don't take shit out of context haterz :)

note this link may change I don't know
why myspace hates on me so much not wanting me
to blow! TOM chill the f*k*ut!
that's why you are losing people
to facebook bro. Support indie
musicians on here and stop being the
big bad beast.

chesney

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/style/music/

That party last night?! What better way to celebrate the release of the
I Love College beatbox remix than to spend it with friends, or more
properly FAM. Last night's Valentine's Day show with my homie &
partner in noise Eternia (myspace.com/eternia) at New York's Freshest
Grinds (breakneckroad.com) was unquestionably one for the books. Thanks
to No doubt that footage will soon emerge. Eternia SLAUGHTERED the mic
as we have all come to expect, but she didn't just live up to
expectations... she blew them off the map with a ferocity that simply
dropped jaws to the floor, dug a hole then buried them. Special thanks
and shout to Timmy Grins for bringin us out for an incredible evening.
Our close fam came out from Philly and Baltimore giving us a deep crew
of loved ones that made the evening truly remarkable.



and........
I was extra amped this weekend about the release of Asher Roth's I Love
College beatbox remix on Loud.com. featuring my damn self... Special
thanks and respect to my man John Public for bangin this project out. Also representing my FAM and partners in grind BEAT KANGZ, the new beat machine where all of the sounds came from. You know the one I can't stop talking about to everyone... Dropping something this dope tends to get one excited if you know what I mean. It's funny that saying that goes "they are not ready", oh indeed true, oh tis true indeed!
With those bangin beatbox sounds the resulting remix was a classic by J Cardim, who went on to win a
production deal with Loud/SRC/Universal for his work in the Producer's
Challenge. (to check that watch the video on my page or go to Loud.com)



..



The
beatbox remix is definitely making noise and available for Free on
Loud.com so go snatch that up quickly... Special special thanks to an
ill team over at Loud/SRC and to J Cardim for killin it. You should
check J Cardim at myspace.com/jcardimmusic the man is making big moves
and is one of the illest producers emerging right now. Hope you all
feel the video with the beatbox remix and leave a comment or something.
Hope you all had fun for Valentine's Day!



shout to my fam at illadelph.com

I often find myself pondering on the state of affairs here in America. Lately I have been giving a lot thought about our American system of "health care". I'm one of the many millions of Americans that live on prayer hoping that nothing serious happens to my health as I can simply not afford to go to the doctor or seek any medical treatment whatsoever. To many of my international friends it is perhaps laughable that we do not have universal access to education and health care in the great United States. Both of which are hallmarks of a modern society. Much like libraries, fire departments, running water, etc.

When I'm not performing or working on music I direct a small youth theatre program which focuses on HIV/AIDS education and prevention. S the organization has recently merged with a leading Brooklyn Hospital everyone is now being required to take a thorough physical which catalogs our biometrics. I couldn't help but sigh at the depressing irony that I will be working for a hospital which requires me to take a physical but does not provide health insurance, something that even HOME DEPOT (a leading American home improvement store) does for their part time employees. I kept thinking about how much money America spends to fight "terrorism", the "drug war", and many other programs aimed at destroying peoples lives... and how so many of my fellow citizens still see universal health care as somehow too expensive for the richest country on Earth. Of course by "richest" we mean only a small percentage of Americans. Most American's live paycheck to paycheck.

Many people close to me including my own Mother who works in Health Care is against providing health care for all of our citizens. Yet meanwhile my sister and my niece struggle and worry because as a elementary school teacher her job does not provide affordable health insurance for Dori, my niece (lovely picture included in slide show).



Yeah why is it that we as a nation accept the propaganda which saying that Education and Health Care are privileges which cannot be afforded to everyone. Wouldn't it be logical to equate a healthy and educated citizenry with a secure and prosperous nation? Instead we idolize the wealthy excess. War must be healthy for us, as we seem to really rely on it for the public sense of moral and physical well being. It seems that so many of my fellow citizens still cling to the belief that somehow providing health care and education as a basic foundation to every life is akin to a totalitarian state.

Is our War in it's current and recent manifestations more important than the health and education of our public? I don't believe in the RIGHT or LEFT political ideologies. I do think that they are merely well designed illusions meant to control people. I do wonder however how someone who subscribes to the "right wing" ideology could really be "pro-life" and not agree to provide the education and health care that will allow a person to raise a family with dignity.

I don't think it's so much a left wing liberal idea so much as a human idea. An idea that we are all human and as such share a common bond that connects us to a desire for happiness and joy in all of life's treasures. Surely if we can find the resources to kill and destroy humans we could find the resources to help, nurture, and truly promote human life. Well WAR must be healthy because in the current campaign for our next "president" the only well thought out arguments I hear are for or against war. I still have yet to hear a true plan to provide health care for all Americans. Don't be fooled neither of the current plans presented by the current "demon-cratic" candidates will provide us with Health care. Hillary says you will buy it or else... Barack says let's make it affordable. What's affordable! $600 per month? $400. I'm not an economist but I'm quite certain that most Americans cannot afford an additional $400 per month. McCain says you should basically go fuck yourself. So I have little faith that there will actually be a national health care system here.

All candidates however support dramatic increases in military spending with no qualms whatsoever. Yeah for them War keeps them Healthy.

In my journey through the Hip-Hop scene, and I have been on one trust me, I have been in awe of how little other Hip Hop heads know, care about, acknowledge, or even respect the art form of the beatbox. Now for obvious reasons I'm a little biased towards the element despite my life long love of Hip Hop as a culture, music, feeling, even spirit.

I can recall my first few years in New York as I would travel through our grimy subways beatboxing to myself feeling a spirit traveling through those tunnels. The spirit of a living entity, Hip Hop. You can feel it on the New York streets like a fresh to death poltergeist. Not a demon from some Hollywood record label but a living ghost. I would feel this spirit guiding my beats, my skills, my poetry. I was in awe that such a feeling even existed. Even in a crowded subway packed like water in an ocean, I was alone with this feeling of Hip Hop's spirit underneath the New York streets.

I was inspired by this feeling to take a craft I have loved since childhood, beatboxing, as far as I could take it... for some people this craft is dance, some rhyming, some DJing, for me it was beatboxing. So when I hear people, especially so-called Hip Hop heads continue to disrespect the art of beatbox by forgetting it, or pushing it to the side as a cool little trick of sorts I do take issue with it.

How could you cast aside an art-form as raw as making Hip Hop beats with your nothing but your mouth! And looking at what's being done with the art form. How could you continue to suggest that it's not an element of Hip Hop? I can't say that it surprises me though.

For Emcees and many Hip Hop headz for the most part seem to have lost something in their search for the perfect rhyme. The perfect performance. Seldom have I seen an Rapper bring to the stage what the other elements do... VERY SELDOM. I mean yeah you could spit knowledge, but can you bring a solo like Marvin Gaye or Prince. I have seen the footage of KRS rockin crowds back in the day. That was performance excellence! Today beatboxers are bringing that performance element back to the stages of Hip Hop, wowing audiences with skills, showmanship, raw talent, and crowd rockin ability. So why not show beatboxers a lot more respect when you see them. Why not acknowledge that beatboxers have something special that elevates Hip Hop. I mean think it over for a second... "we make beats with our body" no sound machines, just one MIC. No Lip Syncing. No Celebrity hype. No Bullshit. We simply rock crowds. Something I have to say is sorely lacking in many of these uninspired "musical" rap performances.

And for the mainstream commercial successes the beatboxing community is experiencing they have done just as I predicted they would. You can go back to my posts on years ago on beatboxing.com

As they push the artform to sell their products and hype their TV shows etc. What has the community overall benefited from it. It's a fair question is not? Don't get fooled by the allure of the mainstream success we are getting right now. Whatever you do in whatever you deal you make as a beatboxer, get yours. Cause the industry doesn't care about any 1 person. Just as they have saturated rap with their thoughts of what it should be, so they will do the same to the beatbox. Many people are not even Hip to what's going on in the Beatboxing community... there are more auditions in LA calling for beatboxers than ever before. My boy tells me all the time. Next week they will want a beatboxing giraffe with alligator testicles swinging from grape vine selling Tylenol. Don't believe the hype.

mic broken.

Sos [Misnomer(S) and Snow Jammin


I felt compelled to write about the event I conceived and co-directed with Eden Connelly for Project Reach Youth and a non-profit I have co-founded with Will Moore called Wrighterz Ink. First I want to say that I never wanted to be one of those artists that simply appeared at a benefit and said I support this or that cause. I have always wanted to actually do what I could to change the world for the better. To take a line from the performance "You can't change the world, but you can represent what change looks like" this is why I applaud people like Angelina Jolie and others, someone who actually goes to the places where humanity is crying for someone to just care and gives a piece of their heart.

In my previous blog I wrote about a project that I was working regarding HIV and AIDS in response to controversial post I wrote about beatboxing and oral sex. Well, I wanted to go more in depth about the project and it's background as we have just premiered it at one Brooklyn's (BED STUY) hottest venues Solomon's Porch Cafe. The evening was incredible and so was the work. The play Portraits in Life – Speaking Out Against the Silence says it all. Our culture which prides itself on "religious freedom" and "freedom of speech" is eerily silent when it comes to sex. This silence of the taboo subject of sex has led to a strange realm here in this country.

Our play is a documentary theatrical performance and visual arts presentation which followed the real life stories of 4 New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS and transformed their stories into dramatic presentations. Acclaimed visual artist Michael Newton led the group of Brooklyn teenagers to create a gallery of portraits of our the four people's stories.

The teenagers are now embarking on a journey to take their presentation throughout Brooklyn. Brooklyn is the epicenter of the HIV AIDS within the United States. The statistics of our young teens becoming infected with HIV is staggering. In some neighborhoods 1 out of 3 teenage girls has contracted HIV. A disease which is spreading through a lack of information, through silence on issues regarding sex is effectively wiping out an entire generation.

To say wear a condom is simply not enough. It's as if that is all that needs to be known about sex and it simply not true. A person needs to know how to use a condom properly, or perhaps young women could be taught about the female condom. Empowering women. By talking candidly about sex, oral, anal, vaginal, hetero, bi-sexual, whatever we create a culture where it's the discussion is a normality and not something reserved to pornography, Hollywood, or advertisements. A community of artists I would have hoped would be progressive on the issue of sexual dialog.

I am a hopeful person.

Our event focused on the Hip Hop community particularly… as much as Hip Hop has been sexualized there appears to be a distortion of facts about aids within the Hip Hop community. During a our panel discussion we had an empowering dialog from with Hasan Salaam (Hip Hop Artist)and Sos (Hip Hop Violinist, Alicia Keys/Jay-Z/Kanye West), Winifred Maitre (Program Coordinator from CBAPP) Osvaldo and Annette two of our four subjects for the documentary play. We had special performances from Sos and myself a clip of which is here on the video… with other performances by Hasan Salaam, G, Eden Connelly, and poetry performances from Project Reach Youth STAGE CREW. An overall incredible evening and the start of a street campaign we hope will change the discussion of sex from the bedroom to the block. Saving lives along the way.

OK a quick update... Dragonfly is now 1 but I need your help to not only stay there but to make it to the FINALS!

OK friendz and fanz I need your help! Apparently dragonfly has become popular outside of myspace. There is a music promotion website called www.Ourstage.com in partnership with aol/music which has a chart based on fans listening and is really designed to help indie artists etc. I was unaware until now that dragonfly was ranked 3 in the USA and 5 Globally in the Experimental Charts during the month of February and is currently ranked 6 Globally.

It's a small favor to ask but it appears that the industry is seriously looking at the indie artists on this site and competition is becoming serious and intense. Ourstage is partnered with AOL/music which through it's internet music division has nearly 20 million listeners each month and it's a huge promotional step for the music because this means that AOL Music will serve as the distribution vehicle for top artists on Ourstage. Again Dragonfly is NUMBER 3 in the USA for February and is currently NUMBER 6 on the USA Charts for the month of March which is still in progress. I need your help to get to NUMBER 1 in the USA! There has already been great things to come of it thus far as dragonfly has been selected to be used for an upcoming on demand fitness channel... It has really helped me already. But I need my myspace family to help push dragonfly to number 1! I know with your help this can be accomplished. So I'm humbly requesting your help to make DRAGONFY number 1 on www.Ourstage.com

Dragonfly is already 1 in the Northeast Region and New York local charts on this site which really made me happy: I feel as if the hard work on the music is finally beginning to pay off. My friends on myspace make this possible and I'm forever grateful. Soon hopefully I can celebrate by going on a little tour to see YOU!!!

I'm asking for your help because if you go to the website and help push Dragonfly to 1, unlike myspace, we actually receive help to further ourselves. Don't get me wrong myspace is great but unless you have millions and millions of views and tens of thousands of friends you cannot get promotion from myspace... the other way to get promotion from myspace is to know someone who works at myspace and I have neither so I could really use your help with this AOL Music site!



Love and Revolution,
Chesney





here is a link to the USA charts for Feb. 2008

Lately I have been thinking hard about what really matters in our lives. What do we really care about. The first thing that came to mind of course was our family. Our wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters and the like. Perhaps ourselves, our country, our schools, our favorite sports teams or movie star. Maybe a musician might make the list.

Of all of the things we care about with so much fervor and intensity I can't help but wonder why so many Americans don't care about thier own safety, freedom, and dignity of thier families. Bankers and corporations have become so emboldened with the disconnect and seemingly stupidity of the American populace that they have basically begun to deconstruct the United States of America and its promise, laws, and constitution for their monopoly on control and power..

As an artist it's difficult to speak out I know. Artists are perhaps the most difficult element for the system to control. The main purpose of art is to communicate the human condition in all of it's beauty, pain, love, war. The entire spectrum of life is communicated through art which in turn makes people think and feel encouraging interaction with other people. I'll give a classic example. When a man and a woman dance or make love music guides them in emotion and rhythym. Since art forces people to think it is necessary for those whose "sanity" depends on the complete control and enslavement of humanity to control the medium through which art has the opportunity to communicate.

It would be naive to think that there not people who believe in slavery. We have many people who practice various forms of slavery today. Slaves make many of the products which Americans buy. Americans do not want to believe this of course and we for the most part sit idle on our cellulite complaining about our fellow citizens and elected 'officials'.

I always laugh to myself when I see Americans on the train or walking down the street with this vibe saying "I'm hard." The rich (not weatlthy) white man in his Escalade with his sense of importance and power. The poor brown kid with his Scarface T-Shirt on. Both are are about as hard as wet toilet paper because when it comes to their rights or intellect both take for granted whats told to them by puppets trained to pacify and control them.

In fact, as a former youth development worker I know for a fact that institutions purposefully dumb down the youth and use them merely as pictures as a means to cover up their true  and often diabolical practices. They do not wish to truly educate or empower our children. They merely use them as illusions.

Anyway after thinking long and hard about all of the things I wrote about here (and more) I came to the conclusion that Americans are accepting the destruction of their freedoms, the stripping of their economic security, and the poisoning of their families through drugs, environmental degradation, food etc not because they are stupid or completely brainwashed but instead because we have become cowards. We have wrapped ourselves in a false sense of security. Especially the so-called rich. They are the most disappointing in my opinion. They feel they have so much to lose as they tell me, but how is that anymore than a 15 year old kid in Baghdad.

When I see a US soldier laughing hysterically and satanically at the beating of Iraqi children I don't think they are honorable or brave to be honest. I think it's a form of cowardice. It's very easy to shoot at  people who are poor and without weapons.

I don't want to ramble as I have a habit of doing but... I just find it so ironic that the people in the home of the brave are so scared. Scared of terrorism, of being labeled unpatriotic, etc. Don't get me wrong we have some brave souls who speak out and refuse to accept what is being offered to us as America. Even some in military uniform. But overall I wish American would stop being cowards and stand up and defend our country from real terrorists. Terrorists who are tearing the constitution to shreds, terrorists who are consolidating media power, terrorists who shoot Americans on the streets of New York City and hide behind the Police Department state logos, the terrorists who actually torture humans, the terrorists that poison our food with toxic cancer causing chemicals for profit. When Americans stands up to fight these terrorists then we can be called the HOME OF THE BRAVE.

Chesney Snow

Beatboxing featured in videos below....






Sos and Chesney rockin a lil something
..

Chesney beatboxing with the Stone Forest Ensemble
Live @ The Nuyorican Poetry Cafe play at high volume preferrably in a residential area)

        
4 LEBANON

       
A Word From President John F. Kennedy


----------------------------------------------------------------------
my beatbox biographical video below



droppin the beatbox as Kayah shakes it

 
TELL THE TRUTH
TELL THE TRUTH - Mos Def - Immortal Technique - Eminem

Add to My Profile |   More Videos

Freedom & Democracy




Break a Mic
Jie Song is fire on the Electric Violin
Myself on the beatbox
.. width="250" height="300">..>

       



below is a small clip of Stone Forest Ensemble
funkin around



Stone Forest Ensemble lights up the crowd @ M1-5 NYC


below you will find some of my favorite little films
starting with this cute
one from 1946 ENJOY and recognize



another lil film

       

MTV Unplugged with Kayah is recieving glowing reviews by Polish media. It was the first time that Beatboxing was featured on the reknown MTV series.  My thanks to MTV for the glowing review. My experience there was one of a lifetime and I'm grateful for all the friends I met, the wonderfully talented and amazing artists as well as all the beautiful fans. I can't wait to come back and rock more with you. Be sure to buy the DVD and support Polish Artists. As we say in NYC break a mic!!! And to the young blind girl who sang her heart out I love You.