Modern Day Percussionists: Street Beat

Meet a modern day version of an energetic and community oriented percussion group - one that will transform a bucket, a trashcan or a set of rims into solid musical instruments. Street Beat entertains audiences of all ages by combining percussion, dance and education. Their interactive shows have enlightened diverse crowds through arts education and music appreciation. Street Beat also performed over 400 shows in 2008 and is set to tour the U.S. starting this fall.

In this week’s MD Spotlight, meet 31-year-old Ben Hansen, the founder of the L.A. based percussion and dance troupe.

What is Street Beat and how did it get started?

It’s a modern day percussion troupe, [which] takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary. Our main objective is to stimulate people of all ages groups [and encourage] them to keep some kind of musical engagement as part of their daily lives. We feel it’s a big part of being human, healthy and having a spiritual connection and as a way of releasing passion and creative energy.

We got started when I got my green card 5 years ago. I wanted give back to the local SoCal community. I moved here from Denmark as a drummer because I had a contract. I started shifting gears after getting my green card and focused on music education and spreading music awareness amongst youth.

We started at the Avalon Gardens School in L.A. [There was an] African percussion class that had no funds so I pulled inspiration from other drummers and got creative. We came up with the concept of “repurposed percussion” of all of our instruments. We found left over water drums and we repurposed them.

Street Beat has evolved – we had 400 shows last year. We [are managed by] Columbia Artists Management in New York; we produce a show of 11 crew members that will tour this fall. We focus on dance as well, linking percussion with street style. We will start at Lancaster Performing Arts Center in early October then go to the east coast for four weeks.

How many members are part of Street Beat?

A total of 26 members in the company – some are in the instructional aspect, running workshops, staff development [while] some are performers only and participate in small and large shows. We do corporate shows and shorter high impact shows.

What is your niche? What sets you apart from other groups?

We have among all cast members the ability to produce music entertainment on a  slightly more professional level. We use African, Cuban, Latin, West African and jazz concepts to produce something more dynamic and complex.

The other niche is our ability to connect with the crowd. Especially with younger crowds. Arts education is a very successful program. We can offer some of the best arts education; our program enables us to use creative awareness of these basic primal tools and compare them to school or something students work on daily. To be a street beater, you have to use pedagogy and engage with crowds.

What are your goals for the future? How long has SB been around?

Unify the world, which is so spread and torn these days in so many different ways (culturally and religiously). Our inner mission is try to unite everyone through music and percussion as a founding element that will over exceed any other power.

Is this your sole job?

It started as a project with Avalon Gardens school, I was a freelance drummer and played with bands around town. As I got more excited about creating, producing and seeing changes within kids we performed for and worked with, my focus was on Street Beat more. I was luckily able to pass on my gigs to other guys I worked with.

It’s been a pretty smooth transition, we are looking at expanding as times goes by. We want to take arts education through out the nation.

What is the art education program?

We are like consultants. We come with our services to school sites and provide everything needed. We do staff shows for companies, performances at schools, we have direct assessment time and provide all the instruments. We teach kids the basics of percussion within one hour but prefer 120 minutes to teach the main concepts of percussion. We can put an advanced drum piece together after that workshop. We  also have our assemblies - the clip with Corvin Bleu was a 45 minute duo.

We also do larger assemblies with two drummers and two break dancers. The focus is to teach kids the responsibility [needed] when combining dance with percussion.

Also, we do human beat box, [which is] beat boxing and body drumming. We teach kids how we can practice our passion without instruments.

Biggest challenges up to date?

Sometimes it’s challenging to accommodate clients requests if conditions for a successful workshop are not met. We have two different programs for elementary schools and we like to split up our assemblies in two. We’ve a developed a presentation for low and high grades. It’s challenging when schools split up the student body and we have to present programs for kindergarten and sixth graders [together]. Some schools work well with us and some don’t. It’s not as successful as it could be if were divided the  right way.

What do you like most about what you do?

The ability to connect to people and spread joy through very random, every day items. Also, realizing possibilities exist in everything beyond their appearance. We feel people are stimulated by this.

Some of our instruments are literally left over items in our home that we turn into percussion instruments and some are found in junkyards. Some of our broken water drums from schools are donated to us and we take them back to the shop and cut out the upper part and turn it into a cylinder we use as a base drum. We made our own medal symbols, some of it wears out so on  occasion, we purchase actual trashcans but that doesn’t happen that often.

What do you like least about what you do?

My neck always hurts and my voice is kind of raspy after shows. But I love it, too.

How many instruments do you take to a show?

It depends on sites and their real estate size. Some performances are in really small areas so we can’t bring a lot. At performing arts centers we have an arsenal of gear. It all depends on the show.

How do you transport the instruments?

When we do local shows, we use smaller vehicles depending on how many crew members are going. Sometimes we travel to location individually. We are able to fit our equipment.

Tell me about your members.

They’re in their mid 20’s to mid 30’s. Because of educational aspects, it’s important that they’re at a certain experience level not only as performers but as instructors and speakers before even considering being a part of our crew.

What are your favorite causes?

The environment and trying to resolve conflicts caused by religion worldwide. I’m doing as much as I feel I can at this point by using music as a catalyst for unification and energy amongst everyone in the world.

Favorite pastime outside of work?

I still love music so I spend a lot of my time on it. I like the entrepreneurial aspect of things. My days easily turn into 17-18 hour days for marketing [purposes]. Also being at our shows; I’m trying to establish energy. Walter and Josh did an amazing performance themselves.

Do you have any mentors?

Micheal Shermer – he has an incredible ability to speak and to bring awareness to shed light on things in a very successful way for everyone to understand. He’s a science historian, his ability to open people minds and talk about things in a logical way has inspired me. The list would go on for religion.

Best practical advice to pass along?

To believe in yourself. Our instruments have a whole other side and beauty in them and are items that you’d never consider instruments. We want our kids to look at themselves [in that way].

The way we carry the show, the need of academic achievement is so important to success that we try to fuse that in what we do so that it’s inspiring to the kids.

–

To learn more about Street Beat, visit their website here or contact Ben Hansen at Bh (at) streetbeat (dot) biz.

Hip Hop Wealth

How “wealthy” are the most successful hip-hop artists? Take Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne, and 50 Cent. Are they wealthy or just rich? At one time Master P was considered one of the “richest” hip-hop moguls. I haven’t heard much about him lately so I wonder about the longevity of his wealth. Will his financial gains flow smoothly and lavishly to his children (Lil Romeo etc) and his grandchildren?

How should we assess wealth in hip-hop? Switch over to MTV or BET on any given day and you will be inundated with videos and documentaries that proudly give evidence that a particular hip-hop artist is financially successful. Never mind the intellectual content of his lyrics; he could be prattling about “magic sticks,” “superman,” or “getting low.” The content doesn’t seem to matter. The truth is that the success of the artist is measured by the number and caliber of his “whips”; the number of rooms in his “crib”; the shine in his “bling”; and his ability to throw “paper” around in the music videos. And let’s not forget the number of “honeys” that sashay and gyrate around the screen. Perhaps, in the context of hi-hop, we should think of wealth in non-traditional ways.

The traditional concept of wealth carries with it a connotation of old and multi-generational financial excess. It makes you think of sturdy old mansions with massive pillars and mile-long driveways. Although there are some instances of such wealth in old African American families, most members of the black community in the United States have not been able to attain that level of wealth. There are valid and logical reasons for this fate, which are rooted in historical events - brutal slavery, unfair segregation, and rigid inaccessibility to the hallowed and exclusive spaces of privilege.

For black urbanites, this access to wealth is even further-fetched. However, hip-hop has created an unlikely avenue to unprecedented financial gains. I am reminded of a phrase from Tupac’s poetry – “the rose that grew from concrete.” If hip-hop artists are able to make money from the dire circumstances that surround them in the inner-city, should we excuse them for their questionable lyrics? If the commercial formula of mindless lyrics set to fantastic beats brings them financial relief, should we expect them to deliver more socially-conscious, message-laden lyrics? If this is their way to their wealthy place, why do we as an audience begrudge them their success? After all, much of the wealth that is accumulated by those old American families (the ones that own those mansions and driveways) is also rooted in not-so-pristine origins. Why should we hold hip-hop artists to a different standard?

I’m interested in what folks think about this. How should wealth be defined and how does hip-hop intersect with your definition of wealth? To inspire your responses, I thought I’d include the poem I referred to earlier:

The Rose that Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?/ Proving nature’s law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet/ Funny it seems, but by keeping it’s dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air/ Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.

(This post originally appeared on Black Arts Blog Network)
–

Credit: Stephanie Shonekan, Ph.D., is a professor of Humanities and Cultural Studies at Columbia College Chicago. She earned her Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and is the director of Black World Studies.