N'KOSI media

Next Thursday (Jul. 15) DMV artists and activists unite on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol Building to edu-tain an audience about the importance of political participati

on and the need for D.C. citizens to have full voting rights in Congress. Backyard Band, Uptown XO and RaTheMC, Black Cobain, Fat Trel, Rasi Caprice, Phil Ade, K-Beta, and PHZ Sicks are among those providing the soundtrack.

“Congress wants to put unregulated guns on the streets of D.C., including assault rifles, and we can not let that happen,” said Johnny Barnes, one of the event organizer’s

and Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital. “Congress tries to tell us how to live and tell us how to die, by deciding how we spend our own money and by interfering and intervening in our laws.”

The speakers and entertainers will present the virtues of D.C. Statehood and protest the proposed Gun Amendment that Congress is seeking to impose on the D.C. Voting Rights Bill. “This free concert and ‘teach-in’ is a great opportunity, especially for young people, to raise their voices and make clear their interests,” said Barnes. “I expect it to be an evening where people learn, get involved and hopefully, Congress listens,” concluded Barnes. Congress is scheduled to be in session during the event.

The scene will be captured as part of, “HoodStock,” a documentary project being produced by N’KOSI. “’HoodStock’ is about developing a sustainable market in the District through the lens of hip-hop,” said producer, Sia Tiambi Barnes. “In our research, we found that it is fundamentally impossible to sustain environmentally, economically, without first hearing from the community. And isn’t that the purpose of our democracy – for the people, by the people? How can we campaign for democracy around the world when we turn a deaf ear to the voices of our own nation’s capital?”

N’KOSI founder, Sia Tiambi Barnes was hired as one of the Teaching Artists participating in the 2010 Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) Media Arts Camp. The Camp is a pilot program funded by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities (DCCAH) and the Department of Employment Services (DOES), to encourage District youth to explore career paths in the creative economy, of which the District’s Media & Communications industry makes up 43 percent and a single job averages $94,000/year in salary. The District is the nation’s leading market for Marketing Communications jobs (the overarching category). Sia is guiding a team of young writers in journalism workshops to help create the August issue of the Art(202) Journal.

“It is an honor to work with the Commission to help pioneer such a program,” Sia said. “Especially in this climate when, like many industries, journalism is forced to redefine itself within the confines of a recession restricted budget, it is important to offer the incoming generation insight into how valuable story-telling is to the evolution of a community. For the participants to be gainfully employed as part of the learning experience gives allowance for creativity to flourish in an environment where arts programs are otherwise some of the first to be cut.”

Other components of the program included youth placement in paid internships at national media companies like BET, NPR, and City Paper; and “Project Anacostia,” an examination of how business and the arts converge to create community using the historic District neighborhood as a case study. By the end of the summer the participants, who are also working in photography, graphic design, videography, radio, and event planning, are tasked with developing mini-documentaries, a radio magazine composed of oral histories, and the District’s first “green wall” – a sustainable mural – in addition to the Journal. The deliverables are scheduled to all be on display on Friday, August 13^th at The Corcoran Community Gallery at THEARC.