cherryl aldave

I am a multimedia journalist, writer, public speaker, score/soundtrack consultant and researcher specializing in Hip Hop, pop culture, race matters and gender rights issues.

I am also an anti-sexism, anti-racism, and anti-rape advocate, a community activist, a blogger, a poet (on the dl), a hair model (don't laugh!) and a budding filmmaker and novelist.

From 2002-2006, I was a judge for the Red Bull Word Clash, the largest proletarian poetry battle in the US. You can watch the 2006 Word Clash documentary to the left in my "General Interests" section.

I was born to an African-American mother and a Filipino father in Olongapo City, the Philippines, but I now live in the great state of North Carolina, USA.

In 1992, I elevated my childhood passion for making pause tapes into DJing at UNC-Chapel Hill's WXYC, where I held down a weekly morning show and participated in the weekend mix show, the New Science Experience.

In 1996, I started North Carolina's first Hip Hop publication, Headz Magazine, and began began promoting freestyle battles called 'Verbal Kombat' throughout the Triangle.

As a Hip Hop journalist, my writing has appeared in The Source, Wax Poetics, Insomniac, Elemental, Scratch, FEDS, Rime, HipHopDX, PopandPolitics, How To Get Stupid White Men Out of Office, and more.

I try to cover all apsects of Hip Hop in my Hip Hop oriented writing, old to new, as well as the political and social aspects of it, etc.

Some of my more interesting articles/articles, according to reader response, include:

• Pete "DJ" Jones (Elemental)
• Funky Drummers Pt 1 & 2 - Clyde Stubblefield & Jab'O Starks (Wax Poetics)
• Don "Cambellock" Campbell (Elemental)
• Frosty Freeze (Elemental)
• Is George Bush a Rapist? (CherrylAldave.com)
• Got Indian In Your Family? (Pop and Politics)
• A Bitch Iz a Bitch (HipHopDX)
• Lady Pink (Elemental)
• CAP (Elemental)
• Jo Jo - Rock Steady Crew (Elemental)
• Forgotten Elements - Air Force Ones (HipHopDX)

...and many more. I'll be putting some of these articles on my main site soon, or at least linking to the magazines featuring these articles. In the meantime if you want to know more about any of these articles or the artists feel free to contact me.

One of my latest projects is the documentary This Side of the River: Self-determination and Survival in the Oldest Black Town in America, for which I acted as associate producer and score consultant.

I am currently writing two novels. One, a historical novel set in the town of Princeville, NC, the subject of the above named documentary, and two, a street lit novel.

I don't blog here at Myspace, but you can read my Hip Hop, Music, Pop Culture and Tech blog Heavy Mentalist here. I also write a current events, race matters and opinion blog, The Last Nerve.

If you live in North Carolina, stay up on NC HipHop, Poetry and activism events with my free weekly newsletter, NC ACT (the North Carolina All City Times). You can also use the navigation links at the top of this page to go to other pages in my site...