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Youth culture in Cork













Every year in Cork there are certain events on our music calendar that we look forward to with great anticipation. For many of us the Guinness Jazz Festival remains a big one as does the more recent addition of Live at the Marquee. This years Marquee is of particular interest to younger music fans with the likes of Kanye West and 50 Cent returning while Flo-Rida, Lady Ga-Ga, Ne-Yo and many more appear here for the first time. There have also been some lower key additions to the Cork music calender in more recent times that have caught the imagination of Cork youngsters, and which are set to continue this year too.
This Saturday in Bishop Lucey Park there is another celebration of Da Beatz in association with World Book Fest 2009. This event has been running for a few years now and it finds the best of Cork young hip-hop talent joining forces with our finest break-dancers too for a free party from 2pm to 6pm! Expect to hear DJ's, rappers, singers, producers, breakers, beat boxers, freestylers and graf artists representing their talents to the fullest. The event will include everything from a freestyle rap battle to an open break dance battle plus a showcase by the Gurranabraher Arts Project. I've been involved in this event since it's inception and it gets better every year, make sure you come along and check it out.
Fair play by the way to Sinead, Rory, Bony, GMC and everyone else involved in both the Triskel Arts Centre and the Gurranabraher Arts Project for all the hard work that they are doing behind the scenes for Cork youth culture at the moment; this showcase will provide a decent opportunity for them to show what they have been working on for the last few months! Da Beatz also ran something at another of Corks annual events a couple of years ago. The Midsummer Festival is well established now and the Spiegletent has been coming to Cork every summer as part of it. This year I'm running an event there called the Future Sound of Cork and I'm currently looking for people to take part in it.
This youth culture event aims to showcase the future sound of Cork, featuring a cross-section of our best young bands, singers, rappers, DJ's, graf artists, break-dancers and lots more. The showcase will be pretty diverse and aims to break down the traditional boundaries and prejudices that sometimes exist amongst teenagers who tend to categorize themselves into certain groups. Whether you are a punk rocker or hip-hopper, a dancer or chancer, or indeed all of the above, you are invited to check this out this June. Even if you don't know yet what you are into or don't particularly give a damn, you are welcome to come along and have a glimpse of the future sound of Cork! At the moment I'm programming the event and am looking for music people to take part, so if you know any teenagers doing original music let me know and tell them to contact me by sending a demo to me at RedFM, 1 UTC, Curaheen, Cork. The line-up is nearly complete so get them to send it in soon, there are still some slots available and it will be a good showcase of some of our best talent.
The all ages scene in Cork and beyond continues to flourish and the likes of Blast, Coolaboola and many more are continuing to put on shows in Cork. Bands such as the Impressionists have developed out of this scene and they are currently preparing to release their EP at the start of the summer. It is great to watch youngsters develop over a period of time and though they have changed their line-up over the years the funk remains at the core of one of Cork's most original bands!

This article appeared originally in yesterdays Evening Echo
Here's some pics of previous youth culture events in Cork, including Da Beatz, Jam Junior and Globalfest 2008