The PeaceOUT (World) Homo Hop Festival was an annual festival of hip hop music and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

created by

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Gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

Bisexual Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...

, and

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(

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) people from 2001 to 2007. The main festival took place in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, although sibling festivals were also held in

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and

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."PeaceOut festival brings homo-hop to the world"
''

Bay Area Reporter The ''Bay Area Reporter'' is a free weekly newspaper serving the LGBT communities in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the largest-circulation LGBT newspapers in the United States, and the country's oldest continuously published newspaper ...

'', September 20, 2007.

History

The festival was first held in August 2001 (and was known as "Cypher") as a part of the East Bay (Oakland) LGBT Pride, following the suggestion of East Bay (Oakland) Pride organizer Pete King. Though King was not a fan of hip hop music or culture, he was familiar with the numerous out queer hip hop artists performing in the San Francisco Bay Area and felt the growing scene was an important component of the LGBT arts community. In June 2001, King approached

Juba Kalamka Juba Kalamka (born July 12, 1970) is an African American bisexual artist and activist recognized for his work and founding member of homohop group Deep Dickollective (D/DC) and his development of the micro-label sugartruck recordings. Kalamka ...

of the group

Deep Dickollective Deep Dickollective (D/DC) was an LGBT hip hop group based in Oakland, California that were active in the homo hop scene of openly queer/LGBT artists during the 2000s. They were regular performers at the PeaceOUT World Homo Hop Festival curated ...

about his ideas (including naming the event "PeaceOUT") and inquired as to the possibility of organizing the event. Though at first reticent as a result of what he viewed as racial and class antagonism toward hip hop at mainstream pride events, Kalamka eventually relented, which led to the organization of "Cypher 2000:One" by his Deep Dickollective bandmate

Tim'm West Timothy Terrell West (born July 6, 1972), better known as Tim'm T. West, is an American educator and multi-discipline performance artist, author, hip hop recording artist, poet, activist, and youth advocate.Wilson, D. Mark. "Post-pomo hip-hop homo ...

and London-based DJ Christopher "Mister Maker" Harvey, who founded the Gayhiphop.com website in 2000. The success of the event led to plans to create a larger scale event in 2002. East Bay Pride sponsored the event until its own dissolution after PeaceOUT 2003, at which time main financial sponsorship and organization was coordinated by Kalamka's micro-label Sugartruck Recordings and Matt Wobensmith of the zine and record label

Outpunk Outpunk enjoys the distinction of being the first record label entirely devoted to queer punk bands. The label was run out of San Francisco and began as an extension of Matt Wobensmith's fanzine, ''Outpunk''. ''Outpunk'' ran for seven issues, from ...

and later the Queercorps imprint. Among the performers who appeared at the festival were

, Katastrophe, Tori Fixx,

God-des and She God-Des and She are an American hip-hop/pop/soul duo from the Midwest, composed of Alicia Smith (God-des) and Tina Gassen (She). Since they appeared on the Showtime hit series The L Word in 2006, they have sold more than 30,000 albums and toured ...

Deadlee Joseph Thomas Lee, better known by his stage name Deadlee, is an American rapper and songwriter. He is based in Los Angeles, California, is of Mexican American and African American descent, and launched his career in 2000. In 2002, he released hi ...

, Jen-Ro, Jaycub Perez,

Cazwell Luke Caswell, known mononomously as Cazwell, is an American rapper, record producer and songwriter. He has released the three studio albums '' Get Into It'' in 2006, '' Watch My Mouth'' in 2009 and ''Hard 2 B Fresh'' in 2014, along with videos an ...

and soce, the elemental wizard."They're here, they're queer and they homohop. Gay and lesbian artists, long rejected by mainstream rappers, are stretching the genre's boundaries."
''

SFGate The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The p ...

'', September 10, 2003. Numerous performances from the festival are featured in the documentary film ''

Pick Up the Mic ''Pick Up the Mic'' is a documentary film, released in 2006, which profiles the underground homo hop scene, which is a subgenre of hip hop that includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender artists. The film was directed by Alex Hinton. The d ...

'', which premiered at the

2005 Toronto International Film Festival The 30th Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 8–17 and screened 335 films from 52 countries - 109 of these films were world premieres, and 78 were North American premieres. Awards At the Festival's closing event, the following ...

on September 11, 2005. Despite initial plans to continue with PeaceOUT as a biannual event following the 2007 festival, Kalamka decided to close the event permanently in July 2008. The official website is currently maintained as a permanent historical archive of the festival.

References

Festivals in the San Francisco Bay Area LGBT hip hop LGBT events in California LGBT music festivals Music festivals in California Music of the San Francisco Bay Area Culture of Oakland, California Music festivals established in 2001 Recurring events disestablished in 2007 2001 establishments in the United States African-American festivals Hip hop music festivals in the United States LGBT festivals in the United States {{LGBT-event-stub