“It’s always who got killed today. We don’t need to hear that. We should hear, ‘This kid excelled today,’ ” one study subject reported.

If the questions posed by at-risk youth to members of the media at a recent youth violence prevention forum put on by the Illinois Department of Human Services are any indication, minority perceptions about the media haven’t changed much in the past decade.

More than 600 young people from at-risk communities gathered May 1 for the youth-organized, youth-led Safety Net Works town hall meeting. The event featured six media panelists who fielded questions from the audience about what they perceived as a lack of positive media coverage in their communities.

“When we’re doing positive things, you’re nowhere to be found,” said one teen. “But when people are getting shot – that’s when you come. I don’t feel like that’s how it should be.”

Safety Net Works program director Xavier Williams explained the psychological impact that negative news coverage can have on youth.

“When you constantly see your community in a negative way, you’re not really going to have strong self-confidence and high self-esteem,” he said. “It sort of makes it seem like, ‘What’s the purpose of trying? I’m already destined for failure.’ ”

While all media panelists conceded that they could do a better job reporting, most emphasized that the youth were equally responsible for getting their positive stories told. Some even grew defensive.

“If you have a great story that you want to get covered, you need to verse yourself in the best way to get it covered,” NBC-5’s Carol Ash said. “You can’t just call the assignment desk at 3 in the morning screaming at me, because I will probably ignore you.”

Responses like these prompted accusations by some teens that the journalists had offered excuses rather than straight answers.

“We probably was overflowing them with the right questions and they didn’t have any answers for them,” said 16-year old Tatiana Woulard, of Roseland, who felt the media had dodged most questions. “A couple of the media people sat up there speechless – like two of them did not open their mouth and speak on none of the questions that people were asking them.”

Woulard said that by featuring more positive stories, she thought the media could be instrumental in helping to promote peace rather than inciting violence in her community. But like many in the black community, she was skeptical that the media had any intention of doing that.

Cortez Spearman, a 20-year-old Roseland resident who also attended the event, was more willing to cut the reporters slack.

“I think they could do a little better, but at the same time, I think they’re doing the best they can. It’s a job.” he said. “They can’t view everything that’s great. They can’t view everything that’s bad.”

Former Sun-Times reporter Curtis Lawrence, who did not attend the event, said that negative perceptions about the media in African-American and Latino communities are nothing new.

“That’s always been the case where there’s been a complaint that there’s not enough positive news and I think that that complaint has some legitimacy,” said Lawrence, now a journalism professor at Columbia College. “I think it seems a little sharper now because there’s just not as much reporting on many things across the board because a lot of the staffs at the papers have been decimated over the years.

At the event, panelist and ABC-7 producer Stephen Lewis explained to students how staff cuts underlay the decline of media coverage in certain neighborhoods.

“As you know, the economy is in the tank,” he said. “Newsrooms, newspapers, television are having to reduce staff, tremendously. And so we can’t be everywhere at all times.”

While Lawrence acknowledged the difficulty that dramatically reduced staffs face in trying to deliver comprehensive news coverage, he wouldn’t use it as a justification.

“That’s not a cop-out or an excuse, still,” he said. “Because even when they had the staffing, often the papers failed to cover the communities in a holistic way – covering, you know, the good things and bad things.”

Anumbus Rah, a community activist and founder of the popular Chicago hip-hop blog, “The Guttahouse,” summed up his thoughts on the panelists’ answers in one word.

“Bullshit,” he said. “Because of the simple fact that they’re passing the buck.”

Neither Rah nor Woulard said they regularly watched the local nightly news.

“There’s a point in time when you get tired of hearing it,” Woulard said. “I done got fed up. I mean, I wanna be happy, you know, I don’t wanna feel like, ‘Oh my god, I could die any moment.’ You don’t wanna think about that 24/7. And that’s what the news makes you think about – the negative. Negative, negative, negative.”

In Rah’s opinion, members of the Roseland community are generally oblivious to the news.

“They’re not really paying attention to the news – they could care less,” he said. “We know that the news is not going to be accurate so we don’t even pay attention to it. Half of the youth don’t even watch the news, never picked up a newspaper, ain’t interested in a newspaper.”

For media professionals, this shift from community-wide anger over coverage to all-out news avoidance may be one of the most troubling take-homes from the event.

It left panelist Brenda Butler wondering what right youth have to complain about news coverage when they aren’t consuming it.

“Teens are criticizing on one end, but they’re not doing their work,” said Butler, a longtime editor at the Chicago Tribune. “They’re not reading as they should. They’re not engaging. And some of the criticisms they talked about, I just wondered, how far would they really go to try to reach someone at a newspaper or at a TV station. Had they really tried to do that?”

Woulard said she had no intention of contacting any news organizations about covering positive stories in her community.

“I know if we do we’re not gonna get a response,” she said, shaking her head. “Because they don’t care. They only care about putting money in their pockets. Let’s say they get a set of shootings. The one with the most violence and the one with the most death will be aired.”

Despite the pervasive negativity surrounding Chicago’s mainstream media coverage of high-crime communities, residents of these communities insist that viable solutions exist which could renew interest in and satisfaction with news coverage.

Rah, Woulard and local hip-hop artist Mikkey Halsted, who performed at the town hall event, all stressed the need for reporters to embed in communities of color to get a more balanced picture of daily life there.

Halsted, also of Roseland, said he believes that much of the violence associated with recent school closings and turnarounds, specifically the beating death of Fenger High School student Derrion Albert, could have been prevented by enterprising reporters.

“They should talk to somebody like me, who’s from the community, who still lives in the community and would not give my community up,” Halsted said. “They would know stuff, like [the problems that would arise] when you shut down Carver High School and turn it into a military academy. I’m from that area. I know that people from Altgeld Gardens have always been at odds with people [in Roseland].

“But, nobody is there to understand the dynamic of the neighborhoods, the gang structure, the community structure, and so it’s like a time bomb just waiting to go off,” continued Halsted. “If the people at the Board of Education don’t do their due diligence, if the media beats them to it, then the media can play the role as the watchdog it should play and not be reactionary, but be proactive. They could shine the light on the problem so somebody will say, ‘Oh, we didn’t think of that. Let us do something about that.’ ”

Lawrence agrees that the only way to accurately report on any community and gain its trust is through embedding and becoming a fixture at community events. He acknowledged that devoting significant time to the type of in-depth reporting Halsted suggested can be challenging, but insisted that it was possible. While covering the Chicago Housing Authority and the demolition of the city’s high-rises earlier this decade, Lawrence said he embedded in the communities he covered.

“I made myself a current fixture at Stateway Gardens and spent a lot of time reporting them and to a lesser extent the Robert Taylor Homes,” he said. “I got to know the people as people in the community and they got to know me, so the only time they saw me wasn’t just when somebody got shot or when the police raided one of the developments. They knew who I was. They had seen me at community meetings. I had done profiles on various people in the community.”

Speaking after the event, panelists Butler and Kathy Chaney both agreed that embedding in communities was essential.

“Clearly more of that needs to be done because there is a distrust or a disconnect between the media and the people in the communities,” said Butler, who currently heads a youth journalism program for CPS students at Columbia College. “More of that needs to happen, those alliances with people in the communities. All the best stories are told that way.”

Breaking down the barriers of fear and distrust that hold back members on both sides of this vital issue will only occur, it seems, when the practice of reporter immersion within a neighborhood is applied wholeheartedly by a significant number of media outlets.

Given widespread budgetary constraints throughout the industry, a future media landscape where major outlets do thorough and in-depth reporting is unlikely.

One hope for the future of comprehensive community storytelling lies with citizen journalism.

“Larger entities can only do so much,” Butler said. “That’s why you see these little experiments going on in communities with community journalism and citizen journalism. Mainstream papers and foundations are funding some of these efforts. People know that there’s a problem there and they’re working on it.”

As Americans have rapidly adopted digital communication methods like text messaging and online social networking, some people have bemoaned what they perceive as the resulting decline in face-to-face contact and the growing aversion to even phone conversations.

For years, discussions about the Internet’s impact on our relationships have stressed both its positive and negative effects. The benefit of increased communication with physically distant but like-minded individuals is tempered by the troubling decrease in interactions between neighbors and community members.

Independent musicians were one of the groups initially expected to benefit most from the Internet’s growth and leveling of the musical playing field. Niche artists with less mainstream appeal who had forever occupied the historically unmarketable Long Tail of the probability distribution could finally be monetized online.

Personal artist websites, blogs and file-sharing programs afforded listeners a much larger musical selection by removing cost and discovery barriers that had previously prevented widespread transmission when music was strictly a tangible good.

But what originally seemed a godsend for independent artists has had unanticipated negative effects, particularly for hip-hop artists. Aspiring rappers, who frequently hail from low-income, minority communities, have historically relied on passing out flyers and face-to-face CD or casette transactions to promote their music.

With the rise of the Internet, some performers lament that the personal connection between artist and fan has actually diminished, leading to a problematic disconnect and increased musical isolation.

“You shouldn’t ever let go of that [personal connection] aspect of it,” said Esohel, an emcee on Chicago’s North Side who admits he now distributes fewer promotional flyers than he once did. “You gotta make yourself familiar with the people that are actually going out to support live music because when your live show comes around, you’re gonna expect people to be there, not U-Streaming at home.”

Although the ability to connect with hundreds or even thousands of fans at the click of a button through social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter can lend the appearance of having developed a large, devoted fan base, online connections are ephemeral.

“Anyone can click, but who comes out to support?” asked hip-hop promoter Jordan “Juice” Ruiz, referring to fickle fans who R.S.V.P for events via Facebook, but don’t show up.

Hip-hop blogger Anumbus Rah agreed.

“You got a lot of people that false flag,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen on Facebook all the time. You got 30, 40, 50 people saying, ‘I’m gonna be at the show,’ and then when the show comes around, only five of them actually show up.”

The internet has also spelled the end of mom and pop record shops that sold music by local artists.

Besides losing a one-stop shop for local music fans, the demise of these independent shops has also meant the absence of the stores’ knowledgeable owners and staff who could recommend the music of talented, but previously unknown artists to fans.

“Back then, the customer knew where to go, where to find certain music,” Esohel said. “There are a lot of people that always ask, ‘Where can I get your music?’ and it’s hard to say. You kind of just redirect them back into the internet world. It kind of loses that personal touch.”

Esohel said he remembers traveling to different mom and pop shops as a teenager with his brother, a popular Chicago DJ, to distribute thousands of mixtapes.

“We hit up every little mom and pop shop you could think of throughout the city,” he recalls. “We even would spread base to Wisconsin. We were going to Waukegan, East Chicago, Gary, Indiana. We were out there, driving, spending money on gas when gas wasn’t expensive.”

But around the turn of the century, as music file-sharing on the Internet exploded, independent stores started folding. Artists were greeted by shuttered doors and unable to collect money from CD sales after making long-distance CD distribution trips because long-time purchasers had closed shop.

Esohel blames the demise of the independent stores on the increasing ease of do-it-yourself technology – ironically, the same trend that has allowed artists to record their music more cheaply and independently, but while maintaining sound quality.

“[Mom and pop shops] died out after people were able to access their own CDs and CD burners,” he explained. “It just takes one person to buy a CD and the next person to copy it, burn it. The rise of music digitally kind of ruined the local stores.

“If you’ve got a CD store where you’ve left some CDs on consignment for $7, they’re selling them for 14, 15 bucks each,” he continued. “But if you also sold that CD to somebody on the street and they have 10 people that live in the area of that mom and pop shop where they would normally get it from, but this person goes and burns it for them for free or for 5 bucks a piece, then that store’s lost 10 times $14, $15.”

Some stores, like the Bassment in Wicker Park which originally sold music, were able to adapt.

“Throughout the years, as technology did its thing, CD sales haven’t been what they used to be,” explained Shabazz, who opened the Bassment in 2002. “So, we basically adapted to our environment and turned the store into a lifestyle store.”

Most of the stores could not adjust, however, and disappeared.

“It’s hard to name more stores [that survived],” Esohel said. “You kind of have to evolve, and as you see, those stores have evolved by carrying apparel and catering to the boutique clothing crowd.”

The Internet’s splintering of the local hip-hop scene has only been exacerbated by the “no hip-hop” policy held by many Chicago club owners. Owners have traditionally been averse to welcoming the genre into their venues because of liability concerns due to the perception that hip-hop shows invite fights and gang violence.

While Rah, founder of popular Chicago hip-hop blog “The Guttahouse,” acknowledges that some rap acts can attract an unwelcome element, he believes club owners incorrectly lump all hip-hop music and its fans together.

“Not every artist carries the same type of fan base, because not all the types of music sound the same,” he said. “But because a lot of the club owners on the South and West Side can’t tell the difference because they don’t even listen to the Chicago music, they don’t want to risk the liability.”

As a result, many of the city’s top hip hop spots are in the North Side, divorced from the demographic that traditionally listens to the music.

“The North Side was more willing to take those risks because they know they’re more protected,” Rah explained. “They know if something happens on the North Side, police are going to be there quicker.”

It also diminishes the likelihood that fans from the minority-heavy far South and West Sides even make it to shows since transportation from those areas can be grueling and expensive. That is, if fans from those parts of the city are even aware of the performances.

“Since these clubs are not advertised broad-based throughout the city, a lot of South Siders and West Siders aren’t even aware of these clubs’ existence, and if they are aware of them, they aren’t aware of the hip-hop nights at these clubs,” Rah said. “The RedEye does not cover it.

“A lot of the times I learn about the sets that I go to and cover on my site based on the artists,” he continued. “I very seldom hear about any of these parties or these performances from fans.”

All of this harkens back to the splintered quality of the hip-hop scene in Chicago. Not only are artists isolated from fans, but fans are isolated from other fans.

Fans come in homogenous crews to hear the artists they know, but are seldom in touch with people who can introduce them to new artists.

“It is really segregated. I see the same people at every single show,” Rah said. “Some of the people I saw at Abbey Pub are the same people that I would see at Tini Martini, which would be the same people you would see at the Bassment. Because they follow certain artists.”

Instead of the Internet opening up Chicago’s local hip-hop artists to more fans and more exposure, the trend seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

There are more independent rappers making music today than ever before, but a smaller percentage, it seems, are having an impact.

For many artists, the promise that the Internet once offered has turned to despair, as the oversaturated market and impersonal means of distribution the Internet allowed to flourish has diluted the artists’ message and further fragmented Chicago’s hip-hop scene.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Cubs fielded a team with three black future Hall of Famers – Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ferguson Jenkins. Today, you’d have to combine the rosters of both Chicago baseball teams just to find three black players total.

And, from looking around the league, that’s hardly an aberration. Major League Baseball has seen the number of black players among its ranks drop more than 50 percent since 1995. Since 1975, that number is down by two-thirds.

Ronzelle Fort, a hulking pitcher who recently graduated from Harlan High School in Roseland, said people are often surprised to learn that he plays baseball.

“When a lot of kids see me they be like, ‘You play baseball? Come on, man, you’re 6’7”. You should be on the football or basketball court.’”

In today’s sports landscape, Fort is unquestionably an anomaly .

The reasons for the precipitous decline in the number of African-American baseball players are numerous, and the tactics being used to reinvigorate the game with a black presence are ambitious but largely unproven.

More than just the oft-cited financial barriers to baseball, blacks face hurdles tied to the nature of the game itself and the systemic issues that people of color face in their everyday lives.

More so than football and basketball, baseball is a pedagogic sport grounded in tradition where skill trumps athleticism and subtle nuance can be the difference between success and failure.

In such a setting, individual instruction is paramount; relaying the skill set and history of the game from generation to generation a time-honored ritual.

But the two-parent family structure is becoming obsolete in African-American communities. More than 70 percent of African-American children are now born to unwed mothers and 65 percent grow up in single-parent households.

“You think of the game of baseball as a game that you play with your father – you’re playing catch in the backyard with your father,” said Kenny Fullman, a police officer and the head baseball coach at Harlan High School in Roseland. “A lot of times, these kids grow up without fathers in the household.”

Without the traditional parent/coach framework in place to aid the transmission of baseball knowledge, the game gets neglected.

For the top brass at Major League Baseball, the solution to this problem lies with engaging black youth, who have stopped playing the game at the levels they once did.

Since 1991, Major League Baseball has administered a program called Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities. Intended to provide disadvantaged youth a place to play baseball and learn teamwork free of charge, RBI programs exist in more than 200 cities nationwide.

Both Cubs and White Sox RBI programs exist in Chicago, funded directly by their respective namesakes and administered to participants ages 9 to 18 through the Chicago Park District. Park District spokeswoman Daphne Johnson said that the joint RBI programs serve over 500 kids across the city.

Dan Puente, coordinator of youth baseball initiatives for the White Sox, said that he can see the number of African-American kids who play baseball rising right before his eyes. He believes that the earlier kids start playing, the better.

“No matter what your racial demographic, [13] is really the age when kids start specializing or stop playing sports,” he said. “With programs like RBI introducing the game at a younger age, you’re really going to see the number of kids playing jump.”

He also credits RBI for keeping kids occupied during the summer months when many restless youth get into trouble.

“For a lot of kids in the areas that we’re working with, there aren’t a lot of opportunities for them to do something in the summer,” he said. “It’s very important for kids to have those options and the RBI program is something that keeps them engaged the entire summer.”

While few would disagree that RBI programs offer a positive recreational outlet for inner-city youth in Chicago, the program does not produce many highly-skilled players who can use the sport as a springboard to a better life through higher education.

Puente said this is largely due to a trend away from free or inexpensive community leagues and toward expensive travel baseball and pricy all-star showcases. Travel tournaments and showcases, where for a price kids can be evaluated by college and pro scouts, are now the primary means to obtain wide exposure and access to athletic scholarships. Not only do these new developments often outprice African-American families, but the consequence of this shift in scouting paradigm means that the best players and coaches move away from community leagues, making them less competitive and devoid of experienced instructors.

Without the proper level of instruction, many inner-city kids are at a distinct disadvantage by the time they reach high school and therefore choose to specialize in a sport other than baseball. Those that do continue to play often end up at less-competitive community colleges or small university programs because scouts no longer turn up at inner-city high school or summer community league games anymore.

“I’ve had a lot of kids go on to college and become draft picks out of college who didn’t even get looked at out of high school – and they were All-Area and All-State just like everybody else. It’s just not the sport they come in to look for guys at,” Fullman said.

In Chicago, the Amateur City Elite program, brainchild of Fullman and White Sox Crosschecking scout Nathan Durst — was launched in 2007 to correct this problem. ACE’s goal is to expose Chicago’s most talented inner-city ballplayers to competitive travel baseball and professional-level instruction with the hope of attracting interest from college and professional scouts.

Through ACE, which fields one team per age bracket from 13 to 17, Chicago’s top minority baseball players travel the country playing against elite competition, participating in regional showcases and receiving individualized instruction from current and former professional ballplayers while the White Sox fit the bill.

Durst estimates that 85 to 90 percent of ACE players go on to play in college. At this point, most end up at historically black universities or junior colleges, but the hope is to build pipelines to larger, more prestigious academic and athletic universities.

“We’re hoping to get more kids in major D-1 schools,” Fullman said. “But if they don’t, as long as they’re going to school that’s our goal, because a lot of times with the kids we’re dealing with, a lot of them would possibly have not went to college if we did not have this program around. “

The program currently boasts some of the top-rated players in the state of Illinois, especially at the younger age levels, and is starting to gain quite a reputation for stressing both baseball and academic excellence.

Marco Pickett, whose son Devin is an infielder and aspiring chemist on the 15-year-old ACE team, moved Devin to the program from another travel team because he thought it would afford him a better future, both athletically and academically.

“It teaches those guys to have some very strong values,” Pickett said. “Not just playing the game of baseball, but it sets them up for the game of life.”

The only black major league baseball players from Chicago who’ve made their debut since 1980

Kirby Puckett

March 14, 1960 – March 6, 2006
Education: Grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes housing project in Bronzeville and attended Calumet High School. After high school, Puckett attended Bradley University and Triton Community College in River Grove, Ill.
Career Highlights: Puckett, a stocky center fielder, played his entire career with the Minnesota Twins and holds franchise records for career hits, runs, doubles and total bases. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001 and his number 34 was retired by the Twins in 1997. Puckett died after suffering a stroke at the age of 45.

Marvell Wynne

December 17, 1959
Education: Attended Hirsch High School in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood
Career Highlights: A speedy outfielder, Wynne played for the Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs during the course of his career. Wynne’s son of the same name, a professional soccer player for the Colorado Rapids, was the first overall pick in the 2006 MLS draft.

Wes Chamberlain

April 13, 1966
Education: Attended Simeon High School in Auburn Gresham and Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss.
Career Highlights: Highly-touted outfielder who played for the Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Red Sox. As a rookie in 1991, Chamberlain finished fifth in the National League Rookie of the Year Award vote.

Emil Brown

December 29, 1974
Education: Attended Harlan High School in Roseland and then Indian River Community College in Fort Pierce, Fla.
Career Highlights: Considered a five-tool outfield prospect coming up through the minor leagues, Brown has played for five major league teams, most notably the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals. He was the Royals top run producer each of his three years with the team.

Lou Collier

August 21, 1973
Education: Grew up playing baseball in Roseland and attended Chicago Vocational Career Academy or CVS. After high school, Collier attended Kishwaukee Junior College in Malta, Ill., and Triton Community College in River Grove, Ill.
Career Highlights: Collier was a utility infielder for five major league teams throughout his career. He had his best season in 1998 as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Ernie Young

July 8, 1969
Education: Young attended Mendel Catholic in the Roseland Pullman community and later went to Lewis University, a small Catholic school in Romeoville, Ill.
Career Highlights: An outfielder, Young spent parts of eight seasons in the major leagues with four different teams. Most of his professional baseball career, however, was spent in the minor leagues. He retired in 2008 as the active minor league career leader in home runs, RBIs and runs scored. In 2009, he was named the manager of the Kannapolis Intimidators, a minor-league affiliate of the Chicago White Sox located in Kannapolis, N.C.

Marvin Freeman

April 10, 1963
Education: After attending CVS for high school, Freeman went to Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss.
Career Highlights: Freeman, a lanky right-handed pitcher, played for four teams over the course of his 10-year career. His best season came in 1994 when he finished fourth in the Cy Young Award voting as a member of the Colorado Rockies. Freeman is currently the bench coach for the Joliet Jackhammers of the Northern league and the assistant baseball coach at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Flossmoor, Ill.

From the very beginning, the hip-hop ethos has been tied to fashion. Run-DMC wore Adidas on their feet. LL Cool J rocked a Kangol on his head. And N.W.A. wrapped themselves in jet-black Raiders Starter jackets. As the hip-hop genre has evolved, the fashion, tightly tethered, has followed in stride.

Even as the financial side of the hip-hop music industry – for performers and distributors – has stagnated, the clothing and fashion segment has exploded. Major artists and executives have launched clothing lines and even underground producers and emcees often operate custom tee shirt printing businesses to make extra cash on the side.

It is within this music-fashion framework that the Bassment exists. A hip-hop clothing boutique, the Bassment has been a Chicago staple since 2002.

“Whether you need a new fitted hat, a fly tee shirt, the hottest mix tape on the street, we’ve got it all right here. It’s you’re one stop shop, it’s the Bassment,” pitches Shabazz, the owner and founder of the Bassment.

Stepping into the shop to escape the bustling traffic of North Ashland Avenue, you’re immediately struck by the polished hardwood floors, tidy glass cases full of CD’s and brightly colored custom shoes, hats and tee shirts the wave from the graffiti-tagged walls.

But it wasn’t always that way.

“We started off in, literally, a basement with a $500 credit card,” says Shabazz, a former DJ and native of Rogers Park.

Like the hip-hop scene itself, the shop has undergone a significant transformation over the years.

“We basically started as a music store — selling CD’s, DVD’s,” Shabazz explains. “Throughout the years, as technology did its thing, CD sales haven’t been what they used to be. So, we basically adapted to our environment and turned the store into a lifestyle store.”

The Bassment’s stock is replete with vibrant, splashy and exclusive street wear from distributors like Crooks and Castles and T.I.T.S., as is the prevailing trend in hip-hop fashion today. In an attempt to capitalize on the industry’s graphic tee shirt trend, the store recently started printing Chicago-themed tee shirts under the guidance of South Side graphic artist and old school emcee Doc Mananoff.

While other hip-hop boutique shops have failed in recent years, Shabazz says that the Bassment has persevered by adapting with the times and being willing to try new things to navigate the rocky economy.

“We try to stay relevant to the scene. Whether it’s bringing an artist into our store, throwing an event somewhere else, coming out with a tee shirt, online marketing, you know, staying relevant. If you sit down and relax people are gonna forget about you and then it’s a wrap. Time to close your doors.”

Stan, a customer from Cabrini-Green, says he visits the Bassment every couple months for exclusive music.

“In recent years, they got more variety,” he says. “I used to always come here for the mix tapes and the DVD’s, but now they got clothes. There’s not a lot of stores that have music and clothes. They usually have one or the other.”

In addition to carrying a broad inventory, the Bassment also moonlights as a venue for performances, rap competitions and music videos.

A backroom, originally used to house sound systems the store rents out, was transformed into an open show space some years back. Unlike the glossy, fresh look of the store, the backroom has an edgy, street corner feel evoked by exposed bricks walls soaked in graffiti and a craggy concrete floor.

Every Friday, the Bassment hosts an event they call Sessions that attracts dozens of community members who come out to see a show or perform themselves.

“If you’ve never done a show before at a club or a venue, our store is basically the spot to start at,” Shabazz says. “We welcome all local artists to come out, whether you’re a DJ, emcee or anything like that. Come in, you can rap, you can sing, whatever it is, get off the streets and do something positive.”

One week it’s a beat battle, the next a freestyle competition. In May, the Bassment installed huge flat screen TV’s and hosted a video game competition. Last Friday, they hosted an after party for a porn convention and held a fashion model call.

“I don’t know many shops like the Bassment,” says Angel Perez, 23, one of the store’s 10 staff members. “We’re unique. We’re one of a kind, pretty much.”

The shop’s longevity, relative to the volatile industry and gentrified community in which the Bassment operates, has also turned it into a destination for popular local acts and famous out-of-towners.

“Whenever there’s somebody’s in town, they ask ‘Where are we supposed to go, what is there to do in Chicago?” Shabazz says. “You know, the first name that pops up is the Bassment. We have all kinds of artists coming in here from Lupe to T.I., KRS-ONE, Swizz Beatz. If they’re in Chicago they’re gonna come.”

While notoriety within Chicago’s hip-hop circles is nice, Shabazz said he’s more focused on being a positive force in the community and promoting something he loves.

“It’s hard work, man, but, you know, what else are we gonna do? It’s what we do. We love it. That’s the main thing. If you don’t love it, get out of the game. You’ve got to really have your heart into it.”

View Joints and Jams in a larger map

Shopping bag = Hip-hop merchandise locations
Martini glass = Bar/Club
Schoolhouse = All-ages community/youth center