First Flight Crew

First Flight Crew with Morganics

First Flight Crew are an eight piece hip hop outfit from Sydney, performing original tracks with Aussie B-Boy Morganics.

First Flight Crew are getting serious about representing people with a disability and showing off their hip hop skills to a wide public audience.

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Background

In late 2008 Accessible Arts’ Creative Programs Coordinator, Alison Richardson assisted Victorian based music organisation Club Wild to organise a series of four workshops in song creation with hip hop artist Morganics. The result of these workshops were two tracks, The Wild Ones and Music Makes Me Happy which also had an accompanying music video clip that the group created with video artist Finton Mahony.

Following this, the group was invited by Morganics to perform at The Beach Road Hotel, Bondi as part of a hip hop night with interstate and international artists including Elf Tranzporter and King Kapisi. This night exposed the group to a whole new audience of people outside of the disability sector, they blew the crowd away with their dancing and beat boxing. One of the members of the group, Nam, left the venue with one word to say – “More!”

In 2009 most of the original hip hoppers returned, along with a few newbies, to take part in a two day song creation workshop again with Morganics. They created an original song called Funky Guitar Style Noises as The Funkeze, which they performed over a weekend at two of Western Sydney’s biggest Youth Week events, The Burbs in Blacktown and Bring It On! in Fairfield. They performed on the hip hop stages at both events and again showed the crowd how just how talented they are and how they can hold their own in the hip hop arena. The group is now called the First Flight Crew.

Keep an eye on this page for further updates on First Flight Crew & all things hip hop!

Contact: To get in touch with the First Flight Crew contact Alison Richardson on tel: 02 9251 6499 ext 112 or arichardson@aarts.net.au.

FIRST FLIGHT CREW : BIOS

	MARK BEKIR Mark (aka Marky Mark) is a 27 year old hip hopper from Bankstown. He has three solo songs, Clap Your Hands, Everybody Scream & his most popular song Marky Mark in da House all produced with Home Bass in Bankstown under the guidance of NOMISe and Craig. He has performed as part of International Day of People With a Disability events at Fairfield City Council, twice at Bring It On! for Youth Week in Fairfield, Club Wild at Sydney Opera House, Martin Place, Bankstown Idol, The Annandale Hotel for Bakehouse, The ‘Burbs, Blacktown. He is also a Bulldogs supporter.
	NAM LE Nam is a 20 year old who lives by music. From the 80’s to new releases, Nam knows them all. Since the age of 10, Nam has performed at Bankstown’s Town Hall annual performance and has made regular appearances on the Torch newspapers for his enthusiasm, happy go lucky personality and love for life. Nam loves hip hop and RnB – he idolises Chris Brown, Usher and Akon just to name a few. He’s been fortunate to have met past Idol stars such as Guy Sebastian, Shannon Noll and Paulini. Nam is full of energy and goes to every dance performance he is invited too to show off his talents – always the centre of attention, Nam will go that extra step to be seen or heard! In his spare time, Nam loves to draw, watch movies, go swimming and watches David Copperfield’s magic tricks. He loves BBQs and enjoys time with his friends and family.
	PHILIP RASMUSSEN Philip is 24yrs old. He has a great sense of humour and an interest in all styles of music. Phil started doing clay animation videos and has enjoyed doing his own video clips to complete his music compositions. Phil has completed three CD’s of his own music composed on computer with all his own lyrics. He has worked in local radio stations and was in his element being the only boy from his school in the rock eisteddfod with the girls school. Recently he has been working at improving his dance skills with the Street University. Philip’s interests are music, singing the house down, videos, computer games, photography, gardening and his dog.
	DIGBY WEBSTER Digby is 22 years old, he loves to perform and has extensive and varied acting experience that all began at Dulwich Hill High. He is a founding member of the Ever After Theatre and has participated in improvisation, acting, movement and voice workshops. His many varied public performances include Accessible Arts programs at Powerhouse Youth Theatre & sliced bread attraction’s Bakehouse festival and Get Toasted performance training program. He has appeared in the Australian Theatre for Young People production of Cravings, participated in Dance Ability singing with James, and puppeteering with Erth Visual and Physical theatre company. He has completed visual art classes at Pine Street Studios and had his work exhibited at the Tin Sheds Gallery and the Opera House. Music and movies are a big part of his life. He values friendship. He loves his dog, Wii sports and being on Facebook. He currently works at the Australia Council for the Arts.
	CHRIS DYKE Chris loves his family, gym, hip-hop, cycling, Wii, www, photography & cars. He has participated in the Sydney to Wollongong bike ride three times. He is an ace athlete with star performance in javelin and archery. Other activities he’s involved in include Special Olympics basketball, horse-riding, swimming and sailing. His creative talents extend to arts and crafts such as stone-carving, painting and weaving. As well as being in First Flight Crew he is a regular at Saturday morning hip-hop classes at Sydney Dance Company. His favourite people are his mum, dad, two sisters, brother (in law) and great danes, Zoe and Bosco). He loves hip hop artists Chris Brown, Rhianna and bow-wow, TV shows Rage & Video Hits and his favourite bike is a mountain bike with super shocks.
	NINA SALECE Nina lives on the north side of Sydney and works part time. She is 21. Her passion is music and she has a huge collection of CD’s. Combined with her addiction to videos this means she is a big fan of musicals from Oliver to Moulin Rouge and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Nina also loves to dance and has been a member of the Merry Makers dance group since 2005 with many performances in Sydney as well as shows in Adelaide and Brisbane. Her greatest ambition is to be a singer. In rehearsals with Merry Makers she had the fabulous experience of singing with Guy Sebastian. She performed with a group singing in the Manly Youth Concert in 2008 and hopes this group will be able to continue performing in the future. Nina also loves painting and her current hobby is painting ceramics. Nina loves the energy of hip hop.
	DAN MALFITANA Dan is 19 years old. He really loves hip-hop. His favourite artists are Flo-Rida and Eminem. He likes it because he think it’s cool & he likes the style of music. Dan likes to express himself and how he is feeling through hip hop and it makes him feel good.
	ANA NGUYEN Ana Nguyen is a singer, songwriter, rapper, performer and political activist living in Sydney, Australia. Her music is varied as she does all types of things. It does not always fit into one category as she is doing it differently to everyone else and so her music stands out from the crowd, traversing hip hop and rock. She uses the force central to hip hop to discuss the issues that anger her, while rock provides an ideal outlet for her deeper thoughts and emotions. Ana will start using electronic music as well as she wants to draw out fantasies and dreams too. She has performed in stage productions for Powerhouse Youth Theatre; Divine Places (2005), City Quest (2007), Hard Daze (2009) & has been selected for Accessible Arts’ national art exhibition AART.BOXX (2008, 2009). She is releasing her single Economy Sick on iTunes and is currently working on her debut album. Read Ana’s writing. Become a fan of Ana on Facebook.