by Shilanda Woolridge

Austin is a city with many identities: high-tech mecca, slackerville, liberal, and festival-haven, just to name a few. However, most people know Austin as the Live Music Capital of the World. One can meander into any number of clubs on 6th Street and find a live band performing. Sojourn further from 6th Street and even more live music can be found, from Stubbs BBQ all the way down to South Park Meadows. Fans of R&B and hip-hop tend to have a harder time finding performances to suit their tastes, but this summer, Wednesday nights will belong to them, courtesy of "Jump On It."

"Jump On It" is a free, family concert series held every Wednesday evening from 6-10pm at Rosewood Park. "Jump On It" starts June 2 and will continue to August 4. In its third year, "Jump On It" is styled like a variety show and will offer a lineup of artists performing R&B, jazz, hip-hop, poetry, comedy, gospel, blues, rap, spoken word, dance, and two-act skits.

The evenings festivities will be broken into several distinct segments. At 6pm the DJs spin tunes to get the crowd warmed up. At 6:30pm the evening will begin with the "Showcase Hour," a talent show for beginning and unestablished local acts to perform and compete. Next, a theater group called the Foundation will perform the first act of their two-act performance. The Foundation is a youth group that does a mix of drama and comedy with martial arts-flavored action scenes using Southern Kung-Fu and Northern Karate. Following the Foundation is the "Soul Hour," which will consist of R&B, jazz, blues, or gospel, and will be geared toward the parents and older audience members. After the "Soul Hour," the Foundation will return to perform act two of their performance. Then there will be a contest time in which questions will be asked and prizes will be awarded for the correct answers. The contest time will be short, only about 10 minutes, and will be used to hype the crowd into a frenzy for the "Jam Hour." The "Jam Hour" is geared toward the youth in the crowd and will consist of the headlining hip-hop act for the evening.

Considering the reputation of rap and hip-hop, some parents may cringe at the idea of their youngsters viewing a live weekly performance of it. Not to worry -- "Jump On It" promises to deliver a profanity-free evening of entertainment. NOOK, local hip-hop artist and mastermind behind "Jump On It," explains, "It's all radio-edit, no profanity. A lot of performers aren't used to performing without profanity, and it's a big change for the rappers. What makes it good is that the older crowd can listen. When they hear a cuss word, everything else a performer says is automatically voided. So having no profanity is a good way to bridge the generation gap. The younger ones can hear older music, the older ones can hear the younger music, everything is clean and it works."

In fact, it works so well that the audience doesn't hesitate to remind any performers that forget, even if they are well known national artists. MC Ren performed last summer and peppered his performance with curse words. The audience reacted less than positively to his choice of words, causing MC Ren to get angry and abandon his performance. "I guess he got in front of the crowd, got hyped up, and forgot," explains NOOK. "No use of profanity was stated in the contract he signed when he agreed to perform. It wouldn't be fair to let him use it if no one else could. Also, we do live broadcasts and we don't want any of the stations receiving penalties from the FCC. We can get past the profanity by exposing these new groups and showing others that you can still come out and perform. I'm about changing things."

And change things he will. NOOK's non-profanity clause is one of many lofty goals that he has set for "Jump On It." "I want it to be the premiere hip-hop and music festival in Austin. The kind that brings down record labels. You look at SXSW, but it doesn't cater to rap music. Very few scouts come down for rap, it doesn't get a lot of pull. We have a lot of talent, some of these groups need to be out there now making millions! This year we will release three promotional CDs. We'll record everything live and pick ten songs for each CD. The CDs will help open doors for a 'Jump On It' tour. I want to blow it up for the hip-hop scene East of Austin, so it can get the exposure it deserves. In Atlanta, there was a major music event called the Midtown Music Festival. It's a four-day music festival and they had everything from rock and roll and country to jazz. Over a million attended, so there were people from all over. There were lots of scouts from different companies too. The festival is run by two guys, so that really inspired me."

With or without inspiration from other festivals, NOOK takes the successes of last year to turn things up a notch this year. "I think things went great last year," he says. "We averaged 2,500 people a night. The night MC Ren came we had about 4,000. It's cool to look at things at the end of the night and say 'Whoa, I helped create this.'"

On June 16th attendees can look forward to seeing Cool Breeze, a rap group affiliated with Atlanta's other multi-platinum rap progeny OutKAST and Goodie Mob. Houston's Rap-A-Lot Records will also be on the scene. Rap-A-Lot is known for it's work with the former Ghetto Boyz member Scarface. Rap-A-Lot will have a talent scout and vending booth stocked with music and autographed posters. NOOK is waiting for confirmation from another rapper from the "dirty south" called 8 Ball, and a few other popular artists. In anticipation of greater numbers, NOOK and his crew have decided to have two stages. "The main stage will be set up similar to Auditorium Shores," he says. "Last year the stage was hard for everybody to see once it got really crowded late in the evening. Now we have a better set up, where you can see the stage from everywhere. You can even see the stage from the street. We also have better sound and lighting equipment."

"Jump On It" will soon have a new neighbor called the Millennium Youth Center. NOOK's feelings on the up and coming center are cautiously optimistic. "The youth need places where they can go, so they won't have to hang out on the street. If they do it right I think it will work, but there is so much political and under-the-table stuff going on. I'm supposed to emcee the opening and they keep calling me to tell me they've pushed back the opening date. There are a few places the youth can go, like 'Jump On It' on Wednesdays and Givens Park on Sundays where there are family barbecues. I think we need something going on every day of the week."

NOOK's concern for others got him started in the rap game in the first place. "I was 7-going-on-8, and my cousin was getting married. I told her that I would write a rap for her. My mom is the type of person who says if you say you're going to do something, then do it! So we got this little poem together for my cousin. Rap is poetry, only the delivery is different. So when I would go through things, I would write as therapy to release my frustration. I would write about things and then rap it. I started doing talent shows and began touring through elementary and junior high. I also got to tour as a part of the Austin Housing Authority. I've been consistently doing shows since 1988. I would talk about dealing with stuff in a positive way, and I'm still following that today."

This positivity is what ultimately led to the creation of "Jump On It." Three years ago, local community artist Dorothy Turner had been given jurisdiction over the activities at Rosewood Park for a year. She wanted the activities to be by the youth and for the youth, so she sent out a call for ideas. NOOK stepped forward with his ideas and was asked to form a youth committee. In January of 1997 Turner set up a mirror organization of adults who would be available when needed, keeping in mind that the youngsters were in charge. The fruits of their labor resulted in the first "Jump On It," which started on May 21, 1997.

Before anyone is tempted to coo about the nice event the at-risk youth put together, they should hold their tongues. NOOK and his group are full-opportunity youth. "We chose to use the term 'full-opportunity youth' instead of 'at-risk youth.' When you say at-risk, it's a negative term put on youth if you're living a certain way, or living in a certain community. So we want to break down any negative perceptions as far as that an Austin are concerned."

Hopefully "Jump On It" is just the beginning.