Summer614
Summer614
DJ Mr. King at Summer614 2023
The 7th annual Summer614 Music Festival presented by Music is Therapy is coming to the Columbus Commons this Saturday, June 1.
This year’s festival emphasizes healthy habits and healing environments, with a wellness lounge and silent disco inspired by the Mothers of Murdered Columbus Children – a local non-profit that raises awareness against violent crime and offers resources to the parents of victims.
The goal of the event is to spread positive messaging and better our community by focusing on healthy and responsible choices.
Hip-hop legend MC Lyte, as well as 8Ball & MJG, Scarface, and R&B stars Chrisette Michele, Ro James and Bobby V, will all take the stage.
“It’s community, it’s music and we all know that music – first off, has no color lines – but it also has a deeply embedded, intrinsic aspect of soul which connects people,” MC Lyte says. “So to be able to be in one place and get this sort of smorgasbord of talent gives way to connection.”
Sunni Girl Inc.
MC Lyte
MC Lyte, an icon of New York’s anti-drug hip-hop movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has always spread positive messaging through her music.
“My message to the masses, specifically my own generation, when I stepped into this field of hip-hop was an anti-drug message,” she says. “My first song, ‘I Cram to Understand U,’ was the message of ‘Don’t be involved with someone who does drugs or sells drugs. Don’t become one of those people that does or sells drugs.’”
Lyte says as she has grown and seen the impact of her music, she’s witnessed the power of the words she puts to a track.
“All of that accountability comes with age and maturity and the willingness to just take it on,” she says. “I think throughout the years that’s how it’s changed for me. But from the onset, I felt like the mission was an anti-drug mission and I’ve stayed true to that for most of my career, outside of the party songs and the boastful songs that must exist in hip-hop. There’s no way to get around it. If you don’t think you’re the best then you might as well sit down because it does take a certain amount of braggadocio to exist.”
She says that as an artist, getting a response from the audience makes the whole journey of crafting music worth it.
“It really feels good to be in front of an audience and have them give that energy to let you know that what you’ve done is good work and then you also get to have some fun with them at the same time,” MC Lyte says. “It just makes it make sense that festivals of this nature are at the forefront of bringing community together.”
Lyte’s message has spread far and wide, and she has the resume to show for it. She was the first female rapper nominated for a Grammy, the first female hip-hop artist with a gold-certified single, and she was awarded Harvard University’s highest honor in African and African American studies, the W. E. B. Du Bois medal.
“A message is much more influential than I ever could have imagined as a child,” she says. “You know, getting into this game and releasing and recording at 16 and 17, having the first record come out, I had no idea.”
The next MC Lyte studio project is on the way, and the mastermind behind it couldn’t be more excited about the future of music, saying that she and her contemporaries are all getting back in the studio this summer.
“I ran into LL at a fireside chat he and I had for an organization and he was like I’m coming up with a new album, Q-Tip is producing it,’ and I was like ‘Oh that’s great!’ He said ‘Yeah, whatever, what are you waiting for?’” she says. “Then Nas was like ‘Okay, where is everybody? Everybody needs to put some music out.’ Interestingly enough, we’ve got Common coming with Pete Rock, LL coming with Q-Tip, Nas coming with Premier – so many records – just heard that Big Daddy Kane is working on something, I’m working on something. It just feels like this is the season for anyone who wants to get in and just play to get in.”
Tyler Kirkendall is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
