For two days, the Marcus Performing Arts Center is transforming into a celebration of all things hip-hop.
On Aug. 11-12, TRUE Skool and the Marcus Performing Arts Center (MPAC) are hosting the fifth-annual Summer Park Jam. The two-day event will honor the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, bringing community members and local creatives together to celebrate the history, present and future of the art form, from its conception at a Bronx apartment party in 1973 to its status today as a worldwide force.
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The jam kicks off on Friday, Aug. 11 at MPAC with “CEO Sessions,” an educational event for creatives to network and learn. It is open to the public and features guest speakers, workshops, vendors and a pop-up studio running until 4 p.m. Keynote speaker Vinson “Wordsworth” Johnson will deliver remarks, followed by sessions led by presenters Makayla Binter and Alexis Solis discussing social media collaboration and career-building.
“This would be an opportunity for some of our local educators and entrepreneurs and business folks who have had success to make themselves available and tell their stories. This is intergenerational.” says Fidel Verdin, the co-executive director of TRUE Skool, a nonprofit that uses hip hop to “engage, empower and educate youth, families and communities.”
The celebration continues on Saturday, Aug. 12 from 12-8 p.m. with the Summer Park Jam Outdoor Festival at the MPAC Peck Pavilion. This free, all-ages event will welcome community members to enjoy live performances paired with vendors, food trucks and activities. Performances will include Milwaukee’s very own artist Speech with the Grammy-winning hip-hop group Arrested Development.
You can also cruise around at the event’s skatepark. And if you’re an artist yourself, consider entering the 2023 Best Threats in the Midwest “Battle of the LMNTS,” a multidisciplinary competition for breakdancers, graffiti artists and DJs at the event.
“We’re saying we want to have partnerships that can build experiences where these bridges are built and the local youth, communities and families start to see opportunity and start to see for themselves all the programming and all the activities, events and all of the investment that’s happening in Downtown Milwaukee.” says Verdin.
This marks the beginning of a year full of collaborative programming between MPAC and TRUE Skool. “To make art your life and make a living at it and stay in Milwaukee and create and work here and just build this community up is what TRUE Skool is about every day,” says John Hassig, MPAC’s director of programming. “For us to be affiliated with them is just an honor because we’re celebrating that goal and supporting it in any way that we can because the creative ecosystem requires artists to be here and create, any way that we can help that be reality is something we need to be a part of.”
