Tonight! Freestyle Fridays fundraiser with Open Mike Eagle and more

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Admittedly, your Friday night plans are inevitably sorted out, but should you be looking for last-minute plans around happy hour, you would be well-served to attend the Freestyle Fridays fundraiser for Watts AB540, a program designed to help raise funds to pay the college tuition for recent high school graduates in the Watts Sessions sister program.

For those unawares, Freestyle Fridays is a monthly show put on by Sessions L.A., a hip-hop education program coordinated by DJ Phatrick with the help of a solid group of instructors and volunteers. They also collaborate with the well-regarded local rapper Bambu, who coordinates the Youth Media Arts Program.
Twice a week, they help a group of 20 high schoolers produce, write and record their own songs. They have put out mixtapes and are working on an album now, and they get to work on their stage performances each month at Freestyle Fridays, where they always bring in a headliner from the local underground scene (Thurz, Ill Camille, Rocky Rivera have all performed in the past). The sessions often have an artist from their sister education program in Watts perform as well.
Tonight features performances from Open Mike Eagle, whose ‘Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes’ remains one of the best rap albums of the year.
Download:
MP3: Open Mike Eagle ft. P.O.S.-’When Pianos Break’
-- Jeff Weiss