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Bronx Soundwalk Triple CD: Limited Edition Hip Hop Collector’s Item

12 May 2004 No Comment

The Perfect Beats and Funkiest Tracks for The Bronx Soundwalk Were Handpicked by The Original Jazzy Jay from his Notoriously Deep Crates. Remember the trip into his basement in the movie SCRATCH? Jazzy Jay Also Narrates The Hip Hop CD which Takes you to Bronx River/Soundview, Where He Conjures a Zulu Jam Live and Direct from the Late 70s. Hip Hop Legends Themselves Offer First Hand Accounts of the Legendary Battle Between Hip Hop’s Founding Fathers, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, at James Monroe High School!

The 3 CD Set Is A Collector’s Item for Any True School Hip Hop Enthusiast. There’s a CD for the Yankee Fans and Another Dedicated Exclusively to Aerosol Art where the BG183 and The TATS CRU personally walk you through Hunts Point!

It’s History! It’s a Masterpiece! I Haven’t Heard Anything Like This. The Hip Hop segment of The Bronx Soundwalk Would be Akin to Hearing the “Yes Yes Y’all” Book, by Jim Fricke and Charlie Ahearn, on Audio with the Music that the Legends Were Rockin’ at the Time. The Bronx Soundwalk also Features an Exclusive Mix by Jazzy Jay which is the epitome of What Hip Hop DJ’ing is All About! 

The Bronx Soundwalk can be ordered directly from Oversampling, Inc. at Oversampling, Inc. 195 Chrystie St. Suite 402 New York NY 10002 (212) 674 7407 or through www.soundwalk.com
Retail: $18.95

THE BRONX SOUNDWALK 

adidas and Soundwalk/Oversampling have teamed up to create The Bronx Soundwalk, an immersive “audio guide for insiders” experience. This latest installment in the Soundwalk library is out now and made available at MoMa Design Store, Tower Records, The Apartment, Colette, among other venues.

The Bronx Soundwalk activates the synthesis of sport culture and street culture in an extraordinarily immersive experience—an insider’s walking tour of the Bronx focusing on three significant neighborhoods: Yankee Stadium, Hunts Point and Soundview.

Previous NYC Soundwalks have included Chinatown, the Lower East Side, Times Square and Dumbo. Also in production are the Meat Packing District and Williamsburg. Through audio overlay, Soundwalk creates 360-degree surround sound which results in a dynamic tapestry, one that combines breakthrough technology with human experience in a compelling way. While each of the earlier Soundwalks contain one 45 minute walking tour, the Bronx Soundwalk will be divided into three shorter walks, each linked by one of the elevated train lines leaving from 125th Street in Manhattan, with a bonus CD including a 30 minute mix by The Original Jazzy Jay. The user is invited to “cross the river” into the experience that is the Bronx.

The train itself is used as a narrative device. Users will hear about the history of the Bronx, from the early days of the Grand Concourse and Art Deco, to the birth of the New York Yankees and their ascendancy in the 1920s with Babe Ruth, to Robert Moses’ vision for a city of freeways and high rises, to the blight of 1970s arson, and the creative spark that grew from the Writer’s Bench, Boston Road and the Bronx River Projects into the vibrancy that is Hip Hop culture today. While the stories are grounded in historical moments and their sport/street significance, the Bronx Soundwalk will also focus on the current scene in each neighborhood across the spectrum of sport, art, culture, and politics.

The Bronx Soundwalk celebrates the tradition of oral history as a living chronicle; like Hip Hop itself, often more fluid and dynamic than the written word. By recording legendary Bronx figures and culling the accounts of their impact on sport culture and street culture, adidas and Soundwalk are stimulating and preserving firsthand memories of an event or time of life. Representing a new form of immersive digital storytelling, the Bronx Soundwalk is ultimately an archival homage to the Bronx for its overwhelming influence on the world, from sport and fashion to music and art.

* The 4 train will focus on Yankee Stadium and will include interviews with Yankees Roger Clemens, Robin Ventura, and Joe Torre, along with neighborhood fixtures like Joe Bastone, owner of the Yankee Tavern. Narrator is Tony Morante, Director of Tour Operations, New York Yankees.

* The 5 train features Hunts Point graffiti culture, with emphasis on the TATS CRU, CRASH, CHAIN3 and the artwork of John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres. Additional interview with Tito “Fly T” Cepeda and more! Narrator is BG 183, TATS CRU, a founding member of the internationally recognized graffiti mural collective. 

* The 6 train will center on the Soundview/Bronx River area as the home of Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, and the birthplace of Hip Hop. Includes interviews with Hip Hop pioneers such as Afrika Bambaataa, GrandWizzard Theodore,
Kool DJ Red Alert, The Chief Rocker Busy Bee and GrandMaster Caz. Narrator is the legendary DJ and producer The Original Jazzy Jay, who started his illustrious career playing in the streets of the Bronx under the guidance of Afrika Bambaataa. 

BRONX SOUNDWALK: THE NARRATORS

Tony Morante (4 Train – Yankee Stadium)
Tony Morante was born and raised in the Bronx and resides in the Pelham Parkway area. Morante started working at Yankee Stadium in 1958 as an usher and came aboard full-time in 1973 in the Group/Season Sales Department. Morante, with 
the encouragement of George Steinbrenner, instituted the Yankee Stadium Tour program, which benefits a non-profit arm of the Yankee organization. He is the Director of Stadium Tours, with the first tour commencing in 1979.

Tony has additionally served on many boards in the Bronx community, including the Bronx Chamber of Commerce, Fordham University General Studies’ Board of Directors, and Community School Borad 11. He is the Vice-President of the Bronx 
County Historical Society.

Morante is presently working on a book about baseball in New York City and contributes to the National Pastime for the Bronx Times Reporter. He is also teaching a class at Westchester Community College and the City College of New York (Staten Island) entitled, “Baseball—the New York Game”.

BG 183 aka Sotero Ortiz (5 Train – Hunts Point)
BG 183 is a founding member of TATS CRU, which have built an international reputation among their peers for precise paint control. TATS CRU have worked closely with numerous Rap stars and Hip Hop pioneers such as Afrika Bambaataa 
(Zulu Nation), Fat Joe, S One, Diamond D, and Mad Lion. Formed in 1984 at Monroe High School as “Tough Assed Teens”, the acronym today spells out “Top Artistic Talent”. Along with BG 183, the other founding members of TATS CRU include 
BIO, aka Wilfredo Feliciano, and NICER, aka Hector Nazario. The newest members are HOW and NOSM, aka Raoul Perre and David Perre.

The Original Jazzy Jay (6 Train – Bronx River)
This pioneer started his illustrious career playing in the streets of the Bronx, under the guidance of Afrika Bambaataa. During the 80’s club revolution, Jazzy went from performing on the streets and in small clubs to spinning records in NYC’s hottest clubs: Negril, the Roxy, the Ritz, and Danceteria. He was the first to bring Hip Hop music to the airwaves, on KISS FM. Jazzy’s 3 hour show became so popular that it was syndicated on Europe’s Radio One broadcast. With the Jazzy 5, he recorded the hit single: “Jazzy Sensation”. He was propelled to stardom when he co-produced “Planet Rock” with Bambaataa and The Soul Sonic Force. Not only having appeared on the movie’s soundtrack, Jazzy Jay also played the role of club DJ in the Hip Hop classic movie: “Beat Street”. Afrika Islam and Jazzy Jay pioneered the first DJ team routines as they used to team up to battle GrandMaster Flash (solo) and GrandWizzard Theodore (solo). Jazzy Jay was also one of the Zulu King B-Boys in the early 70’s. 

It is a little known fact that Jazzy Jay was a founder of Def Jam records along with Rick Rubin. The first single, on the Def Jam label, was T La Rock’s “It’s Yours”. While with Def Jam, Jazzy worked with such artists as LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys, and Public Enemy. Jazzy furthered his producing and engineering skills when he founded Jazzy Jay’s Studio, providing a place where Fat Joe, Brand Nubian, A Tribe Called Quest, among others could begin their careers. Jazzy eventually began a new label with Rocky Bucano and Strong City Records was born. Strong City produced a multitude of hits with Ice Cream Tee, the 
Masters of Ceremony, Busy Bee, and Don Baron. 

Jazzy was inducted into the Technics/DMC DJ Hall of Fame in 2000. He is featured in the DJ documentary “SCRATCH” (Palm Pictures) which premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Jay headlined the first SCRATCH US tour as well 
as SCRATCH tours in Japan, New Zealand and Australia. Jazzy continues to produce, rock parties and lecture on Hip Hop history, industry, and politics at conferences and panels internationally.

BRONX SOUNDWALK: THE TEAM

adidas
In 1920, at the age of 20, Adi Dassler built his first pair of shoes in his mother’s laundry room in the village of Herzogenaurach, Germany. Driven by a love of sport and an unflagging desire to help athletes achieve their ultimate 
performance, Dassler worked closely and personally with athletes including Jesse Owens, Wilma Rudolph, Emil Zatopek, and Muhammad Ali on the design, development and testing of products. 

Dassler shoes made their debut at the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928 and have been worn by medal winners and record breakers at every major sports event since. Seven hundred patents and industrial property rights worldwide are proof of this permanent quest for perfection. Over 80 years later, adidas is still working in Dassler’s spirit: the will to develop the best technical support to help athletes perform better still drives the company, while reissues of classics like the Italia, the Superstar, the Decade and the Forum allow adidas to move seamlessly between the worlds of sport and street.

adidas sport icons today include Tracey McGrady, Tim Duncan, David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin-Hardenne, and Roger Clemens to name just a few. Global team partners include Real Madrid, Notre Dame, Bayern 
Munich and the legendary New York Yankees.

Soundwalk/Oversampling
Soundwalk, the brainchild of Stephan Crasneanscki, was first dreamed up in the spring of 2001. Early in its development (and mainly as an effort to counterbalance increasing image overload in contemporary society), Soundwalk leveraged the power of sound to evoke and stir a renewed awareness of the cities worldwide. Early 2002, Michel Sitruk took charge of business development while Jean-David Boujnah assumed the role of Art Director. Long-time New York residents, the three Europeans started selecting those neighborhoods of New York which best exemplified the rapid and organic evolution of the city: Chinatown, Times Square, the Lower East Side, and Dumbo. In each instance, Soundwalk’s promise was the same: offer a powerful sensory experience, enable the listener to understand both past and present by mixing layers of interviews by locals, and 
most importantly, (re)connect the listener to their fellow urban residents. At each development phase, the Soundwalk team strived to demonstrate that cutting-edge technology can be used to trigger a compelling human experience. In July 
2002, Soundwalk: Chinatown v1:0, was released as a next-generation audio guide.

Kinetic Federation
Bronwyn Keenan and Jacqui Millar are the founding members of Kinetic Federation, a distributive network that is challenged by the desire to illustrate and inspire progress through the media, adapting the brand spectacle to induce social, cultural and commercial impact.

* Tools of War (co-founders: Jorge “Fabel” Pabon and Christie Z-Pabon)
Christie Z-Pabon is a Hip Hop events coordinator, booking agent for many Hip Hop legends, publicist and consultant. PopMaster Fabel, Senior Vice President of the Rock Steady Crew, is a practitioner of Funk Style and Hip Hop dance forms, Hip Hop historian, educator, and documentarian. Specializing in grassroots Hip Hop culture, Tools of War was named with the idea that there are many “tools” one can use in competing/battling within the culture: turntables, microphones, paint, one’s body, and especially one’s voice (and so on)! Although the name might appear aggressive, the intent behind its use is to inform and educate people regarding not only Hip Hop but many other social and political issues. As we grow, we are finding that it has also become a forum for voicing opinions and sharing ideas which might help in unifying and uplifting people all 
over the world. 

* James Fuentes
Born in 1977 and raised in the South Bronx, this New York-based artist and curator has organized numerous exhibitions locally and abroad. In 2001 he curated “The South Bronx Story”, and has focused many of his curatorial activities on the borough’s contributions to contemporary art, music and society.

Peace to Tools Of War for this info!

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