Athens Hip Hop Harmonic

The Athens Hip Hop Harmonic was a collaborative initiative between Athens hip-hop artists and faculty and students in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, co-founded and directed by Connie Frigo and Montu Miller and supported in part by the UGA Arts Lab Cluster. Hodgson School composers and musicians partnered with local rappers, singers, and poets to create new musical works that were recorded and performed for audiences bridging the university and the community. A series of events was held in Athens venues including public parks and schools, churches, Hodgson Concert Hall, the East Athens Community Center, Ciné, and the 40 Watt Club.

The project advanced what the National Endowment for the Arts refers to as “creative placemaking,” the deliberate integration of arts and culture to support local efforts to enhance quality of life, increase creative activity and foster a distinct sense of place. UGA has launched several such projects in recent years, including a Mellon Foundation-funded collaboration with St. Helena, South Carolina’s Penn Center, following the institution’s hosting in 2018 of the national conference of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, which focused on the relationship between creativity and diverse cultural locations.

The Athens Hip Hop Harmonic was supported from 2021-2024 by a three-year, limited-term lectureship housed in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music.

 

[Right] Connie Frigo, associate professor of saxophone in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. [Below] Sitting, L-R: Emily Koh, Montu Miller, Mariah Parker, Kxng Blanco, Squalle; Standing, L-R: Peter Lane, Ishues, Caulfield, Cindi Johnston-Turner, Adrian Childs, Motorhead2x.