This evening, I went to the 2nd annual Chattanooga Hip-hop appreciation festival at Miller Park. Being new to the area, I was very excited to go see what type of talent the area had and the culture of hip hop within the city. Being from the Cleveland, OH area, we had a very respectable underground music scene, and since their are not a lot of music venues in Cleveland unfortunately, their could be a hip hop show with a metal show and everything was so music driven, it upped the talent level within the area to get onto these stages. All I’m saying is talent breeds talent breeds more talent. Believe it. I walk to Miller park from the hostel I’m at and find out that this place is in one of the coolest parts of Chattanooga. The art on the street made me realize that I shouldn’t listen to google so much, and keep my head up. Nice looking architecture. Thin building design. I walked into Miller Park but had to go around the buses and cars in the parking area. Now I know that this is Parking, but it made it hard to notice if I was in the right spot. Even if that wasn’t my destination, I would want it to be something that looks intriguing or the spot to be. Should have some kind of area set up like an information table so people say. What's that? Let’s take a look. I would like to see what's up. But upon entering the area, it seemed to me that this was this way because of restrictions placed on this event, and can’t all go on planning. (More on this later). The opening act was right up my alley. Some old school sounding scratching with one of my favorite instruments, a saxophone. Good stuff. Nice vibe. But remember how I said something about regulation? Know what was really off wack and most uninviting? Sheriffs in full looking body gear, guns, ammo, and other equipment in case al-qaeda shows up. On top of that, security guards, or people trying to make a buck, all around the park running some recon gigs with these sheriffs. I was just sitting and watching. I can’t be the only one that thought? Wow, who is paying for all of this? How much regulation went into such a nice thing? It was closed off. Some people came passing, but the group that they had booked to represent hip hop, weren’t hip, and I did not want to hop. In fact, after sitting for about 40 minutes, they got on the mikes, spit something terrible in the form of 4 or 5 word chorus lines, danced to some music, and pretty much hired dj hype men. For all that was going on was listening to music that has been so overplayed and grossly overrated, admitted by the artist themselves when related to their other works. The only hip was the one I used to stand up and hop out of there. The venue was gorgeous and so cool. I’m not here to push blame. How can we make it more inviting? There was a whole grass area that was not being used. Get some beer vendors. Need people down there. And they are going to have the arsonal walking around to stop a small militia, and there are all these bars around, what is the big deal? Music, the celebration. Make it more visible. Blocking out those spots gets people to see what is going on. Book some talent. Talent is talent, and that wasn’t talent. Hip-hop keeps the crowd, it doesn’t make them walk away if they appreciate the music. Vendors in the grass area rather than on the sidewalk area. Leave that open so people can look by and get a view from the top. The view is blocked so they walk around without engaging in anything.The legalization of delta 8 is also a reason that a local company should not have their product there and have a smoking lounge area where people can buy and chill in the grass area.  Also, it will help highlight the music as people will be able to get a nicer vantage point from that angle and really highlight the great architecture and light design in those lights. Again, I don’t know what type of restrictions they were dealing with so might be planning or trying to walk that thin line so the city doesn’t do something to fuck with them. It has the beginning stages of something very successful and unique, but it seems that it will be a bit of a slope as bridges between communities are real. Some self inflicted. But some are also inflicted by others. The surroundings of a beautiful place, a beautiful and unique idea, clouded by signs of unneeded regulations and a feeling of a loss of liberties. Their is no alcohol in site, and you got the fucking militia down there. But I walk down the street, there are some drunk slobe chugging beer on the sidewalk harassing a street performer and no one in sight? How can all these bars be free of what they are prepared for? The likelihood of something happening there to that degree is way more likely in the surrounding area then right there. It would defeat the purpose of what hip hop stands for and that is what it was supposed to be about. In the future, I hope that somehow the city planners and whoever else is involved will want to see the success as a mutual beneficiary then them being their to set up the hoops to jump through. All the way spending unneedy money around every corner when it could be used in a more beneficial way. Rather than suppress, support I would say. Imagine that budget on security alone. How far could that go to promote it? Even getting better talent? Seems that it is already set up to fail and that is unfortunate. Just an opinion.