Next Level – Hip Hop Residency

NEXT LEVEL PHOTOS – Click the image below to view our photo gallery from the Next Level Performance at the Marina Market on May 19th 2023 (photos by Clare Keogh):

 

In May 2023, five Hip Hop artists travelled to Ireland as part of the Next Level program. TRUTH (MC), Mike Manson That Be Dancin’ (Dancer), Akim Funk Buddha (Beatmaker), and Kaykay47 (DJ), joining site manager Dirty Digits to perform for audiences and collaborate with local artists to promote cross-cultural creative exchange and conflict transformation. Team Ireland was part of a larger Next Level cohort of American MCs, DJs, beatmakers, and Hip Hop dancers seeking to create a global community through Hip Hop culture.

Music Generation Cork City was very proud to be associate producers on this event and to welcome the Next Level Team to Cork.

We invited teenagers and young adults with an interest in exploring hip hop culture to this week-long camp, evenings which ran from Mon 15th to Friday 19th May at Coláiste Stíofáin Naofa, with a public performance on Friday 19th.

Cost was FREE (this programme was fully subsidised by the US Embassy, Next Level/Meridian, with support in kind from Music Generation Cork City and Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa, College of FET Tramore Road Campus.)

Further details on the team and content of the camp  :NL Ireland – Call for Recruitment (Cork)

 

TEAM IRELAND

Akim Funk Buddha 

Kaykay47

Mike Manson That Be Dancin’

TRUTH

Dirty Digits

Next Level is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Meridian International Center. Its mission is to use Hip Hop music, dance, and art to foster cross-cultural creative exchange in diverse communities. Next Level works to promote understanding and conflict transformation in these audiences, and support the professional development of artists in https://www.nextlevel-usa.org/truththose communities.

Next Level brings people together and encourages greater understanding through the universality of music as a form of creative self-expression. It also builds on the historic legacy of the Department of State’s Jazz Ambassadors, who first traveled the world in the 1950s to connect with people through music.

During the exchanges, teams of MCs, DJs, Hip Hop dancers, beatmakers, beatboxers, and aerosol artists conduct public concerts, interactive performances with local musicians, lecture demonstrations, workshops, and jam sessions with diverse audiences.

For more information see ABOUT — Next Level (nextlevel-usa.org)

Music Generation Cork City is proud to be a signatory of the Arts for All Charter. Arts for All’s vision for Cork is a city which is open, accessible and intentionally inclusive in the Arts and which celebrates diversity as a cornerstone of creativity.

Kindly supported by Cork College of FET, Tramore Road Campus, CETB

Next Level – Hip Hop Residency – Music Generation Cork City