While Irina was in NYC doing fancy schmancy things for Columbia Journalism School, she called her long-time Flickr friend and graffiti artist Royce Bannon to catch up. Irina met Royce when he was the photo editor of The Source hip hop magazine — he sent her a hand-painted tshirt that she wore an early episode of GETV. Irina and Royce discuss how he got into what he’s into. Royce Bannon aka R. Bizzle is a member of New York’s infamous Endless Love Crew and his work will be on display on the west coast at LA’s ThinkSpace Gallery from Jan. 9 – Feb 6, 2009 in a show called “From the Streets of Brooklyn.” (GETV would like to thank Matt Matossian of For Your Imagination Studios in NY who shot this episode for us. He is also the world-famous Shirtless Apprentice)

Episode links: Royce Bannon (myspace), (photos), Endless Love Crew, Diamond Headz, ThinkSpace Gallery, GETV: Charlie’s Real Life Chocolate Factory

We got wind of a big chess tournament happening with some of the big names in hip hop, so of course we had to see what this was all about. Turns out the Hip Hop Chess Federation was putting on the inaugural Chess Kings Invitational, an event with the brightest young minds of chess competing for scholarships and the big belt. Chess, hip hop music and martial arts are the elements that build life strategies according to founder Adisa Banjoko. Irina gets the scoop behind the 64 squares and meets legends PopMaster Fabel of the Rock Steady Crew and The RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan among others.

Episode links: Hip Hop Chess Federation, HHCF blog, Adisa Banjoko, Pop Master Fabel, Emma Bentley, The RZA, DLabrie, Davey D’s wrapup, Chesspark, [full interviews: Adisa Banjoko, PopMaster Fabel, Emma Bentley, DLabrie, The RZA of Wu-Tang Clan, Rugged Monk

A major highlight of CES for the GETV crew was getting immersed in nerdcore life. Nerdcore hiphop is a global phenomenon that showed Las Vegas that it’s for real and not to be trifled with. Two big shows of nerdtastic artistry went down that week. An epic night at the Beauty Bar and again two nights later at the DivX Stage6 stage at CES. In this first of two episodes, we highlight four of nerdcore’s hardest.

Episode links: Nerdcore hip hop, Nursehella, ultraklystron, ZeaLouS1, MCeeP, DivX Stage6