BEAT ROOTS Release! Art Show
@ gimme! coffee Ithaca, NY • June 1-29, 2016

Exploring early influences on our group's creative drive, we decided to re-investigate early rap, scratch music and hip-hop culture.

We're still learning more about this rich music and art from our youth, and very much energized by classic hip-hop in all its forms; poetic, freedom of expression and collaboration with colleagues is key to our team's artistic spirit, born from the early roots of hip-hop.

In this process of reflection we wanted to to celebrate hip-hop and all it's done for us. We recorded high-quality drum beats, based on essential works reminisced. We bundled and released these homespun drum kit audio files for all to download, enjoy, and use in their own music projects under Creative Commons License (see above).

When we officially released these beats as "BeatRoots Beats Vol 1", we did it in style— the beats release coincided with an art show revealing 4 paintings, spray-painted on vinyl records (see photos below). This art honors fallen musical heroes Phife Dawg, J Dilla and MCA, and shares 16 iconic symbols (4 for each of us who made the show happen) from the time in our lives when hip-hop first inspired us to make music and art (see below, "Foundation Code").

Thank you for your time and interest in this project.
Please contact camilo@arhantastudio.com for more information.