For the first time in Azerbaijan, representatives of the famous British Blueprint skateboard company, Neil Chester, Colin Kennedy and Paul Shier ran 3 days of training on 26-28 September 2006 for young local skateboarders. Together with a local group of skaters from Baku Rollers Club they were skating in Baku urban areas.
On 27-28 September 2006 the renowned British graffiti artists Kid Acne and Boyd Hill ran training for local graffiti artists to display the best UK graffiti trends and use graffiti as a tool to share the view of participants on the urban areas of Baku city.
Moreover, from 20–25 September 2006 specially invited ramp (special constructions for skateboarding) builder, Richard Holland, was working with local skaters to build skate constructions for the workshops and show. During the construction works he was also training local skaters on ramp building (theoretical and practical workshops) that gave them a chance to work independently in the future.
On 28 September 2006 MC TALI together with DJLD performed the best of British club music at EXCITE Night Club.
As a culmination of the project on 29 September 2006 the prominent British band DARFTPHUNK and trendy hiphop and soul singer MC TALI together with DJLD performed an exciting and vibrant show at Seaside National Park. During the show the audience had a chance to see a skateboarding and graffiti show for the first time in Baku. The concert was broadcast live by Space TV channel.
All training events had been filmed by first Azerbaijani VJs (visual jockeys) Faik Akhmed and Jeihun Ojadov, who were trained by British VJ Kelly Budge within our Urban Culture project in February 2006. They had produced video diaries and a short video that was shown on screens during the concert on 29 September. These series of loops helped the audience to taste the dynamics and excitement of the trainings. Faik and Jeihun were also VJing during the show to imbue it with visual effects and make the event even more exciting.
Touch the Sky is the part of our global initiative called Urban Culture that connects 15 countries of the South-East Europe region and aims at providing young people with a wide range of opportunities for creative empowerment, educational support and professional development from the UK, as well as a platform for the expression of their own cultural identities. Touch The Sky actively supports the region’s priority theme of Youth empowerment. It also aims to provide the opportunity for young people to express their opinion on the urban area of Azerbaijan and focus on the undeveloped sector — street culture.
MC TALI (www.talimusic.co.uk) is mostly known for being the most prolific female MC in Britain. However, Tali's talents encompass singing, songwriting, production and vocal production, and she is now in the process of establishing herself as one of the UKs hottest new urban artists, going back to her roots of writing over Hiphop and Soul orientated beats.
DARFTPHUNK (www.splankrecords.co.uk/darftphunk) is young but already well known band playing breakbeat, electronica and funk. The band consists of 2 DJ's, vocalist, a beat boxer and saxophonist.
Blueprint (www.blueprintskateboards.com) Skateboards was created in 1995 by Faze 7 Distribution as the first British skateboard company and has now grown to its current position amongst the forefront of European companies.
Kid Acne (http://angryape.com/artists/k/kid-acne) is one of the most famous graffiti artists in the UK. He has lent his hand to everything from customized bar interiors and skateboard graphics, to designing pizza boxes and ladies knit wear. His unique take on graffiti and illustration exhibited in galleries from Sheffield to New York, Melbourne to Helsinki and back again. Previous clients include Levis, Volkswagen, Prada, Warp Records, Thames & Hudson, Robert Horne, XL Recordings and others.
