This Saturday, June 16th, KEXP will observe Juneteenth — the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States — with a full day of music that celebrates freedom, achievement, education, and building bridges. (The official holiday is Tuesday, June 19.)
After a special edition of Kid Hops long-running reggae show, Positive Vibrations, DJs Riz Rollins and Gabriel Teodros will be hosting the airwaves with music and conversations with special guests to celebrate with the day with programming that celebrates America’s great gift to world culture. Learn more about tomorrow's special guests, and don't miss this special day of radio.
9:00 AM – NOON: Positive Vibrations with selector Kid Hops. Special guests include Charles Mudede and Riz.
Charles Mudede is a long-time writer and Associate Editor for The Stranger, Seattle's weekly arts newspaper. He has also written for academic journals, as well as The New York Times, The Village Voice, LA Weekly, Cinema Scope, Ars Electronica, C Theory, and others. Mudede is also a filmmaker: his weekly Stranger column "Police Beat" was adapted into a film of the same name in 2004, and he also wrote the 2007 film Zoo. (Both premiered at Sundance; Zoo also screened at Cannes.)
NOON – 3:00 PM: Guest DJ set by Riz Rollins. Special guests include Black Bois' Dani Tirrell, Tail Feather’s Dominique Stephens, Seattle Girl School’s Luzviminda ‘Lulu’ Carpenter, and other guests to be announced
Dani Tirrell is a dance artist, performer, choreographer, and dance educator based in Seattle, whose most recent piece Black Bois had a sold-out run at local theatre On the Boards. Tirrell described Black Bois as "a ceremony to our ancestors, and a thanksgiving to our past, present, and future. It is a love letter to our bodies, our spirits, and our minds. This is the story of our fathers, brothers, lovers, and friends. A healing space, a space to process, a space to love, a space to create and be.”
Dominique Stephens has a long history of grassroots and community organizing in Seattle. Following studies at the African American Academy and Tennessee State University, she returned to her hometown and created Artisan Event Logistics, "focusing on public relations, events, brand marketing, and fund development for small businesses and non-profit organizations. Stephens is currently involved with Tail Feather, a "A Boi-lesque Ballet" premiering this weekend at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. Tail Feather is "about the magic of the butch woman. Her experience of masculinity as safety, seduction, and seclusion serve as a perfect parallel to the display of masculinity in male bird species all over the world. Tail Feather uses dance, spoken word, boilesque, and theatre takes to share stories of masculinity from the masculine centered woman."
Luzviminda Uzuri "Lulu" Carpenter is the Performance Studies Teacher & Resident Artist at Seattle Girls' School, as well as the creator, producer, and host of #LuluNation, a QTPOC talk radio show airing Tuesday nights on Hollow Earth Radio. Carpenter has extensive experience in working with "marginalized" youth including "formerly incarcerated, gang affiliated, trafficked, homeless, immigrant, and refugees," and has created trainings, education, and curriculum for "womyn of color, trans & queer, and LGBTIQ communities around intersectional oppression, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and transformative justice."
3:00 – 6:00 PM: Guest DJ set by Gabriel Teodoros with special guests Shakiah (Hip-Hop artist and choreographer for Northwest Tap Connection) and James Williams (from the No New Youth Jail Coalition and Organizing Director for Got Green)
Shakiah Danielson is the artistic director of the hip-hop program at the Northwest Tap Connection, as well as the choreographer for Restoration of the Arts, a non-profit organization that reaches out to at-risk youth. Shakiah is also a hip-hop artist who guests on Teodros' most recent full-length Evidence Of Things Not Seen and is featured on his 2015 single "Greeny Jungle." A Seattle-area native and self-taught choreographer, Shakiah is committed to contributing to the quality of art in our community.
James Williams is a member of the End the Prison Industrial Complex (EPIC) and its No New Youth Jail Coalition, a campaign against the construction of a $225 million-plus youth detention center at 12th and Alder in Seattle. The NNYJC mission is "to redirect funding away from the mass incarceration of youth of color and towards community-based prevention, the intervention of youth of color and towards community-based prevention, intervention, and diversion services and programs." Got Green is a South Seattle-based grassroots organization that aims to "cultivate multi-generational community leaders to be central voices in the Green Movement in order to ensure that the benefits of the green movement and green economy (green jobs, healthy food, energy efficient & healthy homes, public transit) reach low-income communities and communities of color."
