https://gofund.me/c0c3fb4b7

I sat down with the illustrious DJ Short Blitz at The BBE Store in London to discuss his journey as a legendary Hip-Hop DJ.

​Shortee Blitz is a multi-award-winning DJ, broadcaster, producer and one of themost respected figures in UK Hip Hop & Black Music culture.

​Starting out in 1992 as part of an underground sound system, he cut his teeth rocking illegal house parties before transitioning into clubs across London. His reputation quickly grew, leading him to become the official DJ for the late, legendary MC, Ty.

​Shortee became a household name when he joined the iconic Kiss FM Hip Hop Show as the weekly mix DJ. It wasn’t long before he took over the reins, in a reshuffle at the station, shaping the sound of UK Hip Hop radio for nearly three decades and helping to champion artists, movements and culture with authenticity and authority.

https://gofund.me/2f6042ff7

Leave It for the Children:
A Visual History of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra
(with Darol Olu Kae, 2026)

Leave it for the Children: A Visual History of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra blends new and archival images and ephemera to highlight the ongoing legacy of the renowned community jazz organization.

Dr. Samuel Lamontagne is a writer, scholar, and professor at the University of California, Riverside. His work explores Black music as a form of knowledge production and a central site of Black intellectual, cultural, and political life. Grounded in sustained engagement with musicians, archives, and community-based cultural institutions, his research and collaborative projects center histories of freedom, resistance, and imagination in the African diaspora.

His recent projects include Leave It for the Children (Angel City Press, 2026), co-edited with Darol Olu Kae, which explores the sixty-five years of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, the community-based ensemble founded in Los Angeles by Horace Tapscott. He is also co-director, with H. Samy Alim and Tabia Shawel, of In the Hour of Chaos, a documentary covering Chuck D’s teaching at UCLA, developed alongside a companion volume published by the University of California Press (2026). Together, they co-established the UCLA Hip Hop Initiative, a platform for research, pedagogy, and public programming.

Beyond the university, his work extends into radio, archival production, and music communities. He is a radio producer and DJ with DUBLAB and has been involved in independent music networks in Los Angeles and beyond through collaborations with Preferences Records and The Village Records. His projects include co-producing the reissue of Wala Wala Bok? (1996), the debut album of the pioneering Senegalese hip hop group Pee Froiss, and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra’s 60-Years compilation.

His work has been featured in outlets including the Los Angeles Times and NPR’s The World, as well as international media such as RFI and EFE. His research and projects have been presented at institutions including the Hammer Museum, the California African American Museum, the Grammy Museum, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), and the Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet in Paris.

https://gofund.me/6d4221cea

Ade Egun Crispin Robinson, known as Spry, is a musician and a babalawo from London. Of mixed Jamaican and English heritage, he has a lifetime’s immersion in the music, culture and history of the Black Atlantic. His musical journey has moved through Jah Shaka sound system, the UK acid-jazz scene, contemporary London jazz, West African Mande music and the Afro-Cuban Orisha tradition.

He was an original member of the band Galliano in the 1990s, and currently plays with the Mande jazz collective Balimaya Project. His first professional recordings were with Soul II Soul in the late 80s and over the years he has played and recorded with Roni Size, Omar, Brian Eno, Mulatu Astatke, Slum Village, Dwele, Roy Ayers, Jerry Dammers Spatial AKA Sun Ra Orchestra, Steam Down, Dave Okumu, Shabaka, Anthony Joseph, Moses Boyd, Nao and many others.

A major part of Spry’s life has been his relationship with Orisha and Ifa. He is an omo Aña, omo Obatala, and babalawo, with initiations in Cuba in 2004, 2010, and 2012, and has spent many years playing sacred batá in ceremonies across the Orisha Atlantic, from Havana and New York to Lagos, Paris and London.