingenuity, and the Making of a New Innovation Economy. Watkins is joined by Elle Hearns, speaker/organizer/strategist/writer; April Kae, musician with Imanigold/writer/speaker/model/social media influencer; Jazmine Walker, podcaster/author/Black Joy Theorist/influencer; and rapper/musician/activist Tef Poe,
who also performs.
All events scheduled for McNEIR HALL, NEW NORTH BUILDING | FREE
Visit performingarts.georgetown.edu for more information.