PRINCETON UNIVERSITY'S HIP HOP SYMPOSIUM

Princeton University's Cornel West, rapper Talib Kweli, and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters of California join a panel of hip-hop artists and academics to explore the role of hip-hop in America. Listen to the Hip Hop Symposium held on the Princeton Campus.

Panelists Include:
- Jeffery Johnson, Black Entertainment Television (BET)
- Rosa Clemente, hip-hop journalist, activist and community organizer
- Bakari Kitwana, author, freelance journalist, former editor-in-chief of The Source Magazine and co-founder of the first National Hip-Hop Political Convention
- Talib Kweli, hip-hop artist
- Cornel West, Princeton University Professor of Religion
- U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, Democratic representative of California's 35th District
- Maria McMath, Princeton University PhD candidate in anthropology

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CityKids |


CITYKIDS REPRESENTS A SAFE HAVEN FOR YOUTH. Recently I attended a few workshops at the Center 4 Arts Conference and they were terrific. One workshop was given by Taina McField, a young woman who participated in a program with CityKids when she was a teen. CityKids develops experiential exercises and one that we participated in was an assumption exercise. We worked in groups of 3-4 and were handed (3) 5 x 7 photocopied portraits of different types of people, ie: a policeman, a transvestite, a man with makeup on, etc. Simultaneously we were given a sheet of paper that held 2 statements: "People assume I am" and "just because..." As a group we had to fill in the blanks making judgments about our pictures. Although people in the workshop wanted to be politically correct, it was virtually impossible. We were fortunate to see a brief snapshot of what one City Kids group created for their own project. They went out on the street and asked to take ordinary people's photo and then had them fill in the assumption statements about themselves. The participants were shown with their photos and assumptions in a gallery show open to the public. What a great project! CityKids is available to hold a workshop in your community or school. Contact them.

Did you know that there are global youth culture marketing intelligence companies offering street credible data? These companies measure trends and mainstream subcultures. Sometimes we don't realize, or we forget that these type of companies exist and are selling information to the media, entertainment companies and retailers. One such company is Label Networks. But their research is interesting. The Fall Report '06 clearly indicate that the youth culture are empowered through personal communication and a 'lifetime' of technology resulting in greater consumer control, which is influencing trends in fashion, sports, music, entertainment, advertising, marketing, and lifestyle choices.

Their recent youth consumer study revealed:

70.5% of 13-30-year-olds believe that MySpace is an internet fad

Top electronic devices you cannot live without�
27.7% Cell Phone
27% Computer
23.2% iPod

Skateboarding is the top sport females 13-24-years-old want to learn the most. Percentages age higher than males for 3rd year in a row.

Top Future Concerns: Relationships, Happiness, Work; Terrorism dropped most because as young people explained, We just live with it--Terrorism is always there and we're used to it�

42.4% say they communicate mostly through IM Average # of Texts Per Day, IM, SMS = 11

Another study by Universal McCann, a 13 billion dollar advertising agency with over 3000 employees in 100 countries, 'The New Digital Divide' concludes that consumers are increasingly relying on non-traditional platforms for entertainment, news, social interactions, shopping, and other daily activities.

Research they collected showed:

Yahoo, AOL and MSN Messenger are among the top Internet services in terms of awareness and use by ages16-3 and

Nearly 40% of the 16-34 group have met someone face to face after meeting on the Internet. Get Report

JibJab's at it again. They sure are a smart pair of guys. This viral video company known for it's scathing political lampooning and viewpoints are now creating a comedy series, sponsored by Verizon for the web and cell phones. One of the best known JibJab projects was "This Land is Your Land," with President Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry. They have jokes and silly things on their website now, but I'd love to see more of the old satirizing.

VOICES SELECT |Website| COA News | is a non-profit online news network featuring diverse, credible independent news and current affairs. COA News can best be described as the portal to independent news media.

VOICES SELECT |Film | Black Gold | Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.

Against the backdrop of Tadesse's journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world's coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers. Watch Trailer

VOICES MAGAZINE SELECT | Good Magazine | Founder, Ben Goldhirsh sees a growing number of people tied together not by age, career, background, or circumstance, but by a shared interest. This revolves around a passion for potential mixed with fierce pragmatism and creative engagement. We sum all this up as the sensibility of giving a damn. But to shorten it, he's calling it GOOD. For while so much of today's media is taking up our space, dumbing us down, and impeding our productivity, GOOD exists to add value.