Raw Power

Rudi Goblen, founder of the internationally renowned break-dance crew the Flipside Kingz, was 15 years old at the time. "I brought like three cans of black beans, and bam!, I was in!"

It wasn't easy to stage Hoodstock. Wynwood then was a predominantly Puerto Rican, low-income neighborhood between Overtown and Little Haiti. "Gangbanging, violence, drugs... it was not a place to be after dark," Raw recalls. "The city was like, 'Go ahead, let's see if you can pull it off.' It was like they were testing us, just waiting to see some shit go down."

Raw knew he couldn't do it alone, so he turned to Omar Islam for help. The 40-something-year-old, toughly built, five-foot-nine Colombian, a founder of the Florida chapter of the Zulu Nation, had met Raw in '92 at a hip-hop party he threw called Hip-Hop Delight.

"The saying 'Each One, Teach One' — that's hip-hop," Islam states. "It shows the ghetto youths that there are different avenues in life besides selling dope on the corner. Hip-hop was never about bling this and bitch that. That's what corporate America created. Hip-hop is an outlet and a guide to living a good and respectable life. And that's what Hoodstock promoted — hip-hop can change the world."

Kurage was in charge of Hoodstock's entertainment. "We had no idea what we were doing," he remembers. "Raw just wanted to throw a free jam in Wynwood!" The all-day event showcased 26 local talents and featured live graffiti painting, break dancing, and several hour-long seminars on the music business.

Mostly Wynwood residents attended that first year, and not one argument broke out. Even the head of the Wynwood police, Lt. Mario Garcia, was quoted as saying, "It was quiet — not one problem."

Raw was inspired to make Hoodstock an annual event, but Hoodstock '95 brought DJ Raw into conflict with a competing hip-hop conference, "How Can I Be Down," that was held around the same time. The "Down" conference took place at the glamorous Shore Club on South Beach, where registrants paid up to $500 to hobnob with Puff Daddy and Mase. Ten miles west, Hoodstock was a free outdoor event held in the ghetto.

Ironically, "How Can I Be Down" was marred by violence, shootings, and street brawls, but Hoodstock was peaceful. While the attendees of the "Down" conference sipped mojitos by the pool, Hoodstock served no alcohol, even rejecting sponsorship deals with Presidente and Budweiser beer. "We had a different agenda than Peter Thomas [founder of "How Can I Be Down"]. We did Hoodstock for the youth, and they were more for the adults," recalls Peter Price who did marketing. "We weren't asking for [trouble], 'cause quite frankly, it was two different festivals. Yet ultimately, if it was a competition, Hoodstock won."

Hoodstock and "How Can I Be Down" soon settled their differences, and in '96, the two conferences worked together on Columbus Day weekend. That year, more than 10,000 people from as far away as Japan attended. The Miami Herald ran a story about Raw and his KOP members with the title "Hip-Hop Acts Give Peace a Chance." Miami New Times made him a personal best in its "Best of Miami" issue.

Raw says he hoped to use Hoodstock's success to go straight. "We was making dope money to eventually get out of the ghetto, to become legit, you know." By then, he was a father of three (one biological son, and a son and a daughter whom he legally adopted after his marriage to Maria Casañas, AKA Yaggi).

"He'd always tell me to do good in school," recalls Raw's son, Raul Medina Jr., AKA Lil' Raw. "He was strict when it came to that kinda stuff."

So in 1996, he even sponsored the Northwest Boys and Girls Club's basketball team, the Falcons, and coached a baseball team for the Miami Shores Optimist Club.

A 29-year-old Wynwood resident who goes by the nickname Felony says he considered Raw the Robin Hood of Wynwood. "He would, like, come through one day with go-carts and have all the kids drive them around the block," he says. "He had an open-door policy to his crib. Kids would come in and play pool, fix themselves something to eat. It was like we lived there."

Felony recalls Raw telling kids to stay in school, finish their homework, and stay away from drugs and violence. "He was like our dad. If you needed anything, Raw would get it for you, no questions asked: clothes, food, rent money, anything. If he saw the local ice-cream truck come around, he'd give him $100 so the kids could go wild on ice cream."

Another Wynwood local, 33-year-old Pastor Sergio, grew up and still resides in a fenced-in, two-bedroom, quaint yellow home across from Roberto Clemente Park. His life before becoming a man of faith included drugs and violence. Raw, he says, "brought Hoodstock to Wynwood, and that's a beautiful thing — there needs to be more positive events like that in every hood."