Concert series to host hip-hop inspired performances

Every Monday evening, sounds of acoustic guitars and soft, melancholy voices float through the coffee-scented air in Kerckhoff Coffee House, turning the on-campus cafe into an intimate performance space for up-and-coming student artists.

Come Monday at 7 p.m., however, the atmosphere will be filled with the trademark bass-heavy, synthesized beats and smooth yet punchy flow of hip hop and R&B.;

As part of Hip Hop Appreciation Month, the Cultural Affairs Commission’s Hip Hop Congress and the Kerckhoff Coffee House concert series have joined forces to bring hip hop to the coffee house stage. The concert will feature a portion highlighting group freestyle rap, called a cypher, in an informal, open venue setting and sets by student performers Lawrence Maddela, Kathleen Del Rosario and Amir Zimmerman, as well as UCLA’s all-female a cappella group Random Voices.

Grace Lynch, a third-year political science student and the concert series director, said the collaboration concert between Hip Hop Congress and the concert series is a small-scale set of performances that is still going through an experimental phase.

“This is a really big month for (Hip Hop Congress), so if there’s any chance that the other series can help out, we definitely try to take that opportunity,” Lynch said.

As part of the concert, the artists will perform sets showcasing their own original work, both lyrical and instrumental. In addition, Random Voices will perform an original medley composed of Kanye West tunes.

Maddela, a third-year psychobiology student, Hip Hop Congress staff member and performer, will rap in a duet with fellow Cultural Affairs Commission’s Collective staff member and singer Del Rosario, a fourth-year microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student.

As singer-songwriters, the two artists will collaborate on original compositions, with Maddela rapping under the stage name “LFeatherz” and Del Rosario singing under “Kat,” but will also perform their own individual sets.

As a student in middle school, Maddela said his stage name, “LFeatherz,” took shape in an effort to distinguish his moniker from other commonly-made nicknames. Maddela said it eventually resurfaced when he took up hip hop as a creative outlet in seventh grade.

“Usually people do the first initial of their name – my name’s Lawrence Maddela, so it would be like ‘LMadd’ or something,” Maddela said. “But I wanted to be different, so I came up with ‘LFeatherz’ because the way a feather drifts in the air is the same way I drift my words when I rap.”

While Maddela identified more with rap throughout his adolescence, Del Rosario said she grew up singing along to acoustic guitars ever since she was a child. Her style during the duet, Del Rosario said, identifies more as R&B;, but her individual style matches better with an acoustic sound.

Del Rosario said her acoustically-driven musicality may come as an unexpected genre shift when compared to the duet but is the best way for her to perform her brand of music.

“I was thinking of how we’re going to make this work, because my music isn’t hip hop at all, and I’m worried that it’ll be weird if I shift genres right in the middle of the show,” Del Rosario said. “But it’ll be fun to give the audience a lot of exposure to what we love to do.”

Maddela said neither artist has seen the other perform live before and thus the duo will have to rely on mutual confidence to refine the song.

“I found out that she sings, and she found out that I rap, so we decided to make a collaboration,” Maddela said. “We just separately recorded bits and pieces over winter break, shared it on SoundCloud and it became big with our friends.”

Zimmerman, a second-year ethnomusicology student and a solo artist in the concert, will perform four songs, a part of his to-be-released seven-song EP “Kids at War,” under the stage name “PRINCEALI.” Zimmerman will be accompanied by a fellow student guitarist.

Citing Kanye West’s “Yeezus” as a major inspiration, Zimmerman said he created his own original genre, called experimental soul, from a blend of electronic dance music and soul.

“Before I created this genre, I was listening to a lot of club beats and studying it down to a science,” Zimmerman said. “I wondered how I could take it and mesh it with this soul that I have, and I came up with this new genre.”

Zimmerman said his lyrics are inspired from his real-life experiences and revolve around family, friends and relationships. In addition, Zimmerman said his formal ethnomusicology studies gave him a global exposure to multicultural music, enabling him to form a strong theoretical knowledge of how to create his own sound.

Maddela said although the collaboration between Hip Hop Congress and the concert series is still running through its experimental phase, the concert is an ideal venue to showcase an underexposed side of the hip hop genre.

“Hopefully, we can show that rap and hip hop doesn’t have to be about drugs, sex and alcohol all the time,” Maddela said. “Rap stands for rhythm and poetry, so we use it as an art form to express ourselves and stay away from negative influences.”