It was 9 p.m. on a Saturday and my French friend Louisiane and I were sitting on the warm concrete lining by the Seine river waiting for the email that would finally disclose the night’s rave location. It was set to start in three hours.

Around two dozen of arguably the best French producers were in store for us. It was the inaugural event of a new Paris-based DIY party series. These types of events, though they happen worldwide, are not easy to find. In attempts to evade police and to avoid going through the complex process of obtaining permits to run a party, DIY organizers in Paris typically have a private arrangement with a warehouse owner on the outskirts of town, where they pay under-the-table to rent the lot, bring their own sound equipment, and hold the party under the radar.

But earlier that day the promoters announced on the event’s Facebook page that unfortunately, due to unidentified circumstances, the original venue had fallen through, and they were working to find a suitable replacement.

I wasn’t convinced. For a crowd as big as was expected that night, I doubted there’d be a sizeable option available on such short notice, especially without a proper permit. And what if the rent cost was far out of their budget? Not to mention the bathrooms? A bar? Coat check? And most importantly — lighting, a proper sound system? These things require serious consideration and planning even if you’ve got the staff willing and ready.

About one and a half hours before the expected start of the event, we got the location. It was in Le Blanc-Mesnil, a suburb an hour from central Paris.

We ran to the apartment, changed our shoes, and scrambled to the metro before it stopped running for the night.

Three different trains later, we had ridden public transport to its end out of Paris. We were still 20 minutes from the venue. On the street outside, teenagers dressed in multi-colored jeans, crop tops, and oversized jackets stood around lost. We knew we were heading to the same place and joined a group to split a cab.

Pulling into a dark street, we heard the bass shaking the world from a mile away. We had arrived at the venue.

“What are you here for?” the driver asked, curious.

“Une soirée techno,” we said, “wanna come?”

Over 1,500 people had shown up. And to our great surprise, the party did have bathrooms and, albeit, a makeshift bar, and even a coat check, as well as lighting and a proper sound system.

This story is one of a string of my Paris rave experiences last summer, where I spent more than one night in that very same warehouse. Beyond being extremely cathartic, dancing for up to 12 hours straight carries more meaning.

The DIY scene is an interminable emblem of freedom to marginalized communities around the world. In Brooklyn, for instance, a unique collective of people operates within a familial-like social circle unbeknown to outsiders, raving at nearly every underground party together. These friends connect with, depend on, and support one another in myriad ways: be they physical, emotional, financial or otherwise. And while they have their differences, what unites them with a bond as strong as blood is an open mind and an undying love of music. Implicit and understood at each rave is the underlying, unwavering, and unconditional acceptance of the other. It’s a safe space to unwind and unleash the most raw, authentic, and unashamed version of yourself. Inherent in each illegal party is a defiance of the establishment, a disregard for the rules; it’s a place without boundaries. Among these ravers is a space that, beating society’s attempts at suppression, continues to exist and even thrive, much like those in it. Ravers relish in that knowledge, and feel empowered by that freedom.

Why is there so much freedom abroad when it comes to organizing and maintaining DIY parties while back home, New Yorkers struggle to keep a party of 50 afloat without getting it shut down?

In France, “organized raves,” as they are called, can get away with being illegal, co-founder of international artist collective RAW Valentin Morize revealed.

He explained that promoters find warehouse owners that are eager to make money off their venue and set up a contract. The night of the party, the organizers inform local law enforcement about their “private event,” which, with under 500 people in attendance, is completely legal. Organizers also ensure that these venues are in an industrial zone away from residential areas to avoid noise complaints. If the police do show up, organizers not only have a rent contract to show for, but also event insurance, which can be purchased annually, that prohibits the police from entering the venue. The police can’t prove there are over 500 people inside, and they know that ravers can’t get back to the city from the suburbs after the trains have stopped running anyway. So they’re usually left alone. Thus, organized raves are technically legal if certain conditions are met — under false pretenses, of course.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers not only lack venue availability, but also struggle to meet rent costs and what seems like a never-ending list of permit prerequisites.

“It’s that way on purpose so as to discourage amateurs and small operators from doing anything of the sort,” NYC-based DIY organizer Seva Granik said.

In New York, events held in spaces not already geared toward large assemblies of people are known as “off-premise events.” These may include warehouses or temporary structures like tents. Events with over 75 people inside, or 200 outside, require two separate permits: a liquor license and a Temporary Place of Assembly (TPA) certificate of operation, both of whose applications together can cost upwards of thousands of dollars to file.

The liquor license is issued by the State Liquor Authority only if you already have a TPA, and must be approved by the police precinct of the event area.

You must apply for a TPA earlier than 10 days before an event, city policy states. To qualify, the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) requires not only the landlord’s signature, but an application request from a either a N.Y.-licensed architect or a licensed engineer. All temporary structures, such as platforms and stages, must be certified as meeting the code requirements of the design prior, and be accompanied by technical reports signed by a design professional who takes responsibility for the work to be performed, according to DOB policy. A separate work permit is also required for some cases with its own stipulations, including at least three different types of insurance: workers’ compensation, fire code safety (with eight stipulations of its own), and compliance with Disabilities Benefits Law. It must also comply with the 13 stipulations of the NYC Building Code, such as occupant load, emergency flood lighting, proper widths and exit paths, and sanitary requirements.

After the application process, DOB and FDNY each send an inspector to verify that all the requirements have been met. And only once they have both agreed, the TPA is approved — usually the day before, according to Granik, or sometimes not until the day of an event.

“Typically only well-oiled and well-budgeted productions, like fashion shows or after-events or giant parties like TekSupport or Cityfox, can really pull this off,” Granik explained, referring to commercial techno events run in Brooklyn.

And as far as noise ordinance goes, if the event is within a residential area, any complaints are filed will be considered valid to shut down a party even if all of the above criteria are met.

After all of that, almost no one on a low budget would think it’s worth the legal trouble. And even if they did, given the lack of rural space in New York compared to other successful underground scenes like Paris, fielding noise complaints is difficult. But despite the complexities and challenges of organizing raves in places like New York, DIY parties remain critical to the communities they serve. That’s why they are still going strong—even if quietly. For now, supporters can only hope that someday, the DIY scene in New York will gather enough resources to be completely off the radar, without risk of getting shut down each time. For now, as Granik put it, Paris remains the ultimate “underground wonderland.”

However, how long can Paris remain the “underground wonderland”? In October of 2019, the French Senate approved a bill that aims to increase rave regulations. The law would require organizers to notify the local mayor’s office one month in advance of an event with 500 or fewer people, it would adjust permitted noise levels, increase fines, and would permit search and seizure by the police. The bill will go to the National Assembly next for a final vote.

Edited by Demi Vitkute.

The post Why Paris is the “Underground Wonderland” of Raves and New York is Not appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

I always resented contemporary art. I thought it didn’t qualify as “real” art. I dismissed the abstract as something that “artists” made up out of boredom or desperation to be creative. Yet it seemed like the whole world claimed such things were supposed to be extremely evocative.

I never understood the appeal of immersive experiences either. Not until I began going out to techno events and was confronted by the overpowering combination of experimental sound at overbearing decibels and dizzying patterns of intrusive lights that  had a way of possessing my body, my senses and my mind in a way that I soon came to crave and worship.

Techno was definitely evocative, and admittedly, it was definitely art. So my notions of what art was and could be radically shifted. Anything was possible, I guessed. I wanted to have an open mind.

I took myself to the Atelier des Lumières in Paris. It was said to be a mecca of stimulative, immersive installations. I got there early. Inside was a dark, rectangular halle. It was made entirely of cement, like a bunker. There was no place to sit. It was cold and still like a tomb, and the darkness began to feel like a physical force pressing against me.  I sat on the ground. Without warning, a high pitch screeched on the speakers. The show began. Thin white blades of light zipped across the room like swords from one end to the other. They morphed into broken geometric patterns flitting about the walls. The noise grew uncomfortably loud, suddenly going quiet with the onset of a drum. The room went dark. Then–projections of distorted white shapes exploded on the ground, on top of me, on every wall. They shifted rhythmically with the drum beat. Then going dark. Then getting bright. One beam of light swooped across the bunker, dissipating the shapes. Flashes and sounds continued for 10-15 minutes. My head spun; my vision blurred.

I forgot where I was. I forgot I was sitting. I felt as drained from awe as I am each morning after a night at a techno event. I felt that same feeling as when I dance in the dark, forgetting which way is up or down, left or right, where neither time nor space matter but tumbling, tumbling in the thrilling tumult of the world being breathed into life before me.

The five-minute light show felt like a lifetime because of its assault on my senses: I was sucked into another universe, where concepts like time and space didn’t exist.

The medium is the message. The nearly tangible blackness of the halle granted the illusion of infinite space. As shapes and sounds bent out of order, so, too, did my notions of reality. I felt like I was falling and floating in place. As my eyes darted across the room, never landing on the same pattern twice, I felt I had traversed hundreds of galaxies, hundreds of dimensions. The exhilarating journey fostered in me doubt–and hope–that a world like this could exist.

Since then, I tend to seek out contemporary art even more than traditional art because interactive experience holds a commanding grip of the senses like paint on canvas cannot.

The post Techno Music Led Me to Modern Art appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

In a busy bar in Hell’s Kitchen, I meet Christian Voldstad for the first time. After brief introductions and drinks, we get down to business.

The Bespoke Musik Label resident is no newcomer to the scene. After signing on with Bespoke in 2015, the London-born, New York-based DJ has since become a regular not only in the local New York scene, but also at a desert-based festival known as Burning Man, that annually draws thousands of people. Voldstad has also performed abroad in places like Russia, Belgium and even Norway.

Voldstad’s sound is sometimes ambient, other times more dancefloor-oriented, but always melodic. After a lot of practice, thanks to countless opening sets, Voldstad is able to pick up on the mood of a crowd and adjust his style accordingly.

“That’s just part of being a DJ: being versatile enough to deal with different situations,” Voldstad says.

Voldstad plays for Bespoke parties almost every month, contributing his instrumental-based work to the label’s collective sound. Bespoke’s specialty is deep house.

How well does the New York scene accommodate deep house?

It all depends on the party, according to Voldstad. When Output in Williamsburg opens its rooftop for the summer, music switches from the typically hard-hitting techno to softer terrace vibes. Other venues, like The Brooklyn Mirage, host a diverse roster of labels, such as All Day I Dream and Afterlife, out in the open as well. And places like Louie and Chan in Manhattan and party series “Ebb + Flow” are breeding grounds for deep house artists in NYC.

What does Voldstad love most about DJing?

“I just enjoy the actual technique of mixing tracks together. When you’re mixing two tracks together and you get it right, it’s kind of like a jigsaw puzzle…and a lot of the time they’re not made to fit together, so you kind of click it in. On a macro scale, that happens the entire set…I enjoy the challenge. The object is to try to get the crowd to react.”

The musician also dabbles in non-profit work. He hosted a party in LA that raised over $1,000 for an organization, called Education Through Music, which provides schools without a music program with music teachers and instruments.

Voldstad holds several degrees in marketing and has worked in that field before becoming a full-time DJ. Even now, he still continues doing some freelance marketing for event production companies and record labels.

“It was pretty much the Bespoke thing that really pushed things forward, ‘cause it provided consistent bookings, and once you start playing consistently, people are like, ‘Oh, I like his music,’ and ‘I wanna book him for this’,” Voldstad explains.

An effective way of distributing sound is recording sets and uploading them to online platforms like SoundCloud. Voldstad’s commitment to uploading sets has helped circulate his work and his background in analytics helps him track viewership and target his goals accordingly–scoring more bookings as a result. “There are some DJS that are really, really good, but you never see any of their music online,” he says.

Voldstad’s recent projects include a newly-launched monthly radio show called Elysium, featured on the “Deep” channel of online electronic music-based Frisky Radio. Elysium features 2-hour sets every other month.

Listen to Voldstad’s tunes on SoundCloud.

The post DJ Christian Voldstad on Versatility and the Deep House Scene In NYC appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

The first weekend of May, thousands flocked to a massive, white enclosed tent on Randall’s Island to visit one of the largest art exhibits of the year: Frieze New York.

Holding two Guinness World Records for size and this year—home to over 190 galleries from 30 countries—Frieze’s international three-day art fair has, once more, proven to be the premiere art fair.

Visitors had the option to either arrive by ferry—a scenic 30-minute ride along the East River—or via ground transport. There were spacious, grassy grounds, and the looming tent itself, featuring galleries, talks, live performances, and even restaurants.

The entire presentation was divided into smaller clusters of galleries. Though each day drew thousands of visitors, it did not feel crowded because of how large the tent was. There was time and space to examine each artwork individually. Gallery representatives stood amidst each exhibit, ready to answer any questions and sell. Visitors were given a chance to learn much more about their favorite art pieces than they would have been able to in a regular museum.

“Frieze New York offers the opportunity to encounter an exceptional quality and range of artwork, featuring the world’s most exciting emerging talents together with iconic names in modern and contemporary art,” Frieze.com reads. “Independent curators have specially advised on sections Frame and Spotlight to encourage discovery and connoisseurship.”

Each section had drink and food vendors, as well as seating for maximum comfort. There was no time limit on how long to spend at the exhibit, so visitors could spend all day eating, relaxing, and taking in art. For those feeling fancy, even champagne was available for purchase. Frieze also featured a Reading Room, where visitors could buy a curated selection of arts and culture publications.

Art varied from surrealist paintings to contemporary photographs to mixed-media pieces.

Galleries are required to apply each year in order to be selected to participate. The selection is determined by a committee of gallerists. The fair gives three awards recognizing the best presentations each year. The Frame Prize and two Frieze Stand Prizes.

This year, The Mumbai-based gallery Jhaveri Contemporary and Nuno Centeno from Porto, Portugal, have won the Frieze Stand Prize and Focus Prize respectively for their presentations at Frieze New York. Each gallery receives $7,500. The Frame prize, for emerging galleries, was awarded to Toronto’s Cooper Cole Gallery, who showed the work of Tau Lewis.

Representatives of each gallery fly from all over the world yearly just for Frieze. To name a few, participating gallery locations this year included Hong Kong, Cape Town and Mumbai. Frieze is not the only destination for art galleries, however. One gallery, Massimo de Carlo of Italy, revealed it participates in up to 10 shows a year, successfully making sales at each.

Frieze New York was a refreshing blend of formal and casual, educational and self-explanatory. People of all ages and incomes attend, whether they are there to merely observe or to purchase. The art fair offers all a chance to admire some of the highest-quality art in the world.

The post Looking Back at Frieze New York 2018: The Hit of the Year, Again appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

Bryan Fein led me up the stairs of the office building. The halls were lined with glass offices and red brick walls that offered a modern rustic vibe. I plopped onto the couch, and he sat on the chair next to me.

From watching his social media stories, I knew Fein didn’t get much sleep: between working out and working on his upcoming album, there was hardly a day or a night when Fein wasn’t hustling. But now he was leaning forward attentively, hands clasped, ready.

Fein began telling his story. He grew up in Manhattan, and was fully immersed in music from a young age, whether he was  attending classic rock-and-roll concerts with his father to see legends, like the Rolling Stones and AC/DC, or with his mom listening to classical music at home. Fein attended Turtle Bay Music School as a teenager, learning piano and guitar. He was advised in his growing interest in electronic music by his martial arts instructor, who was himself a DJ, and would later become Fein’s mentor.

“I was taking taekwondo at the time. That explains my figure,” the 26-year-old joked. His instructor played old house music during their training sessions. “It resonated well with me,” Fein said.

Curious to start mixing, Fein downloaded a DJ software to mix tacks from the likes of Benny Benassi and the Ministry of Sound label. “I thought I was awesome at it. I sent my mixes to all of my friends and got some good feedback. In high school, I started djing karaoke parties and small loft parties my friends rented out,” he said.

Fein was all about house music. He started going to clubs in the Meatpacking District, wanting to DJ more seriously. Around 2010, mainstream artists, like David Guetta and Avicii, made house music more popular, which gave Fein the perfect niche to break into. Fein’s mentor—the martial arts instructor—let him play opening and closing sets at places, such as Ajna Bar, Veranda, and the Hudson Terrace, allowing him to perfect his craft in mixing while reading the energy of the crowd.

Still, Fein yearned for more—producing. He started dabbling in Ableton Live, a production software, learning to create electronic music. “The first year, I was the most discouraged person on the face of the planet just because I didn’t know how to do anything. It was just opening my laptop, turning on the software, and closing my laptop for a year,” he said.

But Fein kept going. He began producing simple beats, influenced by the tribal sounds of Roger Sanchez or Dennis Ferrer, and adding his own “electronic flavor,” looking to the styles of masters Deadmau5 and Eric Prydz.

In 2013, Fein attended a renown music festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, where seeing Mark Knight live brought Fein into the world of techno for the first time. Since then, Fein has been  obsessed with tech house, deep house, and techno.

Fein released his first album on Soundcloud in 2016. It garnered international attention from Italian label Elektrobeats Records, for which Fein released some widely successful remixes, including “Come With Me” in 2017, which hit #1 on Traxsource’s Top 100.

In 2017, Fein co-founded the party series Origins Underground with high school classmate Dylan Farrugia (otherwise known as Dysco). The idea behind the series was simple: to bring underground techno back to Manhattan. These parties happen once every month.

Fein explains that techno is in right now, but the scene in New York City isn’t doing well. EDM peaked and fell off in 2014, leaving a hole where electronic music should be. “The scene is really strong in Brooklyn, and we want to bring some of that flavor to the city. Not everyone has the privilege to commute to Brooklyn for an event.”

As far as new music from Mafia B—Fein’s upcoming 12-track album explores progressive house and techno while showcasing melodic motifs and underground vibes. One track will be released every month.

As a die-hard techno fan, I am always burning to know what DJs think of the genre. While I know my answer, I closed with—what sets techno apart from other genres?

“Community. Everyone’s like, ‘Hey, you want to DJ at my party?’ No one is there for the money. If you’re trying to get your name out there…everyone is helping each other. Techno is for people who are open-minded.”

Catch Mafia B’s latest tunes here: https://soundcloud.com/mafiab

The post Bryan Fein Is Bringing Electronic Music Back to Manhattan appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

It’s a Sunday morning, and Vishaal Turakhia is in his Brookfield Place office running numbers. Investment bankers don’t sleep. Neither do DJs. Turakhia is both.

On late nights after work, the 33-year-old can be found in his downtown apartment mixing techno “experiments” for his Soundcloud, a project which he describes as a “psychoacoustical experimentation with dark, industrial, and melancholy waveforms.”

“No matter how bad the day is, no matter how hard work gets, I can go home to that and I’m in a whole other universe,” he says.

Turakhia first started experimenting with electronic music as a teenager in his native India. He spent summers in Goa, whose coastline stretches along the Arabian sea. Places such as Anjuna Beach were meccas for electronic music, especially subgenres like psytrance (also known as “Goa trance”), characterized by fast-paced bass, leads, and twisted, synthetic sounds.

“Goa is where the ‘hippy’ movement began. On the beaches is where people experimented with psychedelics openly. So you went from the “jam band” era to an electronic-enabled style of music. Goa was to India, what Woodstock was to New York,” explains Turakhia, who goes by the stage name CYP450.

Law enforcement didn’t try to stop these activities, which allowed the music scene in Goa to flourish. Turakhia began experimenting on Technics equipment, spinning with vinyl records, the old-fashioned way. Gradually, he transitioned to the DJ-favorite Pioneer multi player, also known as a CDJ, which is compatible with USBs, SD cards, and other modern DJ software.

What sets psytrance apart from other subgenres of electronic music, Turakhia explains, is its many layers.

“A wall of sound envelopes and takes you on a journey, starting with rhythmic bass or percussion, and gradually layering other elements to tell a story. This makes it less repetitious and more technically complex than techno.”  

Turakhia moved to New York in 2007 to pursue a degree in finance at Ithaca College. On the weekends, Turakhia would commute to the city to network. One night out, he met an organizer of the promoter group Psycheground Luis Campos, and, being equally as interested in the music world, took up the offer to play psytrance gigs at iconic clubs like Exit in Greenpoint and Sullivan Room in the Village.

Apart from Goa’s melancholic sound, Turakhia looked to old-school rock classics like Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones for groove which he translated into electronic music that he characterizes as “deep, melancholy melodies.”

Today, the electronic music scene in New York looks a lot different. Turakhia has since transitioned from mixing psytrance to other subgenres of electronic music, including techno, one of the city’s current favorites.

You can catch CYP450’s latest tunes here: https://soundcloud.com/cyp450

The post Meet Vishaal Turakhia: DJ & Investment Banker appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

It’s January 13, the night of my first party of the new year in New York. I open my eyes. The DJ duo Mind Against come into focus. Their dark outlines move masterfully beneath the strobe lights, fingers taking turns twisting knobs on the deck. Twist—the bass disappears. Twist—percussion enters. I can feel the heat emanating from the bodies around me, moving as one in the darkness. Then I hear the far-off twinkle of the melody of their latest released track. The one we all know and love and came for. I yell in happiness and turn to my friend. He hears it, too. We both grin at one another as “Days Gone” starts to play. A journey awaits. Everyone goes wild, pounding fists and feet to the epic synths as they grow louder. This is the moment we have all been waiting for. The duo raise their hands in satisfaction, one throws back his head, and the track speaks for itself. This is the moment they have been waiting for, too.

This is just one of countless incomparable live techno music experiences I continue to gather and be fascinated by. I first came to realize the power of this music when a friend went to Movement, an electronic music festival that takes place every year in Detroit. I was addicted to watching the videos he shared of secret after-hour parties. Hearing the fast-paced, hypnotic music so full of raw, unsubdued energy filled my body with a rhythmic strength that I couldn’t shake for days.

A few months later, I went abroad. By completely coincidental circumstance, I ended up at one such party in a warehouse in Prague. I set aside everything for the night and surrendered myself to the music. It’s been a love affair with techno ever since.

The quick beat that characterizes electronic dance music is a powerful and addicting motivator, especially when heard live. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson said, “Music has always been a matter of Energy to me…Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel.” The exchange and reception of (positive) energy is central to the techno scene.

Nothing unites people quite like knowing that no matter who they are or where they come from, something that is so special to them is equally as special to thousands of others in the moment. Being emotionally connected to the music connects people to its atmosphere, including everyone in it. This intimate feeling of unity is especially profound for those that may struggle with connecting with others.

Daniel Levitin, author of “This Is Your Brain on Music,” discovered that our bodies physically respond to music by releasing feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. We rely on music for emotional regulation because it influences our moods.

Techno, a subgenre of electronic dance music, originated in the heart of Detroit, Michigan, during the 1980s. It arose from a blend of African American soul and synthesizer-made music, and migrated first from DJs’ basements to gay clubs. Science fiction lent itself as inspiration for early artists’ futuristic techno sound. Following the Great Depression, they envisioned, through their music, a transformed society. After the techno wave in Detroit, it was picked up by the Germans in Berlin and popularized in Europe. Today, techno is an even bigger part of the European lifestyle than in the U.S.

Techno and other electronic dance music lovers term the party scene as “raving.” This term varies in meaning, from dressing up in colorful clothing for a festival to just going to a techno club, but usually means being out for an entire night of committed dancing and enjoyment.

In the U.S., the techno scene is most prominent in the Big Apple. Other cities like Los Angeles and Detroit remain key players as well, but what sets New York apart is its massive population, providing diverse but consistent demand for electronic music, as well as its access to dozens of techno-qualifying venues with proper sound systems, active promoters, and their ability to afford hosting big-name DJs from around the world.

As with anything, it is possible to take raving too far. That is, one prevalent aspect of the techno party scene is substance abuse, which enhances the experience of music in the brain. This comes from the search for a transcendent experience. One particularly common drug, MDMA, also known as molly, targets and increases the level of chemicals in the brain responsible for happiness. Nonetheless, the majority of party-goers enjoy safe, legal experiences as often as dozens of times a month without so much as tired feet the following day.

The post Why I Love Techno Music appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.

American rapper Logic delivered a moving performance of his song “1-800-273-8255” on stage at the 60th Annual Grammy Award Ceremony on Sunday, alongside featured singers Alessia Cara and Khalid.

The title of the song is the National Suicide Prevention hotline number, and the entire song is a message meant to give strength and hope to those struggling.

The trio of artists were joined on stage by suicide attempt survivors and their family members to deliver this powerful message: “You are not alone.” One survivor teared up on stage. After the performance, Logic delivered an inspirational speech, which received a standing ovation from the crowd.

“Black is beautiful, hate is ugly. Women are as precious as they are stronger than any man I have ever met… Be not scared to use your voice!…Stand and fight for those who are not weak, but have yet to discover the strength that the evil of this world has done its best to conceal,” he said. “…bring us your tired, your poor, and any immigrant who seeks refuge. For together we can build not just a better country, but a world that is destined to be united.”

Following the speech, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention released a statement praising Logic’s advocacy of suicide prevention and his use of a public platform to reach more people.

“When Logic released the song 1-800-273-8255, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s calls increased by nearly 50 percent. This was no coincidence,” the statement says.

Many have taken to Twitter to give their own reactions:

https://twitter.com/lisarinna/status/957824846158688256

How do you get back to the business of handing out an award after Logic dropped … logic. That was the show close right there. #grammys

— T.J. Holmes (@tjholmes) January 29, 2018

The song was released in April of 2017, quickly climbing up Billboard’s Hot 100 and Streaming Songs charts. Logic did an interview with Genius to explain the lyrics and how he got his inspiration by meeting people on tour that claimed his music had saved their lives.

“It hit me, the power that I have as an artist with a voice,” Logic explains. Now he continues to use that advantage to give others a voice.

The post Logic’s Powerful Performance at the Grammys appeared first on The Urban Watch Magazine.