On Sunday the 22nd annual Black August Hip Hop Benefit Concert is taking place in virtual form. As you can gage from the headline, you can stream that concert right here. It's scheduled to begin at 6:58 p.m. ET, which may be the past or present depending on when you clicked.
Here's the feed:
Set to headline the event are Yasiin Bey and Rapsody. Others set to perform, according to the concert's website, include but aren't limited to: Big K.R.I.T., M1 of dead prez, Audio Push, Oswin Benjamin, Sampa The Great, Nasty C, Locksmith, Sa-Roc, King Zyad, Riders Against the Storm, Jahi PE 2.0, Ife Jie, Subvert Labs, and poet Jessica Care Moore.
According to Billboard, the concert is being held via a partnership between the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Movement for Black Lives.
The event's website is asking for donations in an effort to acquire funds for "the families and freedom campaigns of US political prisoners, some who have been incarcerated in US prisons for close to 50 years." You can find that site here.
When the concert was first announced, Rapsody commented on her involvement by saying "If we don’t care, if we don’t use our voice, if we don’t support these calls to action, how can we progress? So many before us, so many political prisoners, sacrificed for us to have the opportunities we are afforded today. I couldn’t create the art I do without some of those sacrifices. It’s now my turn to do my part so that those now and after me will have even more freedoms and opportunities.”
She echoed a similar sentiment in an Instagram post put up on Sunday:
In past years (see those that didn't feature a major global pandemic) the event took place at several New York City venues and featured performances by: Common, Erykah Badu, The Roots, David Banner, Fat Joe, and Dave Chappelle, in addition to lots of others.
