Two members of Soul Gorilla are also dancers with the Massive Monkeys, world break dance champions. The Gorilla’s site features videos of the Monkeys dancing around the world, bringing Seattle’s underground culture to appreciative audiences in Europe (they recently won the British break-dancing Open championship) and Asia. “They’re treated like Gods in Korea and Japan,” says Berman, who adds they are relative unknowns at home.
The fandom and stardom that impacts only lightly on the culture of Seattle explains a little of how Mixcast works. When pieced together, the marginalised cultures of all urban centres add up to a huge cultural movement.
“Our channels bring their own audience to Mixcast,” says Murray. “These guys are already established in their own urban culture and they bring that audience to us and then there’s cross over between them and other urban audiences.”
In the first two months of its existence Mixcast served a million videos of urban culture made by people who have no access to television as producers but who nonetheless aspire to a story-telling role.
“There are no outlets except Gary and Mixcast,” says Dixon, who recently shot a couple of movies on crime and homelessness in Washington DC. “The [broadcast] networks were not an option for us. But I knew I had a voice and wanted to reach people. If you don’t know anybody in the media you don’t have that voice.”
Dixon makes his films by living with down and outs and mixing with the bystanders of American crime. In one he’s talking with a drug addict who the night before witnessed a vicious murder, in others he’s talking with the homeless about why they want to be on the outside of society.
“I follow them when they steal and do drugs,” says Dixon. “It’s raw footage of what’s going down on the streets. I mean I edit but I don’t censor.”
Article comments