Catching up with Slangston Hughes

If you remember a few months back, we held an edition of our monthly hip hop showcase called The Away Team Edition. Even though we try to focus our events on local, independent hip hop artists, we do take the time to reach out to artists outside that city that do things similar to what we do. Over time, we have built an away team that we consider to be kindred spirits in this world of independent hip hop.

One of the artists we work closely with is Slangston Hughes from New Orleans, Louisiana. Slangston is no stranger to the Jackson scene: he has come up to the city several times for shows and we have sent some of our folks down there to him for his monthly event, Uniquity.

Slangston is always busy, and in fact is hard at work on the follow up to his most recent project. He found a few moments to catch up with the blog recently and you can read the interview below.

Tell the people in Jackson what they need to know about Slangston Hughes. Where are you from, what is your message, what motivates you artistically?

You need to know I'm THE Connoisseur of Fine Rhyme. A moniker I don't brandish likely and do my best to live up to every day. I'm from The Mardi Mecca, New Orleans. My message is to inspire listeners to reach and aspire for more in life and ultimately understand music is more than what we're force fed daily. I'm motivated artistically by some of the obvious greats: Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Black Thought, Jay-Z, et al but most importantly the events of everyday life. There's enough complexities within our daily world to keep me moving, intrigued and inspired.

Your stage name is a play on Langston Hughes. How do you think you fit into the artistic and poetic legacy of him and the other people who made up the Harlem Renaissance.

Langston was a very creative and innovative writer, poet and playwright. When he wrote, like many others during the Harlem Renaissance, it was for a purpose. A message of Black solidarity, history and insightfulness was provided in much of his work. I feel that I continue that legacy of innovation, creativity and most importantly, thought provocation with my music and artistry.

What is up with your event in New Orleans, Uniquity?

Uniquity - now in its second year - is a live performance event that gives Hip-Hop, R&B and Spoken Word artists the opportunity to work with a four piece jazz band. I'm always looking to push the envelope with Uniquity and provide New Orleans' audiences with not only talented performers but also quality events.

What project are you pushing right now? What do you have lined up for the future?

Dollar$ & Daialogue (GET IT HERE) is my current project with emcee/producer, L'Daialogue Dicaprio. The follow-up to that album, Dollar$ & Daialogue 1.5 is up next shortly with some other projects I'm really excited about coming in the near future.