Lexington hip-hop artist and activist taking on more musical and personal challenges
To emphasize and, to an extent, empower an audience, an artist needs to work outside familiar surroundings.
That’s largely what Devine Carama has done for nearly two decades as one Lexington’s most visible hip-hop artists and activists. Sure, he has played scores of clubs, theatres and festivals – all traditional meeting grounds for performers and patrons. But this weekend, Carama brings one of his boldest performance projects directly to the community he is seeking to serve.
The concert, titled “Beat of the Heartland,” teams him a string quartet from the Lexington Philharmonic. It will mark the first time any part of the orchestra has collaborated with a hip-hop artist for a full concert performance. But what is more integral to Carama’s work is where the concert will be presented.
It will be staged not in a formal concert hall, but in an outdoor setting at Castlewood Park – specifically, the lawn of the Loudoun House. In short, Carama sees the project as community music being presented in the heart of the North End community.
“We all know how much modern day hip-hop has been commercialized and how the core elements of what made it such a great culture have shifted and changed because there is so much money in it,” Carama said. “But anybody who has been around long enough to know the conception of hip-hop knows it was built on community and being a voice for people who didn’t have one, whether it’s poor people of color, whether it’s people of disability, people with different sexual orientations, people disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, whatever. Hip-hop was designed to be a voice for them.
“Community, activism and social awareness have always been parts of hip-hop culture. They were always focal points of my music over the years. But as I got older, I kind of got tired of rapping and talking about it. I wanted to be about it.”
“Being about it” references the extent of Carama’s visibility as a community activist, a quality Mayor Linda Gorton capitalized on in May by picking the artist to head ONE Lexington, the city’s primary violence prevention program involving teens and young adults.
“I’m tasked with trying to keep our neighborhoods safe and engaging youth,” Carama said. “I’ve developed quite a few skills over the last few years, whether it’s through music or teaching or mentoring. I wanted to take all of those gifts and all of my experience and really focus on this job.
“We’ve seen violence pick up in the last couple of years. A lot of what people were fighting for last year during the social unrest are things I’ll be able to have some influence in helping to implement within our city. Mostly, we’ve just got to engage our young people. Giving them video games and letting them do what they want isn’t enough. We need more mentoring, we need more mental health specialists on the ground within our neighborhoods. We need better relationships between law enforcement and community members. I’m really looking forward to immersing myself in this job and doing the best I can do.”
ONE Lexington and “Beat of the Heartland” fortify a personal resurgence for Carama in 2021. Aside from the obvious impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was marked by the local unrest that erupted in the wake of the March shooting death of Breonna Taylor in Louisville. On a far more personal front, though, 2020 also claimed the life of his 18-year-old daughter, Kamaria Spaulding. She died in an April car crash.
“I think 2020 was the struggle - not just for me, obviously, but for all of us in dealing with the pandemic. For me, 2020 meant losing almost 100 percent of my income. Obviously, it was about losing my daughter, the social unrest … just all of that. As a family, though, getting through 2020 set the stage for everything that happened this year. The changes are all results of the hard work over the years and what it has prepared me for. I’m in a great place this year and am just looking forward to what the next stage is going to be.”
The next stage, literally, will be this weekend at Castlewood Park for “Beat of the Heartland.” Along with the Philharmonic’s string quartet and a team of vocalists and poets, the performance will team Carama with his youngest daughter Jaidah Spaulding.
“She recently made it to the semi-finals of the Miss Kentucky pageant and will be going off to UC (University of Cincinnati) next year in the theatre and performing arts program. We’ve got a song dedicated to my late daughter that we will be performing together.
“For this to happen in a way where I can share this experience with my daughter onstage but also with my family and the community in a free show where anybody can come is exciting. It’s something I’ve been dreaming of for a long time. I don’t know how many more shows and performances I’m going to do. But when I do come out and perform, these are the kinds of things I want be a part of, things that can bring people together, that can tear walls down and be a bridge.”
Concert info
What: “Beat of the Heartland” featuring Devine Carama and the LexPhil String Quintet
When: 7 p.m. June 12 (Rain date for the concert will be June 13)
Where: The lawn of the Loudoun House in Castlewood Park, 209 Castlewood Drive. Chairs and blankets are encouraged. All 500 free tickets to the performance have been reserved, but you can attend the performance elsewhere on the Castlewood Park grounds.
More: A Community Festival, presented in partnership with the Lexington Art League, will precede the performance in the park, beginning at 5:30 p.m.
This story was originally published June 8, 2021 at 6:00 AM.