Rightnowish

This week Pendarvis Harshaw talks about how the music he grew up listening to, plays into how he and his daughter bond over music now.

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Angelica Medina’s first memories of dance are from when she was five years old doing steps to a Selena performance on TV. Her wife, Jahaira Fajardo, remembers being a New York club kid in her late teens, when she thinks of her earliest dance experiences. That’s because dancing felt very heteronormative and exclusionary, and as a lesbian growing up in a Dominican household, dancing seemed just not okay for her. Now as adults, Angelica and Jahaira are co-founders of In Lak’ech, the first queer salsa and bachata dance academy in the U.S. and they are out to create dance spaces that build inclusivity. 

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Born and raised in Oakland, Helixir Jynder Byntwell did drag as a hobby until August 2022. That's when they quit their job, won the SF Drag King of the Year competition, and became a professional king, all in the span of a week. Since then, they’ve joined the Rebel Kings of Oakland, a performance troupe based at the White Horse Bar. They’ve also participated in several well-attended performances in New York and in the Bay Area, most recently at the Castro Street Fair. Byntwell’s performances are always fun, always flamboyant, and more often than not, very emo. On this episode of Rightnowish, they describe their perception of queer joy, and how it feels to exist uninhibited.

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Inside of a classic Queen Anne Victorian in West Oakland, photographer Traci Bartlow displays beautifully framed images of the people who shaped hip-hop culture here in the Bay Area, and across the nation. Photos of Outkast and Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes and ODB, hang alongside images of the Luniz and Shock-G, as well as E-40 and The Click.

While the photos tell a story about what life was like in growing up in Oakland, it's her house, which is a photography museum and a boutique hotel, that tells the complex story of multiple generations of Black folks, land ownership and community appreciation.

This episode originally aired on October 14, 2022

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Despite the uptempo party music and the perception of free-spirited fun, it's clear that 2006 was a violent year in my Northern Californian community. But until recently, I hadn't stopped to consider the issues impacting the kids of the Bay Area in the early 2000s, during the hyphy movement: violence, crime, poverty, sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination. These are no different from the issues we're facing today. If you look closely enough, you'll see that all these issues are rooted in capitalism and imperialism.

In this episode we talk to Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who represents the East Bay, about her history of dealing with these issues while serving this community for the past 25 years; Rich Iyala, a younger San Francisco based musician who wrote a song that inspired multiple aerosol artists to write tags that read, "hyphy children got trauma(s)" and "hyphy kids got trauma,"; and T'Jon, a senior at Oakland's Fremont High school, who was born in 2006 and views the hyphy movement as a groundswell of art, culture and community.

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In the early 2000s, the underground DVD business was a major conduit of culture. Those documentaries showed the backstory of hip-hop artists and street culture all across the United States. One of the films Hood 2 Hood: The Blockumentary,, also included an early depiction of hyphy culture as I knew it to be-- hyper aggressive. But as the "hyphy movement" spread, the way the culture was shown drastically deviated from the origins of the term.

In this episode, filmmaker Aquis "Cash Out Quis" Bryant discusses the era before hyphy went nationwide. Mac Dre's former manager, Chioke "Seaside Stretch" McCoy shares insight on how Dre's murder pushed the culture into the spotlight; and how the industry subsequently took the "hyphy movement" and ran with it. And Rita Forte, a former radio host known as DJ Backside, opens up about the highs of taking the hyphy sound around the world, and the lows of seeing her DJ career come crashing down after bad experience while working for a local radio station.

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Before the "hyphy movement" and even prior to having its own name, the style of dance now commonly known as Turfin' or Turf Dancing, provided an outlet for young folks in Oakland to party to their favorite music, have fun by physically telling stories and express themselves while taking up room on the floor.

In this episode, we talk to Jeriel Bey, the person credited with coining the term, "Turfin'," Jacky Johnson, a founding Youth Uprising staff member, and Jesus El, my longtime friend and a well-known turf dancer.  

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The Hyphy Movement was often looked at as goofy, but there was a lot of pain behind those big sunglasses and oversized airbrushed t-shirts. Welcome to Hyphy Kids Got Trauma, a four-part series about the Bay Area, and the significance of the year 2006.

In part one we land in Oakland and meet host Pendarvis Harshaw, a budding journalist at 18 years old. We see the highs and lows, the songs and scars, of that year through his eyes, and meet a few of the artists behind the music. 

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Rightnowish Presents 'Hyphy Kids Got Trauma' - A four part exploration of a transformative year in Bay Area music history, 2006, through the eyes and ears of Pendarvis Harshaw. As a college student and burgeoning journalist at the time, Pendarvis navigates the shifting tides of a culture in transition, all set to the seminal sounds of the Bay Area’s “Hyphy Movement.” It was an era fueled by uptempo, bass-heavy songs with a free and fun-loving vibe. But 2006 also marked the second highest homicide total that the city of Oakland has ever seen. The violence was compounded by drugs, over-policing, the onset of gentrification, and the ongoing War On Terror. The wounds that occurred almost twenty years ago still impact the adults of the Bay Area today. Hyphy kids got trauma, and this is why.  The 1st episode airs September 21st!

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Hey Rightnowish listeners, today we’ve got a special bonus episode to share with you. It’s from our friends at Ritually, a new podcast, from Brazen Media hosted by London-based journalist Nelufar Hedayat. She’s reported about all sorts of things — human trafficking, the war in Afghanistan (where she was born), the climate crisis and more.

Now, she’s looking inward, and trying to answer some big questions that came up for her during the early days of the pandemic. What does spirituality look like, when you think of yourself as a secular person? What role do rituals play in our fast-paced world? And how can we use them to help make our lives feel calmer, richer, and more balanced? 

In her podcast, Nelufar tries out new spiritual or wellness rituals to find out if practicing them can actually make us feel better. In this episode, she digs into a ritual that’s at the centre of her religion: the daily call to prayer. But as a progressive Muslim woman, she struggles with patriarchal interpretations of Islam, and the constraints of organized religion. So with the help of feminist spiritual practitioner, Nelufar tries following a new version of the call to prayer. And it’s different — radical, actually! — because it’s in a woman’s voice. 

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