Sadly, I can’t always make it to the events I’m invited to…but I can help promote and get bodies there! I’ve attached the press release for this women in hip hop event in Montreal below the digital flyer.

Press Release

Women & Hip Hop: Conference.

Long before its popularization by the established art world, street art was viewed as a second class art form, associated with nighttime, deviance and crime. This stigma and its sharp contrast with the stereotypical ideals and values society has historically imposed on women ensured that street art remained a mostly inaccessible and uninviting platform  for  women  to  showcase  their  talent. Despite its commercialization, street art has so far been closed to women, both globally and locally. Hoping to address this, the Montreal group OFFMural-es was formed, its mission being to shed some light on the inequalities that exist between men and women street artists.

Launching this movement has helped us to focus our criticism of the representation and visibility of women in Hip Hop. Whether as Bgirls, street artists, graffiti artists, MCs, or Deejays, women are part of this culture. Our goal is to encourage them to come together with their male colleagues and begin a dialog about the status of women in a cultural industry that remains very sexist.

Do these women feel 100% integrated into Hip Hop culture, and if so, how have they have achieved this integration? Were they obligated to deny their femininity in order to be accepted in a milieu where women are often seen as objects? We also invite those rare feminist men taking part in Hip Hop culture and ask them whether they consider women as artists, and whether they engage with their female colleagues in the same way as males. Although there is no single answer, we hope this new conference will help us find ways of encouraging women to commit to and involve themselves in Hip Hop culture entrepreneurship, so that they are no longer mere actresses, but real and significant players.