Rising Styles is a hip hop festival that takes place in Brighton in July. Now in its fifth year, the festival aims to promote the positive, community minded side of hip hop. Two members of the Rising Styles team, Sri McKinnon and DeeJay Baptiste share the Rising Styles philosophy.

SM: Our fifth year sees us trying to broaden the appeal of the festival and also attract some international names.

DJ: Sure, we’ve always involved international talent – mainly by bringing over well known graffiti artists, but this year the live event taking place on the seafront is pretty international as it includes Emmanuel Jal from Sudan and Kidz in the Hall from the States. Alongside London acts like Sway and Skinnyman plus plenty of local talented MC’s it should be a grand day out.

SM: And with 2008 being the year of the hip hop woman it would be great to see more women being involved too.

DJ: Nationally there are some great female artists who are involved in all aspects of hip hop, but I’d definitely like to see more ladies participating within the Brighton scene.

SM: We’ve also made some good links with people like Martha Diaz of the Hip Hop Foundation and the cool ladies at B Girlz dot com, who both present positive images of hip hop women. We just need to make their contributions more widely known.

DJ: Of course when you say “hip hop” to some people you’re immediately faced with certain preconceptions. Look at Noel Gallagher basically saying that there shouldn’t be any hip hop at Glasto. Him and plenty of others have negative ideas about what hip hop is.

SM: We want to showcase the energy, skill and creativity of artists involved in the Brighton hip hop scene. Not just as MC’s but people giving their time to lead the workshops at Audio Active. They’re the unsung mainstays of the scene.

DJ: Or people like HP and Daz over at the Rarekind gallery who support both the graff scene & stock the music being made by Brighton artists. Tom Simpson and Robert Luis also give huge support to Brighton hip hop, both through their radio show and record label.

SM: There’s also good support from the Council which means we can build a stage on the seafront and put on a whole days’ worth of entertainment. The logistics of doing that without support from both the police and council would make it a no go from the start.

DJ: One of my favourite events is the Battlejam over on Grand Parade. This is completely down to Spencer’s organisation and attracts decent crews from all over the country. Proper breakdance battles and the drumming breakbeat battle last year was one of the highlights.

SM: Our graff showcase this year should be good too. Mare 139 is coming over from New York and will be building one of his 3D graffiti sculptures. There’s still plenty of people who see all graff as vandalism so hopefully this exhibition will go some way to redressing this and show it can be great art too. You only have to look at the legal pieces in the North Laines to see the levels of artistry involved.

DJ: Hopefully we’ve got enough events on to keep the diehard hip hop fans in Brighton happy but it’s got to appeal to your more casual punter too. Events like the Battlejam and the Live day usually have across the board appeal though.

SM: We don’t want to become a niche, underground festival. There’s a huge wealth of talented hip hop artists in Brighton. We want to continue supporting and showcasing them, hopefully on a grander scale that we currently do.

DJ: Like they used to say at the old Zulu Nation parties. “Peace, unity, love and having fun”. That’s a good place to start for us.