Urban Beach Week is a hip-hop festival held in Miami's South Beach over the Memorial Day weekend since the 2000s. [1] Urban Beach Week has been likened to a de facto continuation of Freaknik's cultural activities. [2] The event has become known for its over-the-top parties and fashions. [3]
The events of Urban Beach Week are typically spread over five days. [4] The city does not sponsor the event and there is no one organizer. Instead, it is a weekend of rolling performances in private venues. [5]
Estimates of those attending Urban Beach Week range from 250,000 to 350,000 visitors. [1] [6]
While Urban Beach Week is a hip-hop dominated music event, major reggae artists from the US and abroad have also appeared. [3]
Major artists who have performed at Urban Beach Week related shows include Flo Rida, [5] Twista, [5] Mr. Vegas, [3] Shaggy, [3] Lil Bow Wow, Funkmaster Flex, [7] Fat Joe, [7] Marcia Griffiths, [7] and Pitbull. [7]
Urban Beach Week has been a controversial event for the residents of South Beach. [4] Violence and property crime associated with the event has turned many locals against the festival. [8] [5] It was reported in the New York Times that many South Beach residents leave the area during Urban Beach Week. [5]
Mayor Matti Herrera Bower has said the city doesn't have much ability to end Urban Beach Week, considering that the tourists who come for the Memorial weekend don't come for city permitted events, but for private concerts and parties. [9]
After a fatal shooting of an armed suspect by police in 2011, city leaders considered cutting back drinking hours or imposing a curfew; both ideas were considered unworkable. Also rejected was a plan to make the festival a city-sanctioned and organized event. [5]
Instead, the city and the Police Department increased the turnout of law enforcement in 2012, with a tougher stance on minor infractions. [5] Nearly 600 officers were on duty. Lanes were closed on the causeways leading to Miami Beach, and license plate readers were used to check for outstanding warrants, stolen cars and suspended licenses. Watch towers were put up to better observe the main promenade on Ocean Drive. [5]
Civil-rights groups expressed their concern in a letter signed by executive director of the ACLU of Florida, Howard Simon, former president of the Greater Miami ACLU chapter, John de Leon, and Bradford E. Brown, president of the Miami-Dade NAACP, which said that Miami Beach officials were attempting "to make this event as difficult as possible for visitors to attend, creating the appearance that it is trying to discourage African Americans from visiting the City." [10]
A total of 431 arrests were made during the 2012 event. [5] In 2012, police said that they removed 25 guns from the streets. [3]
Norman Quentin Cook, also known by his stage name Fatboy Slim, is an English musician, DJ, and record producer who helped to popularise the big beat genre in the 1990s. In the 1980s, Cook was the bassist for the Hull-based indie rock band the Housemartins, who achieved a UK number-one single with their a cappella cover of "Caravan of Love". After the Housemartins split up, Cook formed the electronic band Beats International in Brighton, who produced the number-one single "Dub Be Good to Me". He then played in Freak Power, Pizzaman, and the Mighty Dub Katz with moderate success.
South Beach, also nicknamed colloquially as SoBe, is a neighborhood in Miami Beach, Florida. It is located east of Miami between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The area encompasses Miami Beach south of Dade Boulevard.
Bumbershoot is an annual international music and arts festival held in Seattle, Washington. One of North America's largest such festivals, it takes place every Labor Day weekend at the 74-acre Seattle Center, which was built for the 1962 World's Fair. Seattle Center includes both indoor theaters and outdoor stages.
Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is an annual outdoor electronic music festival that takes place during March in Miami, Florida, United States. The festival was founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes.
The Fat Boys were an American hip hop trio from Brooklyn, New York, who emerged in the early 1980s. The group was briefly known originally as the Disco 3, originally composed of Mark "Prince Markie Dee" Morales, Damon "Kool Rock-Ski" Wimbley, and Darren "Buff Love" Robinson.
WPHI-FM is a commercial radio station licensed to Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and serving the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc., simulcasting an all-news radio format with co-owned KYW 1060 AM. The radio studios are in Audacy's corporate headquarters in Center City, Philadelphia.
The Hip Hop Caucus (HHC) is a national, non-profit organization in the United States, which aims to promote political activism for young U.S. voters using hip-hop music and culture.
Freaknik is an annual spring break festival in Atlanta, Georgia. It is primarily attended by students from historically black colleges and universities. It began in 1983 as a small picnic in a public park near the Atlanta University Center sponsored by the D.C. Metro Club for students who could not afford to return home for spring break. It continued as an annual event held during the third weekend in April. The event increased in size and popularity in the 1990s, incorporating dance contests, concerts, parties, a basketball tournament, rap sessions, a film festival and a job fair.
Downtown Miami is the urban city center of Miami, Florida. The city's greater downtown region consists of the Central Business District, Brickell, the Historic District, Government Center, the Arts & Entertainment District, and Park West. It is divided by the Miami River and is bordered by Midtown Miami's Edgewater and Wynwood sections to its north, Biscayne Bay to its east, the Health District and Overtown to its west, and Coconut Grove to its south.
Mick Batyske, known by his stage name DJ MICK and formerly Mick Boogie, is an American DJ and entrepreneur. He is an A-list DJ and spun private parties for celebrities including Kanye West, LeBron James, Jay-Z and Will Smith. In addition to his mix tape releases, he has performed in venues internationally, including New York City, Dubai, Tokyo, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. As an entrepreneur, he has invested in various start-up companies including Localeur, in which he is also an advisor and consultant.
Black Bike Week, also called Atlantic Beach Bikefest, Black Bikers Week, and The Black Pearl Cultural Heritage and Bike Festival, is an annual motorcycle rally in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area, held on Memorial Day weekend. Called a "one-of-a-kind event" and "an exhibitionist's paradise" by Jeffrey Gettleman, Black Bike Week is "all about riding, styling and profiling," in the words of Mayor Irene Armstrong of Atlantic Beach, South Carolina.
Festivals in Aruba take place throughout the year on the island. The island waived COVID-19 testing requirements in 2022 to increase the number of visitors.
Hard is a national music festival, music cruise and concert brand founded in 2007. The event line-ups consist of alternative and electronic acts and emerging talents. The first Hard Music Festival was held on December 31, 2007 in Downtown Los Angeles and featured Justice, Peaches and 2 Live Crew. Hard is best known for the Hard Summer Music Festival and Hard Haunted Mansion, though also runs several smaller events and one-off shows. Hard is sometimes called "Hardfest" by fans, based on the event's website and social media shortcuts. Additional Hard brands include the Hard Summer, Hard Red Rocks, Hard at Electric Daisy Carnival, and the Holy Ship! electronic music cruise, and former events include Hard Day of The Dead, Hard 13, Turkey Soup and Hard Miami. Live Nation Entertainment acquired Hard in 2012.
Center of Gravity Festival is an annual three-day sport and music festival held in Kelowna, British Columbia, at the City Park on the Okanagan Lake and hosts approximately 25,000 people.
Bayfront Park is a 32-acre (13 ha) public, urban park in Downtown Miami, Florida on Biscayne Bay. The Chairman to the trust is Ary Shaeban. Located in the park is a bronze statue of Christopher Columbus sculpted by Count Vittorio di Colbertaldo of Verona, one of Benito Mussolini’s hand picked ceremonial bodyguards known as the “Black Musketeers.”
The Biloxi wade-ins were three protests that were conducted by local African Americans on the beaches of Biloxi, Mississippi between 1959 and 1963, during the civil rights movement. The demonstrations were led by Dr. Gilbert R. Mason, Sr. in an effort to desegregate the city's 26 mi (42 km) of beaches on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This was a local effort, without involvement from the state or national NAACP.
Alejandro "Alex" Omes was an Argentine-born American nightlife impresario and concert promoter. In 1999, Omes and Russell Faibisch, his then-business partner, co-founded the Ultra Music Festival, an outdoor electronic music festival held annually in Miami, Florida. Since its founding, Ultra Music Festival has grown into one of the country's and the world's largest electronic dance music festivals. An estimated 400,000 people attended Ultra Music Festival over the course of two weekends in 2013, the highest number of attendees to date.
Miami has one of the largest and most prominent LGBTQ communities in the United States. Miami has had a gay nightlife scene as early as the 1930s. Miami has a current status as a gay mecca that attracts more than 1 million LGBT visitors a year. The Miami area as a whole has been gay-friendly for decades and is one of the few places where the LGBTQ community has its own chamber of commerce, the Miami-Dade Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (MDGLCC). As of 2005, Miami was home to an estimated 15,277 self-identifying gay and bisexual individuals. The Miami metropolitan area had an estimated 183,346 self-identifying LGBT residents.
On May 30, 2021, twenty-three people were shot, of whom three were killed, in a mass shooting outside a banquet hall in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. Some of the suspects in the shooting are still at large.