Pump Up The Volume

Today, from Soweto to Dallas, Mogadishu to Hong Kong, Cairo to Nome, from La Scala to Remy Martin, Nike to Pepsi, BMW to the Ballet, wherever you are, Street Art, Hip Hop, Graffiti, and Break Dancing have become ubiquitous global currency.

Who would have believed in the 1970s that The South Bronx was the weed in the crack of the pavement of the Western Aesthetic canon whose growth would shatter the dominance of that cultural narrative? That essentially teenage voices, sights and movements could shake the very foundations of global art and society?

And not just any voices, Black, Brown, Yellow, and yes, a few White voices of the underserved and unrepresented neighborhoods abandoned by the powerful would rise up and prove that one group’s vision cannot maintain a strangle hold on the development and implementation of aesthetic criteria.