“ It was a very cold night in the “Chi Town” but that didn’t stop Chicago’s music artists from coming out and displaying their skills to support a worthy cause. Knockouts Sports bar in Matterson, IL. was were Kalizion and his homie Blue promoted the venue. Rappers from all over the Chi City & beyond showed up with their toy gifts for the kids and their God given gift(talent) to the world of Hip Hop Music.”

“The billboards are only the first in a series of a marketing campaign sponsored by Up a Notch Records and Adams Outdoor Advertising. They are designed to generate dialogue and attention within the local community around some as-of-yet unknown musical artist or product.”

“This was one of the last projects that I did as the art director for Adams Outdoor Advertising. It was strange. I had left Champaign for about a month, right before these went up... there was a death in my family and suddenly Adams, advertising, and billboards were the least important thing in the world to me... But the billboard campaign got tons of attention, and when I came back into town I found out that there had been articles written about it, tv coverage, radio coverage, and tons of controversy. Oh yeah. But, being that I was out of town when the boards went up... I wasn't able to take photos of all of them! Though friends did hold on to copies of the newspaper articles for me. Anyway the campaign was created to promote an independent hip hop label called Upanotchrecords, and went down like this: click to view details”

“A recent billboard campaign placed by Champaign, Illinois hip hop record label Up A Notch Records apparently encouraged local student organization UC Hip Hop to "vandalize" this billboards to achieve more publicity. The boards, with the headline, "Hip Hop Rots Your Brain," were accompanied by a logo for the fictitious Coalition of Responsible and Attentive Parents whose acronym, not surprisingly is CRAP. One of the boards was vandalized to read, "Stereotypes, Racism, Ignorance Rots Your Brain." The campaign and the vandalizing are hot topics of discussion on a UC Hip Hop and LiveJournal forum. The cynic in us, along with the all too convenient images and forum commentary, makes us think the whole thing is manufactured but, then again, we are very cynical. ”