It's in their nature

Albuquerque hip hop community members open performance venue from the roots up

With every spring season comes rain, sunshine, a fresh beginning and allergies. This time around, the Albuquerque hip hop scene is growing a self-funded and independent music venue called Second Nature, seeded in downtown Albuquerque.

Second Nature, scheduled to host shows and other positive activities by May, is a community-driven multimedia arts and performance center. There are several operatives behind this project, including artists and community activists Serif, Lets, Flux and Travis Cole.

Jeremy Wilson AKA Serif of Skull Control Records, said the venue will be a hub for Albuquerque youth and adults interested in learning and expanding daily life skills through the culture of hip hop.

“There is a great potential to live very comfortably while making hip hop and our peers have shown us that all over the world,” Serif said.

Serif is just one of the many community cornerstones building Second Nature’s foundation. “The Albuquerque hip hop scene as a whole makes up the pillars of Second Nature,” Serif said.

Before the permits, paintings and staging that now fill the venue, Second Nature was only a dream for several aspiring artists in Albuquerque.

“Serif came up with the name Second Nature before we even had a venue,” said Phillip Torres AKA Flux of the group Zoology.

Second Nature was originally an idea for a hip hop retail shop showcasing Southwest artists focused on hip hop, graffiti, jewelry, art and fashion. After months of gabbing and brainstorming, the crew decided to go big and establish a venue that sewed all the common threads of hip hop under one roof.

“When I think of the actual place, I picture it to be a multimedia community center but it will definitely be ran much differently than traditional community centers,” Flux said.

Travis Cole, one of the founding members of New Mexico’s Hip Hop Congress, listed workshops and courses that Second Nature will hope to offer once its doors open.

“We want to have screen-printing classes, drum machine and instrument workshops and much more but we are always open to people that have ideas and have organizations that want to get involved with us.” Travis said. “It’s a place for the community to come and learn from each other, build, teach and bottom line be creative.”

Second Nature is still in its infancy stages with program planning in terms of just exactly what will go on once the venue up and running. But everyone is on the same page when it comes to the direction and passion within the 18,000-square-foot building according to Lets and Travis.

“The greatest feeling about this place is that we can do whatever it is that we want to do as long as it’s positive,” Travis said.

“The sky is the limit here, and it’s up to us and our community,” Lets said.

Written April 20, 2009

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