#community-music

#community-music

The party included food trucks parked alongside 9th Street, as well as a stage at the corner of 8th and Washington Streets where DJ LadyRyan emceed. The program included performances by DJ Veyn, Oakland multidisciplinary artist Jen Johns, and Oakland-based hip-hop and jazz collective Sol Development accompanied by Richmond rapper, DJ and producer Mani Draper. LaRussell headlined with the Oakland-based Collab Choir.

Basically, anyone who wants to participate grabs a color-coded bell, and the conductors raise their colored flags when it's time for those bells to be rung. At first, it takes everyone a little bit of time to get accustomed to it, says James Burke, the executive director of MMNY. But, you know, by the end of a half-hour music jam session, the first-timers are really genuinely making music together, and the compositions get kind of more complex as the program proceeds.

One thing I love about Oakland is how you can come across some of the most unexpected types of events. This Saturday, a group of retirees who live at the Piedmont Gardens community in Oakland will host a jewelry sale. This is the perfect opportunity to shop local, and find some one-of-a-kind gifts. One other event I'm excited to

I don't learn about music from record shops or curated playlists. I discover it on muddy football pitches in east London, with the smell of chips drifting from the van at half-time; in rented cricket halls in Bradford where there is always a giant urn of tea bubbling in the corner. The sounds that have shaped me as a Black British person aren't designed by algorithms or commissioned by labels.

Students in Levittown often flock to Harry S. Truman High School to pick up a pair of drumsticks and a bucket.