Linoleum Rap
Volume One: Issue 1
Welcome to the first issue of Linoleum Rap!
Linoleum Rap is a digital share space powered by TruArtSpeaks with the goal of providing space for Hip Hop heads, practitioners, educators, and cultural producers to amplify new works, share skills, big up their crews, cross promote, and simply speak to current events in the Hip Hop and global community. Launching on November 1st, 2024, the first few issues will be geared towards celebrating Hip Hop History Month (November) by pulling from the archive (as a means to honor history) and highlighting insights from network artists, entrepreneurs, and heads, as they reflect on the culture both locally, statewide, nationally, and globally. From there, we will embark on guest curation focused on the various elements of Hip Hop, current events, and Brown Papers on the culture.
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Linoleum Rap
Volume One: Issue 1: “A Brief Overview of Hip Hop History x Tish Jones”
In honor of Hip Hop History Month, the inaugural issue of Linoleum Rap is a tool and conversation starter for those interested in Hip Hop and those immersed in the culture. If you’re new to the game, it will give you an overview, if you are true to the game it is a refresher, and if you’re a student and scholar in this thing, it brings up that age old question of “how many elements of Hip Hop are there and who gets to decide?”
In our first issue, our Founding Executive Director, Tish Jones, sat down with the MN Timberwolves & Lynx during Black History Month in 2021 and offered a brief history of Hip Hop along with a breakdown of how we talk about the elements and define Hip Hop Culture, here at TruArtSpeaks. Check it out!
About the Contributor
Tish Jones
Website: www.tishjonespoet.com
Socials: @thetishjones
Tish Jones is a poet, emcee, and Hip Hop Theater artist from Saint Paul, MN, with a deep and resounding love for Black people. Her work explores themes of Black love, liberation, politics, and Afro-Futurism. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and abroad as a public performance artist committed to the power of narrative change through the arts.
Her writing can be found in We Are Meant to Rise (University of Minnesota Press), A Moment of Silence (Tru Ruts and The Playwrights Center), the Minnesota Humanities Center’s anthology entitled, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota (Minnesota Historical Society Press) and more.
Currently serving as a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Tish is grateful to have been supported through numerous grants, fellowships, and awards throughout her career. That generous support has allowed her to excavate the kind of stories that chart new worlds. She also serves as the Founding Executive Director of TruArtSpeaks, and for all of it, she is eternally grateful.