Our last open mic of 2010 features two New York-based musicians and poets Taiyo Na and Koba Sounds. Come hear them and spit a rhyme yourself! Or a poem, or a story, or some comedy— we’ve got room for it all if you can fit it in 5 minutes!

Honored by Governor David A. Paterson and the State of New York for his “legacy of leadership to the Asian American community and the Empire State” in May 2010, Taiyo Na is a singer, songwriter, MC and producer. His debut album Love is Growth (Issilah Productions, 2008) established himself as “a multidimensional talent with a unique creative voice that fuses the rhythms of the city that raised him with the soul of the Asian immigrant culture that birthed him” (Okayplayer.com). The album features the song “Lovely To Me (Immigrant Mother),’ whose music video to the song was heralded by MTV Iggy as “the realest thing seen in a while.” In June 2010, he released a collaboration album entitledHome:Word with hip-hop duo Magnetic North. AngryAsianMan.com has described the record as “one of my favorite albums of the year.”

Koba Sounds says his name means “ferocious panda,” which combines ferocity, assault, and hatred for systematic injustice and exploitation with a soft, gentle soul and altruistic love. Hailing from Harlem, he has been part of the Asian American hip-hop group, Kontrast, which released the albumPencils, and in 2008 he debuted his solo album Culture War. City ScoopsMagazine writes, “His music takes listeners back to a time when hip-hop was about creating poetry and art, and at the same time ushers them forward with modern beats and skillful rhymes. His raw and energetic performances with the legendary DJ Boo are not to be missed.” Inventive, irreverent, and unrepentantly radical, Koba uses his new musical synthesis of gritty Southern gumbo and honeyed melodies to combat the increasingly corporate and homogeneous hip-hop genre of bling, dramatization of thug life and the objectification of women.

$5 suggested donation. This event is open to the public.

Sign up at 8:30pm for a 5-minute slot.