In case you haven’t heard, everyone’s favorite hip-hop charity, Food Wars, is up for it’s seventh coming tomorrow night at Bossanova Ballroom. A staple of the Portland hip-hop community, performers campaign to raise the most canned food for donation to Impact NW and SUN School. This year’s format will follow last year’s, and performers have been broken up into 2 teams – Team Fork and Team Spoon – in order to encourage collaboration and increase yield.
In order to maximize can raising, the folks at Food Wars also collaborated with Maddening Designs to bring you The Art of War, an art show TOMORROW from 4pm-7pm at Bossanova Ballroom (prior to the main event), in which local art will be bartered for cans. 10 local hip – but not hip-hop – artists have signed up to donate their art for the cause, including Charlotte Dreams.
Previous Food Wars events have certainly been successful. FW5 resulted in over 10K cans collected, and FW6 upped the ante to 12K. Do you have any idea what TWELVE THOUSAND cans of food looks like? Well this year, organizer/host Jessie Sponberg hopes to raise around 20K cans, which would bring the 7 year total to approximately 50,000 cans raised.
The cast of the 21+ event is a mash-up of past champions, consistent vets and new blood. Bad Habitat, J-Ritz & SayWords, My-G and Tragedy503 have all won the event in the past, while cliques such as Proper Knocks, Rose Bent, Ice Water Records, La Puerta Felonia, Monsters Ink and Sandpeople’s Al-One return for another shot at the title. Newcomers will include Keegan and Aviel, as well as GLMG’s BigMo. I was very disappointed to hear that buzzing St. John’s group The Resistance dropped out of the event; not only because their presence have been a great look for the event, but also because they hail from St. Johns, a section of the city perhaps most in need of the charities involved.
Aside from supporting local artists from inside and outside the hip-hop arena to raise food for needy children, another motivating factor is attending Food Wars is that it’s FREE to get in. So no, being broke is not an excuse. However, if you want to kick it VIP style, I understand there are a limited number of VIP tickets on sale for $20, which get you access to the balcony, pool tables, nacho bar, and purchasers also get 2 complimentary drinks.
So what’s your excuse? #IFEEDKIDS