Celebrate 50 years of hip hop at Hamilton's Concrete Canvas this weekend

For Marcelino DaCosta, when he needed to deal with grief he turned to breakdancing. 

"One of my closest friend when I was 14, passed away tragically. And for me, breaking was an outlet," he said.

Hip-hop became a big part of his life, and after 26 years of international successes, this weekend he'll be part of this year's Concrete Canvas as a workshop facilitator.

DaCosta, who also goes by FrostFlow, is based in Mississauga. He has won national and international breakdancing competitions. He has worked for companies like Netflix and Disney, and even did a TED Talk in 2016.

However, throughout his career, he always went back to community work and wanting to "affect change" in the community.

He now works with Wesley Youth Services and the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre as a youth worker, and even offers free breakdancing classes for young people on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Wesley at 155 Queen St N.

DaCosta is bringing that passion for community to this weekend's festival.

"I want to see youth there, I want to connect with those youth … it's a good avenue to bring people together," he said.

The festival will run from Aug. 11, the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop, until Aug. 13. Performances will take place at Hamilton's Pier 4 Park at 64 Leander Dr. while artists paint murals around the city. 

Mural, breaking competitions, and more

For the anniversary, DaCosta will also be in charge of a breakdance competition at Concrete Canvas.

"It's a very significant time for everybody involved," he said.

Breakdancing will be a big part of this year's festival now and will make its debut at the 2024 Olympics.

The competition's winner will receive a $500 prize.

At Concrete Canvas visitors will be reminded that hip hop isn't just about the music.

"[Hip-hop] was something that came just out of a necessity for people to express themselves to what is grown into a billion dollar industry and whatnot," said event organizer Leon Robinson, also known as Eklipz.

"We just don't want people to forget that there's a full culture that goes along with that."

He has been organizing the event since its inception in 1995.

The four-element hip-hop celebration encompasses street art, emceeing, DJing and breakdancing.

Attendees can also expect performances from artist like Loaded Lux, Keysha Freshh and Mathematik.

Murals have also been popping up in Hamilton.

"We've already had people painting all around the city. We have artists in from the States, from Havana, Cuba, from all around the Golden Horseshoe area, Montreal, Ottawa," said Robinson.

A history of connecting with hip-hop culture

Robinson said the event is important for young people to get to know local artists and connect with "the roots of where [hip-hop] came from."

He also said it's important that the festival happens in Hamilton, not only because it's the place he grew up in but also to create spaces in the city to celebrate hip-hop.

This year's event is the second iteration of its post-pandemic run and the third one since 2000.

The event started at the Jackson Square rooftop at a time when, according to Robinson, hip-hop didn't have a lot of spaces in Hamilton, and the festival had to go through a lot to get where they are today.

"At one point, the city was like, 'graffiti is a crime' and they weren't about connecting to the culture [of hip-hop]," he said.

He also recalled police officers posing as reporters in the earlier days of the festival to get graffiti artists to tell them what they write in order to bust them later.

"I remember watching businessmen come through and seeing people working with spray paint, on a Friday, and they come back on the Sunday to see the finished piece because they never knew that people could do this with spray cans," he said.

The festival ran for six summers in the mid to late 90s, but was shut down after a bathroom was graffitied at Jackson Square.

"We brought it back in 2019 on a grander scale, painting buildings in the downtown core," said Robinson.

He said it was "only through time and development" that they made enough connections in the city to translate what the event was about. 

"We now have people in the city that understand what it is that Concrete Canvas brings to the city," he said.

Robinson even wrote a book about the event's origins, also called Concrete Canvas, which documents the event's history from 1995 to 2022 and features several Canadian street artists and more.

The book, shaped like a vinyl record, had its official launch at the Art Gallery of Hamilton last Friday.