Style in Progress 2006
The Fourth Annual Installment of Canada's biggest Hip Hop Festival
Event Photography by Earwaks.com
Since its start in 2002, Style in Progress has been Toronto's premier hip hop culture festival. With a strong focus on promoting graffiti as art, the event has literally left its mark on the city. Every year, scores of graff artists take to resurfacing the walls of the Queen West alleys in Toronto's downtown. Along with the visual focus, the local music artists and b-boys represent in full force. This year, Earwaks.com played in an integral role in putting together a crack team documenting the event, which took place on July 20th - 23rd. As you'll see below we have the literal motherload of never-before-seen photos and exclusive video.
Thursday, July 20th
San Francisco’s Bigfoot comes to Canada. Style in Progress kicked off with the Bigfoot art show held at the Adrift skate shop located in the heart of Toronto’s eclectic Kensington Market. The night was bumping with old school hip-hop, good conversation, and cold drinks while the b-boys and b-girls were definitely getting down. What about the art, you ask? Bigfoot was no doubt the center of attention in a room filled with his lush conceptual pieces, where bold use of colour and consistent sasquatch motifs complimented the artist in the flesh.
Friday, July 21st
Toronto’s historic Berkeley Church was an apt setting for the legendary Kool Herc, the originator of break juggle DJing and the man responsible for bringing the dancehall vibe from Jamaica to New York in the 70s. The place was blessed with crazy energy and you could literally feel the energy vibrating off the people and the walls; nothing but love, sweat, smiles, and exceptional break dancing.
A night all about the breaks, Kool Herc spun vintage selections for hungry and appreciative on-lookers while Toronto’s top b-boys battled it out. Phrases including “holy shit!” and “that was dope!” were being thrown out every other minute as the audience watched the b-boys and b-girls dishing out moves in astonishment.
The intimacy of the event was remarkable and made for an unforgettable experience. Even if you weren’t participating in the battle, you were still right there in the action, either in a mean-mugged b-boy stance or busting a move. The night was a complete success and definitely stood out as the first of many bangs in the SIP weekend.
Dundas Square
Saturday afternoon involved hip hop taking over Canada's busiest intersection at Yonge & Dundas, downtown Toronto's central meeting point; Dundas Square. Despite grey skies and some rain, the day did not fall short on entertainment. All elements well-represented as graffiti artists, b-boys and emcees all held it down through out the day while showcasing to the public what Hip Hop culture is truly all about. A select roster of artists greatly embodied what Toronto's best have to offer, and kept the day going and the crowd bumping. Michie Mee, Theology 3, and Muneshine were just a few of the cats that brought the heat.
The b-boys and b-girls brought in the most diverse crowd of the day, consisting of seniors, adults, teens, parents and even toddlers. It was nice to see the audience really getting into the music and even actively participating. There were even kids who wanted to get down on the mat, giving the crowd a glipse of the next generation's future b-boys and b-girls! Grouch, Mensa and Serious held it down for the dancers with choice beats that filled the square.
Ill Bill at the Opera House
Almost on a completely different tip from the Kool Herc's classic hip hop performance the night prior, Saturday night featured Ill Bill of Non-Phixion fame. If anything, this event showed how much hip hop has evolved over two decades, as Bill brought together different audiences that included punk, rock, and metal listeners. The term “heads” was redefined and given all new meaning, and the diversity of the show was unlike anything you might expect at a typical hip hop concert. As a music and a culture, hip hop has definitely
grown.
Sunday, July 23rd
Sunday brought more rain, more beats, and about a 10,000% increase in the art quotient for the event. In many ways, this day included the most exciting parts of the Style in Progress weekend, and continued to display to the general populace how hip-hop and graffiti are two community-based movements that are ready and able to enrich everybody's lives.
Nearly a hundred artists took their assigned brick canvases and went to work on roughly a mile of alleyway running behind Toronto’s famed Queen Street West. While the weather once again failed to cooperate through heavy showers, it didn’t seem to matter to the unphased participants. The artists continued to work through the conditions and threw up some dope pieces, the largest of which was an absolutely ill collaboration bigging up Toronto by Duro the Third, Abel representing Tribal Clothing from Cali, and others. The general populace in attendance was caught off guard; fourty somethings and families stumbled upon something they had never seen before and watched in amazement at the level of cohesion and talent that exists within Toronto’s hip hop community.
As Sunday came to an end and the murals dryed up, the event sadly came to a close. Over three days, Style in Progress excited and enthused the hip hop core of Toronto, and showed the outside public what our community really is all about and has to offer. For everyone involved, it was something to be proud about. All in all, the 4th Style in Progress was truly, as the name suggests, the Dopest Shit Ever.
For more info on Style In Progress, check out www.styleinprogress.ca
Newsletter
sip piece
sooo many pics.....dope stuff
a lot of toy and bitten graff
it's sad to see graff culture spiraling out of control, far off from it's roots and penalties for plagerising other founders and active participants.
if this was going down in NY heads would have been cracked for the obvious biting and toy ass graffiti taking place.
People obviously bitten: Cope, Ces, SEAK, DAIM, LOOMIT, NECK(Euro/german 3D guys) Totem, and a lot of others....
maybe that's why they call it style in progress?
also: organize your graff flicks into goups by the crews painting their spots. it was really annoying having to go 20-30 flicks to see the next piece to the right of the wall I was just looking at.
cool event and there was some dope original shit in there too.
but if you're gonna make me sit through 400 snapshots instead of 50-100 prime pics... expect some blast back.
very nice layout
I didn't get the chance to paricipate and all I can dream of is seing the big wall on bathurst with duro, I took a peak at some snapshots but to accually be there is different like the first time I saw the mona lisa or reaad the declaration of indipendance in washington... I was at the event a few years ago and was up on the skaffold with wymp and this year I. really looking forward to the event if I can make it from my crapo pad in the shwa, was thinking I should change what I write maybe peace in the mid east