Children Of Slam

	Black Is the Color of Sunshine From Bathwater Blues, Written and performed by G. Loring
	Written and performed by Gina Loring
	Live @ Temple Bar, Santa Monica Written and performed by Gina Loring

Written by Ratpack Slim

If Gina Loring had to secure a nickname, it would most assuredly be "The Voice." You can hear her jazz training in her staccato syllables when she speaks, like Sarah Vaughn spitting scat over hip hop rhythm tracks. That voice combined with the fact that she was saying something of import propelled Gina up the ranks of national slam poets in 2002, and the momentum hasn't stopped since.

You may have seen her on BET's "Lyric Cafe" or HBO's "Def Poetry," talking about what moves her, and her passion is infectious. The one-two punch of her earnest, heartfelt words and her gift for melody helped her get on board the Declare Yourself voting project, taking her everywhere from campus lunchrooms to the Democratic National Convention. More recently, she enlisted beatboxer Joshua Silverstein and keyboardist Brandon Coleman to join her in Kuwait, where the ensemble performed on behalf of the American Embassy's cultural arts initiative and became the first American hip hop artists to rock the malls of Kuwait City. Not a bad introduction to the medium.

These days, Gina spends time teaching poetry and performing her organic hip hop soul regularly at venues like the Temple Bar in Santa Monica. In one of her recent songs, Gina proclaims as a challenge, "Hip hop used to be about something." As long as The Voice continues to grace stages, the relevance of hip hop--and the word--remains.