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RYSE Summer Jam featured in Richmond Confidential!

On Saturday August 21st, Youth Movement Records represented during a back-to-school summer jam at our partner site in Richmond, CA the RYSE Youth Center. Check out this feature on Richmond Confidential! (Just click the image for the full story!)

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YMR Artists Perform at Summer Camp!

On July 27th nearly 300 kids filed into an auditorium at their summer camp at Head Royce School in Oakland, not knowing what (or WHO) they were about to witness. Little did they know that they were about to be introduced to Youth Movement Records (a promo video), watch musical performances by YMR artists Greater Than One and Emily Moldy, and see fresh choreography from local hip hop dance team Urban Prodigy.

BUT the thing that they expected the LEAST was to have a surprise, guest appearance from one of their very own camp counselors, and one of YMR's very own All-Stars... Princeton.

Princeton, a YMR Pop/R&B artist of 2 years, had been working at Head Royce school's summer camp all summer long and was well known to the hundreds of campers, ages K-5, as "Buddha." But when the curtain fell and Princeton came out onto the stage... singing Lady Gaga, rockin' sequins and glitter with a mic in his hand, they almost didn't recognize him.

Princeton and the other performers blew away the audience to the point where most all of 300 of the kids flooded the stage, asking for the artists to sign their shirts, hands, foreheads... and anything else they could think of. Check out the pix!

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Desperate times call for creative minds!

--By Emily Moldy

If you don't know them for their dope music or community activism here in Oakland, you should recognize them from blogs about the U.S. Social Forum (on YMR's website which you should be checking out daily!) They are: AJ Thrower (YMR) and Tania Pulido (RYSE)... and they are two of many Bay Area youth who attended this year's U.S. Social Forum, where they spent time with thousands of other artists, activists, and like-minded folks who are SERIOUSLY ready to change the world..

It's true that now, more than ever, young folks have a powerful voice in movement towards changing our worlds. Here at YMR we talk a lot about movement (like "youth movement" "social movement", etc).. but what exactly is this movement? Where is it going? What does it look like?

This past Monday, YMR hosted a meeting in the lab for anyone to come and listen to what AJ, Tania, and YMR's Video Coordinator, Dan Reilly had to say about their journey to the East Coast to represent YMR at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, MI. They brought back with them a contagious energy talking about being creative to make changes in their communities, neighborhoods, and throughout the country. Bono of U2 once said, "This is a time for bold measures. This is the country, and you are the generation.” Imagine if we actually came together with our art (whatever form of art that may be) to use as both our medicine for healing and weapon for resistance, and imagine if we got to brainstorming... we really could run this town.

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YMR's AJ Thrower interviews Liberation Ink at U.S. Social Forum

Check out AJ's interview with Emunah Yunka Edinburgh from Bay Area's own Liberation Ink, a printing and design collective which makes & sells conscious shirts to support social justice organizations. At this year's U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, AJ connected with them to see what kind of work they're doing in our community and across the country. To find out more about liberation ink, go to http://www.liberationink.org

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