Ever since the early days of boomboxes, block parties, and cassettes, hip-hop has been influencing how we talk and think about everything from inner-city violence to police brutality, drug use to teen pregnancy, and politics to fashion.
Throughout its 50-year history, the genre has also been known for its bravado, braggadocious lyrics, and hypermasculinity. But in the Bay Area, at least in some circles, the culture has been shifting in recent years towards one that’s more mindful of Black men’s mental wellness.
According to Oakland-based artist and activist Karega Bailey, “Wellness is the new genre.”
Bailey and local fashion designer Christian Walker, the son of activist and Oakland gallery curator Ashara Ekundayo, felt called to create a space where Black men in Oakland could center their mental health and wellness as a means to deflect what Walker calls “the whole negative cloud over Oakland right now.”
So they co-created the Men’s Wellness Fellowship to do just that.
Since July 2022, the group has met on the last Tuesday of every month at the Huey P. Newton Foundation building on Broadway in downtown Oakland. At the meetings, Walker and Bailey share their personal experiences and facilitate discussions with other Black men in the community on topics touching on mental health, wellness, grief, and loss.
The group’s one-year anniversary coincided with hip-hop’s 50th, which is being celebrated this year across the country. Bailey sees a parallel between his and Walker’s approach to forming the group, and that of hip-hop’s early pioneers.
“We’re not asking an institution to endow it,” said Bailey about the fellowship. “We the people, the culture, are endowing it ourselves. It’s the cultural practice of hip hop.”
Bailey and Walker said normalizing the idea of wellness and mental health care among Black men was one reason for creating the group. “We need to lower the…
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