Concert Benefits DJ Kool Herc, Focuses on Health Care

Friday, February 18, three of the city’s leading DJs performed at a benefit concert for hip-hop music pioneer DJ Kool Herc.  DJ Pillo, Apryl Reign and Mista Rare Groove headlined the affair at Main Event in downtown Cincinnati. The event was the second collaboration between the three artists as par of a regular show they have begun called “Selectas Choice.”

With the aid of both turntables and laptops, the DJs kept their audience dancing as they spun and scratched records all night from 10pm until after 4am. The set list drew from a variety of hip-hop, R&B and soul musicians including A Tribe Called Quest, Prince, Salt-N-Pepa, Cee Lo and the Jackson 5. Both the music and the cause attracted a lively crowd that included a few influential names in the Cincinnati hip-hop scene like musician Marvin Hawkins, author Kathy Y. Wilson and radio personality Perry Simmons.

Tweeting from DJ Kool Herc Benefit Concert

Friday night DJ Pillo, Mista Rare Groove and April Reign — three of Cincinnati’s premier DJs — performed at Main Event for their second “Selectas Choice” concert. This time they donated the proceeds to help hip-hop legend DJ Kool Herc, also known as Clive Campbell. The benefit concert was part of a nation-wide effort to raise money for his recent medical expenses.

Cincinnati Magazine »» The Dynamo of OTR: Cedric Michael Cox

Check out my article about visual artist Cedric Michael Cox featured in this week’s issue of Cincinnati Magazine!

The magazine hit shelves this month and is available all over the Cincinnati area. You can also find it online here.

The cover of the October 2010 issue of Cincinnati Magazine.

Here’s a little sneak peak:

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Cedric Michael Cox is wide awake as he trots down the stairs of the Kennedy Heights Arts Center. He was up most of the previous night, preparing for an exhibition at the Weston Art Gallery, but the hours spent in his Over-the-Rhine studio don’t show. The 34-year-old seems as fresh and feisty as the kids waiting for him in the classroom of the old mansion on Montgomery Road.

Cox is managing 11 kids—three white, the rest black, like him. In blue jeans, with his dreadlocks loosely pulled behind his head, he doesn’t look like much of an authoritarian. With his easygoing smile and the fact that, at five-foot-one, he’s shorter than some of the preteens enrolled in “Camp Create,” you might mistake him for a cool older brother. But the kids know who’s in charge…