Wale in Charleston

Wale, the hip hop artist from Washington, D.C., performed an exclusive concert for College of Charleston’s Homecoming. The College’s Homecoming theme, Where the Wild Things Are, is a tribute to the Spike Jonze film that has been hailed the ultimate hipster flick. In the same spirit, Wale is a frontrunner in the up and coming genre, hipster rap or hipster hop.

He is a breath of fresh air for the hip hop fans, who have grown weary of rap artists that redundantly brag of their swagger and their superman abilities, but lack lyrical finesse. His blend of go-go with hip hop and his reference to popular culture and politics in his lyrics give fans songs that speak to the hipster ideology.

Wale has been trudging the underground hip hop scene since 2006 with the release of indie mixtapes that gained him national attention. Notable mixtapes are The Mixtape about Nothing, which Wale says was inspired by Seinfeld and Back to the Feature, which included several accomplished hip hop artists. In 2008, he signed with Interscope Records and released his debut album, Attention Deficit, with tracks Chillin featuring Lady Gaga, World Tour with Jazmine Sullivan and Pretty Girls featuring Gucci Mane and Weensey of Backyard Band, a go-go band from Washington, D.C.

Wale shined as an all around performer giving the College of Charleston kids a high energy show. He performed tracks from Attention Deficit, his widely popular single, Nike Boots, and a humorous skit about the songs he played on his iPod during his car ride down to Charleston. The humble artist he is, Wale, spent a considerable amount of time on stage signing autographs, Nikes, and t-shirts.

SHT! vs. BadJon Exhibition

Local artist, Sht!, and photographer, BadJon, joined forces for an art exhibition at 16 Penny Gallery inside 52.5 Records last Saturday evening. The two childhood friends have found inspiration in each other and their seemingly dissimilar collections, in fact, both maintained the same theme of creating art in traditionally non-art contexts.

Sht!, a street artist, creates art in public spaces in the form of graffiti, stencil graffiti, sticker art, posters, and wheatpasting with the objective of creating art in the existing environment in order to reach everyday people. He explained how his Shthead icon is a parody of the Frisch’s mascot, Big Boy. Like other street artists, he uses this spoof on a corporate mascot as a form of subvertising, where the viewer is confronted with an image that holds a stronger underlying meaning of defiance to conformity or, in Shthead’s case, corporate authority.

Jonathon Stout, BadJon, takes a different perspective on defying traditional ideas of aesthetics by turning what is deemed ugly and makes them beautiful. He enjoys photographing abandoned rundown buildings and other places most people would consider unsightly. His use of infrared photography transforms these images into stunning works of art. In his own defiance to conformity, he has stepped away from framing his work with mat and glass and prefers the look and feel of wood paneling.

The exhibition as a whole provides a nice juxtaposition of street art and photography with the uniform idea of turning traditional ideas of art on its head. The Sht! vs. BadJon exhibition will run through March 31.