Testament

On Monday 4th October, all of the diploma team (excluding Jack and Imogen) got invited into the hall along with  some other creative student from around school to meet and have a day with Andy Brookes aka Testament to participate in a beat box and rap workshop.  We were learning to in co-operate real life situations into raps and looking into the issues of racism as part of black history month.  The overall point of the day was to raise awareness about racism in a fun, creative way.
The very first thing we did was interview Andy.  We recorded this on flip cameras.  Bethany and I asked similar questions to Andy as we did to Amanda at the Art Gallery but adapted them to the industry that Andy works in. After the interview, Andy said it was really important that we know where and how hip hop started before we go to the practical work.
Hip hop started in The Bronx New York and was started by DJ Cool Hurc (formerly Clive) who decided to buy two copies of the same record and line them up on the turn table, that way, he could control how long each section of the song lasted.  This was the first time that the DJ was in control of the how the song sounded. 
Andy also told us about his origins. His mother was a black lady from Ghana and his father a white man from London.  He grew up in London being told by his parent that he was neither white nor black, he was harmony and whenever he saw a couple of two different nationalities, he called them harmony.  I think this is very important as many people would look at a mixed race person and call them black because they are darker than a white person but that’s not the case and Andy was really trying to get through that you shouldn't judge someone by how they look.  He went on to say that most people do judge, even him and we can't help it but we can learn to accept it.  He proved this point by telling us his best friend was an Asian man and when he got on airplanes, judgmental people would be nervous just because a group of terrorists happened to be Asian but his friends wasn't even a Muslim as people initially assume, he had converted to Christian and that really got it into everybody's head and certainly mine that you really should not judge people on appearances as hard as it is to do. 
Now we got to the beat-boxing. 
Andy did a demonstration then went on to explain how he was making each sound.  He taught us the basic sounds (B, T, and K) and then told us to put them together in a sequence.  It was easier than I expected as you're not making all the sounds at once as I initial thought.  Andy told us that beat-boxers were deceiving as they appear to be making all the sounds at once but that is actually impossible.  Andy taught us to hold the microphone so that the end was sort of covered. 
We then was put into groups and had to make up some lyrics for our rap.  I wasn't really very comfortable in my group as I was with nobody that I knew and had a bit of a disagreement with one of the members but we tried to work together as well as we could to get the rap done.  I quite liked our rap but when it came to performing them in front of the rest of the group, not everybody was willing to do it.  We finally agreed to do it together and performed it for the class.  Andy gave us a bit of feedback concerning the lyrics and asked us to try and put a beat to it using our beat-boxing skills.  Our final performance was much better as we were more rehearsed and knew what we were doing more.
This whole day was funded by the co-operative trust which Brigshaw is now part of.
I think the day was a success because I think of myself as quite open minded and I still learnt lots more but I also really enjoyed it more than I expected because I admit that I was quite judgmental about Hip hop and had a stereotype in my head but when Andy told us about real meaning of it, about he merge of all the different styles of music, it changed my view on it and made me realize that its all about expressing yourself, just like any other type of music.
We each gave feedback to a camera about the day telling it what we enjoyed about the day and what we learnt.  I said that I enjoyed watching Andy beat box and that I learnt that racism isn't just about blacks and whites, its about all different cultures.