BSU talent showcase spotlights black excellence
The BSU hosted the first talent showcase last year in Memorial Hall as part of Black History Month
Sulle Murray “left” and Kamari Pope “right” , of the rap duo Maplewood, performed at the BSU talent show Feb. 20 and previously performed at the first BSU talent show last year. RYAN CARTEE Staff Photographer
Memorial Hall was filled with students Feb. 20 at 8 p.m. to watch their peers perform in the second annual Black Excellence Showcase: an all-encompassing show that celebrated the talents of black students from across campus. The show was put on by the Black Student’s Union (BSU) as a part of their Black History Month series of events.
One performer after the other took to the stage, expressing themselves through a wide variety of mediums ranging from visual art to rap. Each act was met with loud applause or standing ovation.
The air of community in the room was rich. Everyone, no matter their background, was united in their celebration of not only the people on stage, but of Chapman’s black culture as a whole.
Spare a few technical difficulties, everything ran smoothly for the BSU’s second annual production. According to BSU president and the show’s lead organizer Ramya Sinha, putting the whole thing together wasn’t so straightforward.
“I started planning this last December,” Sinha said. “Getting students to want to come and getting students here to care and want to support the black community (was) really the biggest part.”
Seeing as Chapman’s student body is only 1.7 percent African American, Sinha said, most students seem to have a “difficult time caring about (these) things and issues that have nothing to do with them.”
Brooke Harmon, the lead singer of Freedoms band, performed at the BSU Black History Month Kickoff and at the talent showcase.
“I feel like the black experience and racism and things like that are very alien to people here and because of that they just want to push it aside,” Sinha said. “It’s tough. We just want people to come and experience what we get to experience with each other and learn how to be allies to the black community.” asdThis intention was definitely not lost on the audience. Nanette Lui, a freshman English major and member of the Asian American community, felt the show “definitely celebrated people of color, encourages people of color to be proud of what they can do, and helps others identify with them and their culture.”
Lui also felt personally connected to the message of the show.
“For myself,” she said, “growing up as a person of color and being really interested in writing was rough; It sucked that there were only white characters in books. Stuff like this can encourage people who are growing up and want to do things that they think only white people can do to not be afraid to go out and do them.”
Lucia Beatty, an audience member and freshman peace studies major, had a different takeaway, albeit an equally as positive one.
“It’s a pretty critical time for these events to be happening. The whole campus community showing support (for the black community) in the face of (the Dayton Kingery outburst) is so essential right now,” Beatty said. “But also there’s so much black history and black culture that is so incredible and I think that it doesn’t get enough credit.”
The performers too felt the significance of the night.
Domenick Sevor, a junior communications major, also known as “Digital Dom,” performed “Whatchu Want,” an original song. Accompanying the song was a hyper-stylized music video laden with flashy effects and video game references from the 1980s and 1990s. Sevor rapped live on stage, while his on-screen self danced through bombastic fields of color with Pac-Man inside an arcade cabinet.
Sevor, whose performance consisted of visual arts and rap, shared the sentiment of the importance of the Black Excellence Showcase and events like it.
“I think events like this solidify our legitimacy, for lack of a better term, of the BSU,” Sevor said. “We’ve been around on Chapman, but not many people have seen us. Events like this really showcase our community and make us more known on campus.”
BSU hopes the Black Excellence Showcase and events like it serve as much more than an enjoyable way to pass the evening. Besides honoring Black History Month and acknowledging the talents of the black students on campus, Sinha hopes such events help both students of color and allies realize that all are welcome in the BSU, which meets every Monday at 10 p.m.
“We’re just trying to get people to know that it’s OK to approach us,” Sinha said. “We just want to tell people that it’s OK; that we want them to come support us, come watch us perform, come to our meetings. We want them to be in our space.”