Best Dance Party: VERSION
If you are looking for joy, beauty, and fun, VERSION, a monthly queer dance party held at The Crown, is the place for you.
The team that puts on VERSION is made up of founder and DJ Jessica Hyman, photographer Sydney Allen, and rapper, DJ, and host Kotic Couture.
“VERSION is an experience,” we wrote about it this May. “The bass emanating from the speakers can be euphoric. It’s paired with the uplifting and fierce delivery of rapper, DJ, and emcee Kotic Couture. After dancing the night away, you might see if you made it into one of photographer Sydney Allen’s dreamlike vignettes. She documents each VERSION by freezing participants in time, kissing, dancing, and voguing.”
Hardest Working Man In Podcasting: Aaron Dante
Aaron Dante has created a platform to highlight voices in Baltimore and beyond.
Launched in 2019, his NoPixAfterDark podcast has celebrated the stories of the city’s best and brightest.
He says his work is about making sure that misconceptions about this place are dispelled.
Whether he’s interviewing politicians live from Ocean City at the CIAA 2023 Tech Summit House or having scallops and a mezcal neat at Maggie’s Farm, Dante’s podcast blends Baltimore pride with an eye towards expansion.
Credit: Cameron Snell
Best Itinerant House Music Party and Platform: Deep Sugar
The year 2023 was one of jubilation for the Deep Sugar House Music family.
Singer, songwriter, DJ, and producer Ultra Naté and promoter and fellow DJ Lisa Moody founded Deep Sugar in 2003 as a happy-hour house music party.
Deep Sugar celebrated 20 years of house music with an event called Emerald City Ball 3 at Baltimore Soundstage in September, and the return of their monthly residency at Club 1722 in November. After a successful stint hosting Paris Hilton’s “The History of the World’s Greatest Nightclubs” podcast and several national and international performances, Ultra Naté and her Deep Sugar party are poised for another 20 years of superstardom.
Best Art Gallery: Current Space
421 North Howard Street
Current Space is the best of both worlds: an incredible art exhibition space and a place to have fun.
Inside the physical building on Howard Street, you can experience an art exhibition. Then, stepping outside, you can be fully immersed in the Garden Bar, an outdoor space that draws diverse crowds of folks who want to experience the best art in Baltimore.
Over the past year at Garden Bar, you could find nights cultivated by poet-artist-curator Andrew Shenker; JaySwann’s inaugural Garden Hours biweekly residency that, from May to October, provided a place for people to let loose and hear emerging DJs and performers; designer artist Meg Beck’s Fantasy Machine, an experimental fashion show and pop-up shop; and their quarterly signature member parties with open bars and food. Membership starts at $5 and allows guests discounts on drinks, events, and other perks.
Best Art Exhibition: Ernest Shaw at JELMA, The Culture at BMA, Islam & Print at Black Artist Research Space
We couldn’t decide on just one best art exhibition so instead we’re shouting out three.
Homecoming: Paintings and Drawings by Ernest Shaw, Jr., took the West Baltimore native’s work to his alma mater at Morgan State University.
“The figures he paints reflect his subjects’ buoyancy, brilliance, and brightness, as well as their history. The magnitude, the sheer depth of the works, and the boldness of the colors invite the viewer to get close,” we wrote.
Museums aren’t always places where you see a lot of diversity. We loved The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century because it broke down some of the invisible and palpable barriers that these experiences can present.
The exhibit ran from April until July at the Baltimore Museum of Art,
With a soundtrack by Wendel Patrick, track suits on display by Telfar, and photographs by Philip Muriel, visiting the show was charged and inspiring.
Last but not least, What Happens When We Nurture was an exhibition of mixed media artworks by Leili Arai Tavallaei, Suldano Abdiruhman, Tayyab Maqsood, and Anysa Saleh.
We wrote that the exhibition, which was on display at the Black Artist Research Space, explored memory, the archive, family, community and identity.
The exhibition featured artwork created by the collaborative platform Islam & Print’s inaugral fellowship class.
“I&P is radically correcting the contemporary and historical art record, creating a database of Muslim artistic contributions made by themselves and their peers,” we wrote.
Credits: Image Courtesy of Black Artist Research Space and Vivian Marie Photo.
Best Dance: The Bunky Jr / Park Heights Strut
The Bunky Jr. Strut, sometimes referred to as the Park Heights Strut, is now a worldwide viral sensation. Baltimore Ravens’ Wide Receiver Odell Beckham Jr. did the strut as he scored his first touchdown of the season. WJZ anchor Denise Koch got a personal tutorial from legendary Baltimore dancer TSU Terry.
Best friends Ayo Shag and TSU Flash can be seen in TikTok videos and Instagram Reels doing the dance in stores, malls, and as new staples at M&T Bank stadium during Ravens games. It’s a prime example of timing being everything. Rodney “Bunky” Snead Jr., also known as The Strut King, says the history of this Baltimore dance goes back decades.
“I feel like I’m bringing joy back to Baltimore itself,” he said in a WMAR 2 interview last February.
Best FUBU: An Opulent Juneteenth
When community organizer Diamon Fisher announced plans for her Juneteenth celebration this year, she was pretty clear about who it was for: Black people.
“Juneteenth is important to me because of its history… and all that it meant to our ancestors and spirit guides,” she told us. “The ancestors were manifesting us into existence when they dreamt of and finally were ‘granted’ freedom. Freedom deserves to be celebrated, commemorated, and experienced.”
The all-day event turned out hundreds of Black people and featured workshops, tattoo artists, visual artists, a Black-owned food truck, signature cocktails by the late Maja Griffin, and musical performances by artists from up and down the East Coast.
The day was joyous, festive, and peaceful. It was a real reminder of the importance of gatekeeping Black culture. Some things ain’t for everybody. Juneteenth is for us.
Best Place to Learn: Black Alliance for Peace’s Summer School Series at NoMüNoMü
Political education is a necessity when you are doing the work of connecting communities that are routinely disempowered. In Baltimore City, working-class communities are disregarded and public education is underfunded. Black Alliance for Peace is a people-centered human rights project. Their Summer School series, held at the arts space NoMüNoMü, offered opportunities for community members in Baltimore to learn more about the impact of imperialism across time and geography. The series collaborated with other local organizing collectives to educate attendees on imperialism impacting Palestine, the Philippines, Baltimore City, and more while situating each session in the context of imperialist military occupation.
Best Way to Get in Touch With Your Roots: Chesapeake Conjure Society’s Annual All Saints’ Day Celebration
Baltimore’s history as a Black epicenter of history and culture is often eclipsed by contemporary narratives about Baltimore as a criminal geography with no hope for redemption. Chesapeake Conjure Society members work diligently to host educational events that recognize the histories and traditions of Black root workers and African spiritualists who live(d) in the Chesapeake region. They offer year-round programming that demystifies African spiritual and religious practices before and after colonization. Their annual All Saints’ Day Celebration, held November 5 at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Baltimore, is one way they invite community members to honor their dead, learn more about the Chesapeake region, and build a spiritual community.
Most Missed: Eddie Conway
Marshall “Eddie” Conway, a former Black Panther, activist, and dedicated organizer passed away on February 13, 2023. Conway was released from prison in 2014 after spending over four decades there for a murder he always said he was innocent of.
“This was the era of COINTELPRO, in which local police forces were enlisted by the national security state to crush the successful systemic challenge the Panthers and other associated revolutionary groups were posing to America’s racist, exploitative status quo,” his colleagues at The Real News Network wrote in his obituary. “It was at the height of this era that Eddie was framed for the 1970 killing of a Baltimore police officer, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison in 1971, after a heavily politicized trial in which Eddie was denied proper legal representation.”
When Conway came home, he immediately got busy advocating for prison reform and maintaining his status as a voice in communities like West Baltmore’s Sandtown where Freddie Gray was raised.
His homegoing service drew a large crowd of young and elder freedom fighters from all over Baltimore and the world to the Homewood Friends Meeting House. Speakers included long-time friends and comrades like activist and author Paul Coates and award-winning actor, producer and activist Danny Glover
Conway is missed every single day. His The Real News obituary left us with powerful words to help carry us through:
“Do your little part. Do whatever you can to help change these conditions. Because we’re moving into a critical period of history, not just for poor and oppressed people, Black people, but for humanity itself. So you need to engage. Do whatever little bit you can, but you need to do something.”
