We Never Put the Fists Down
Kiwi, Bao, and I never thought to really mention this to anyone, but I thought we should let folks know though, that from the moment we came up with the idea to hit the road together as Beats Rhymes & Rice, we knew we’d be donating a portion of our revenue to grassroots organizations of our choosing. It would never have felt right to funnel all of our revenue straight into our pockets, and so we’re doing it like this.
With the help of Daren Mooko from One Of Agency, we’ve created a system by which we can make sure that some of the money from our fee from every single show is donated to folks we support who are doing the work in the streets, all of which happen to be API community groups in our homebase cities. This was always our intention, and a percentage of all monies we’ve collected so far and hope to receive in the future will be going back into our communities.
I’m including the names of our designated recipient organizations below. Please feel free to ask any of us about our choices, and if you’d like to know more about any of them, or want to go ahead and donate to them as well – whether money, time, supplies, positive energy – we strongly encourage that. All three of us are strongly connected to our communities, and moving a portion of our honorarium into these groups is just an extension of how we try to operate in our day-to-day lives.
Read on and check out the groups we support. Illustrations are the first pictures to come up on Google Image Search when you enter our first names. Yeah why not?
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Kiwi: Filipino Community Center - ALAY Program (Active Leadership to Advance the Youth) San Francisco, CA |
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Bao: Center for Hmong Arts and Talent - ICE Open Mic (Innovative Community Elevation) St. Paul, MN |
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Giles: Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth c/o Asian American Studies, UMass-Boston Boston, MA |
Word. Nice picture of the Giles character from that Buffy show. Didn’t that show end years ago?
Comment by Eugene — 10.26.07 @ 3:23PMHaha! Giles from Buffy is the other cool Giles :)
Comment by Les — 10.29.07 @ 1:38AM[...] The Beats, Rhymes and Rice Tour made their way to Northeastern University and hit the Boston area by storm on November 8, 2007. It was the second show on the BRR Tour and it was a privilege to have Giles Li, Bao Phi and Kiwi on campus. Giles and Kiwi have performed at Northeastern in the past, but it was the first time for Bao. The night was filled with laughter, great poems and great music. It was the first time that I ever watched Kiwi perform live and he was everything that he was advertised. He was energetic, passionate and his rhymes were dope. With songs like “Good Music,” “Right Here, Right Now,” and “Turn It Around,” it was great just to listen to real Hip Hop and listen to lyrics that matter. I had watched Giles and Bao perform on the stage at UMASS Boston back in the Summer. It’s been months and when they get together this time, it’s like they didn’t miss a beat. They fed off each other and was the dynamic duo that they are. Giles performed “Crappy Xmas Poem in 7 Parts,” the crowd favorite “WHAT YEAH OKAY!” and a cover of “HEY YA!”. Bao continued his “Nguyen” series and also read a poem that he wrote recently. The three artists were just awesome, keeping the audience entertained as well as inspiring them with their words. [...]
Pingback by boston progress radio - asian american music » The Beats, Rhymes and Rice Tour: Northeastern University — 11.14.07 @ 5:23PM[...] After the Beats, Rhymes and Rice Tour hit Northeastern University on November 8, 2007, Kiwi was generous enough to give some of his time to do an interview. He sat down with our own Jess and shared some of his thoughts. [...]
Pingback by boston progress radio - asian american music » Kiwi the Rapper not the Fruit: An Interview — 11.20.07 @ 1:20PM