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CHICAGO HIP-HOP HERITAGE MONTH
Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Month is recognized annually in Chicago throughout July as a time to celebrate and honor the accomplishments of those who have worked authentically to build, nurture, and preserve Chicago’s Hip-Hop heritage since its earliest days, placing Chicago's Hip-Hop community as one of the world’s most diverse, influential, and culturally active.
Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Month is a time for the city to celebrate the history, art, and unique aesthetic of our homegrown Hip-Hop culture.
Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Month is a time for the city to celebrate the history, art, and unique aesthetic of our homegrown Hip-Hop culture.
THE PURPOSE
To recognize, promote, and advocate the aesthetics of hip-hop culture in Chicago as a progressive, artistic, and socially conscious movement.
To celebrate the contributions of those individuals, organizations, and events that have helped preserve and shape Chicago’s rich hip-hop community.
To educate and share with the general public the orthodox practices of hip-hop as a positive artistic medium of creative self-expression
To dispel the misrepresentation of hip-hop, revealing the truth about a culture that inspires, uplifts, and empowers young people to aim high
To showcase and demonstrate hip-hop arts throughout Chicago by way of events, forums, films, dialogue, exhibitions of dance, music, visual arts, poetry, and more.
THE FOUNDERS
In 2003, hip-hop artist, activist, and organizer Amina Norman-Hawkins, then Executive Director of the urban music network, Chicago Urban Mines, and head of the web-based Chicago hip-hop political awareness project Headz Up, teamed up with filmmaker and writer Mark F. Armstrong, a longtime supporter and contributor to Headz Up & Urban Mines, to develop and draft the resolution.
Chicago Hip-Hop Heritage Month was officially created by the unanimous approval of the Chicago City Council in a Jul. 9, 2003, resolution introduced by 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett Jr.
Approval of the resolution as an official city observance led to the incorporation of the Chicago Hip-Hop Initiative in early September 2003 by Amina Norman-Hawkins, hip-hop producer and lyricist ‘Coolout’ Chris Hawkins, and Mark F. Armstrong. Through those events, C.H.I. was chartered and established as a not-for-profit hip-hop community development organization promoting the development, growth, and preservation of hip-hop culture in Chicago.
