Name: Chuckie Campbell & The Phaction 

 Age: Six months 

Describe what you will do this year as part of Infringement Festival:
For the infringement festival, Chuckie Campbell & the Phaction seeks to bring our live show to eccentric environments that will enliven and enrich creative locales for performance; whether it be a street corner, parking lot, lawn, porch, rooftop, beach, or wherever—the goal is to embrace the tension of bringing hip hop into abnormal but interesting spaces. With David “Teaspoon” Hulett on drums, Naheem Shabazz on trombone, Emilio Virella on the trumpet, and myself, Chuckie Campbell, on vocals, we plan to take a dynamic, powerful, and eclectic approach to hip hop, filled with fluid instrumentation, lush musical arrangements, and heartfelt poetic nuance.

What inspires you to create your art?
Of course, as an artist, I’m inspired by music, film, painting, sculpting, and various other kinds of art, but further, I believe in making art because I feel it illuminates the social process of learning, acts as a preservation of culture, supports the educational initiative to instill knowledge, and shifts thought in and out of fixed perspectives. Being cross-disciplinary, artistic expression is virtuous in its separation from other forms or artifacts of cultural construction; artists work with relationships, not just blunt analysis, which at its center makes it humanistic. In turn, art then softens our natures by allowing us to stand in grey areas, connects our sympathies to a larger consciousness, and thus, makes us more aware of our own existence, our being.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve done in the name of art?
A year or so ago I was filming a music video where, everything was originally in black and white, and color was supposed to move through people by touch as I bumped into them in the city – kind of the way that the spirit Azazel moved through touch in the movie Fallen. As we were filming, some people didn’t know I was touching people for this reason, and sometimes, a touch wasn’t so light; so, I was bumping into people, basically.

Describe your favorite Infringement moment in past years’ events.
Performing at Verve Dance Studio.