HipHopWired had the opportunity to speak with Martha Diaz about the banquet held on Lincoln Center celebrating the contributions of women in Hip-Hop.
On Friday (April 5), Alice Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center was home to a groundbreaking event that focused on the numerous contributions women have made to Hip-Hop culture. The Fresh, Bold & So Def Symposium was put together as an initiative to highlight the trailblazing women who lent their abundant talent and style to a male-dominated industry and further empower the next generation of women in culture.
The day-long symposium came about through a collaboration between Martha Diaz, the award-winning activist and community organizer who serves as the founder and chair of the Hip-Hop Education Center; and Lincoln Center. The Fresh, Bold & So Def Symposium, inspired by Diaz's initiative championing intergenerational Hip-Hop feminism, kicked off with a panel on mentoring women and girls in culture.
It featured veteran designers Misa Hylton, Sophia Chang, Tiffany Miranda, and Michelle “Lady Bird” McPhee, a lecture by Rap Coalition founder Wendy Day, and a fireside chat about self-care with Shanti Das and Toni Blackman before from the evening's panels. The panels included a lecture by Dr. Joan Morgan and a women's crypto discussion led by Diaz with pioneering MCs MC Sha-Rock, Pebblee Poo, Dr. MC Debbie D, Lisa Lee and a panel on innovation with Dr. Rosa Clemente, Jazzy Joyce, Claw Money and Erica Ford, moderated by Kathy Landoli.
The audience in attendance was diverse and warmly received, with Diaz and her team warming up the crowd in between. Each panel discussion and lecture provided vital information and perspective that drew rapturous applause. A few days before the banquet, HipHopWired had the honor of speaking with Martha Diaz about what inspired the symposium and how it all came together.
HipHopWired: As vital as it is to highlight the importance of women in Hip-Hop, what prompted the creation of the symposium for this moment in time?
Martha Diaz: This symposium has been decades in the making. Since the 1990s and early 2000s, I wanted to create an initiative to showcase the contribution of women in Hip-Hop. I just felt like we weren't getting our props and we were being written out of history. So when we met with Lincoln Center, they embraced the idea and the message.
Could you share a little about the process and working with Lincoln Center to become a symposium partner?
We talked about education in it. It wasn't just to celebrate women, but how could we inform the community about the different roles we pay tribute to? It is a matter of education, celebration. It was about informing people about our roles and our contribution. And we wanted to take a look and discuss some of those disparities. So carefully curated so we have the best spokespeople to talk about these topics too. And we wanted it to be intergenerational. So we didn't want it to be like 'oh, old school', we wanted to engage new people as well.
So the morning programs have workshops, basically Hip-Hop 101 workshops for young people to learn about the history and elements of Hip-Hop. And then you know, we have master classes for those kids who are a little more advanced. And then we have something for young professionals who are kind of culturally isolated, but they're in the music and entertainment industry, so we have something for them. And then we also have the evening part, much deeper conversations around erasure and self-care and being disruptive in Hip-Hop culture.
You don't have to follow everyone else, we can make some changes in our culture. This is how we developed the day. Lincoln Center as a partner, I have to mention how important it is for them to believe in us, just like how you reached out and said, “Hey, I want to cover this.” They gave us the resources that can help us reinforce our core message. So I really can't stress enough how important it is and how it will continue. It's not a one-off.
This brings me to my last question. I have found the panels and lectures to be extremely impressive. So what was the response from those involved when the organizing team contacted them to take part?
Oh, they were excited. Most women, I would say 98% of women said yes right away. The other 2% said no, because they have other commitments, but if they didn't have those other commitments they would have joined us. It's our time, it's our time. We finally have our 'Me and Me' movement, with everything going on with Diddy.
And it's great that we finally have the safe space to have these conversations that are delicate and necessary. If we want to evolve as a culture, women need to have that space to have conversations and create boundaries and guardrails so that [other women] we don't have to go through some of the things we went through.