Onassis Presents: Stages A/Live | ATH Kids at Gagarin 205 | Special Guest: Marina Satti

STAGES A/LIVE
A series of concerts supporting the Greek indie music scene. WE STAY CLOSE, NOT CLOSED Enter the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel

Photo: Pinelopi Gerasimou

ATH Kids YouTube Live premiere from Gagarin 205: Sunday, January 24 | 21:00 (EET)

Free and unlimited

We can’t imagine life without the music stages that have shaped us. The Onassis Foundation is actively supporting the concert venues of the Greek indie scene. After Nightstalker, next up on the Gagarin 205 stage will be ATH Kids rapping their very own kind of rap, bringing the sounds and images of a new and youthful Athens to the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel, with a special guest appearance by Marina Satti.

The Onassis Foundation is supporting the local indie concert venue scene through a series of filmed live performances by bands and artists from the alternative Greek music scene, STAGES A/LIVE. By being next to all artists, but also everyone who plays their part – technicians, lighting specialists, and all those professionals without whom the music that has shaped us would never have reached us.

The first concert in the STAGES A/LIVE series – performed by Nightstalker – enjoyed more than 30,000 views in one week. On Sunday, January 24, the Gagarin torch is being passed to a music collective unlike any other that talks about Athens like no-one else. ATH Kids will be joining us on the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel to prime us in the contemporary rap and hip hop scene as it stands in 2021. The filmed concert includes a special guest appearance by Marina Satti, further broadening the musical discourse between music forms and cultures.

A phrase by William S. Burroughs best encapsulates everything ATH Kids represent: “Write about what you know.” Since 2014, the rappers, beatmakers, filmmakers, musicians, producers and DJs that make up the ATH Kids collective have been documenting Athenian life with rhymes and rhythms, videos and concerts – everyday life as organically experienced by restless kids of various nationalities who were born here. For ATH kids, to be young and living in Athens means to assimilate everything you hear, see and feel – both the experiences that thrill you and the ones that disappoint you – and to use it all as your raw material, as a knowledge base to create a kind of untamed creative dignity. Everyone has a duty to find a way to face their circumstances. The ATH Kids way – through a rap that is all their own – involves the sounds and images of a new and youthful Athens. This is the only Athens that exists. ATH KIDS is a collective, formed in 2015 by Valentin Rivera and Kareem Kalokoh. The collective represents the urban athenian culture, aiming to express Athens city’s new wave of hip hop from a different perspective.The city is what inspires the collective; it is their common thread. Their music – rap / hip hop in genre – is hugely influenced by a Greek, and moreover Athenian spirit, despite its English lyrics. ATH Kids operate not only as a collective but also as a family. They create everything on their own initiative, based on their personal taste and resources. The final result – everything from their music and lyrics to their music videos – emerges solely from their collective work and resources. In the five years they have been working together, they have performed at various music festivals and venues across Europe as representatives of an emerging Greek rap and hip hop music scene.

STAGES A/LIVE is a series of concerts without audiences but with lots of music, hosted by the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel. An alternative digital world tour featuring our favorite bands and artists, and everything we’ve experienced with them at legendary past lives held at landmark venues such as Gagarin 205, AN club, and other music stages in Athens and Thessaloniki.

Until we can all be together again at a live concert, music will be bringing us closer, even though we’ re far apart, helping us to relive memories and concerts shared with thousands of people – both friends and strangers – via our screens.

Greece’s indie music stages were created to support young artists and have supported yet more audiences with bands once unknown that went on to become legends, in no small part thanks to their performances at historic concert venues. Fuzzy memories that today spark nostalgia, and a need for these stages to pull through – places where we feel safe and full of energy.

Just talking about such spaces as Gagarin 205 and AN club, bring on a feeling you can’t quite describe, like some delicate miracle, as you remember the lights and the music, the leads and everything that lies behind and before them, everyone so very close together, dancing to the powerful sounds.

In this difficult time for people working in the arts, the Onassis Foundation is actively supporting these spaces that, due to the pandemic, are close to shutting their doors for good. Stages drained of artists, of technicians, of audiences – and of life.

Culture continues to form an integral part of our existence, and the music scene remains a space where we feel safe. The indie music scenes of Athens, of Thessaloniki, of every Greek city now depend on us all. For the sake of everything that connects us with concert spaces, and for all the moments they have given us. Looking to the future together, we miss our collective musical past. Tune in to the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel and turn the volume up – the Greek indie music scene is (a)live.

The initiative is free to watch and without any time limitation

Read more about Gagarin 205

Gagarin 205 opened its doors to the public in September 2002. It took its name from cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin – the first human to journey into outer space and orbit the Earth, in 1961. It sits at the heart of the Greek capital, at 205 Liosion Street and, at capacity, can host 1,200 people standing, or 600 seated. Inaugurating its activities on September 27, 2002 with Barry Adamson’s first solo appearance in Greece, the venue has now been operating for 18 seasons. In overview, the last 18 years have seen more than 1,400 different events held in the space, including: concerts from across the spectrum of the contemporary Greek and international scenes, DJ sets, music and film festivals, tributes to directors and film screenings, record label parties, and more. An average of more than 100,000 tickets each year marks the Gagarin 205 Live Music Space as the undisputed benchmark leader among concert spaces – and arts spaces more generally – in the Greek capital.

Credits

Concept & Curation: Christos Sarris

Production Coordinators: Smaragda Dogani, Elena Choremi

Production: Onassis Stegi

ΑΤΗ Kids

Kareem Kalokoh: Musical Artist

Valentin Rivera: Creative Director

Joseph Mouzakitis: DJ

Majin Cost: Musical Artist

Complex Shadow: Musical Artists

Dazedboi: Producer

Taj Jamal: Producer

Band Members

Complex Shadow: Vocals - Motion

Pangiotis Georgopoulos: Guitar

Christos Bekiris: Keys

Stylist: Olivia Kaifa

Special Thanks: Dangerous Minds, Sneaker 10

Special Guest: Marina Satti

Keys: Orestis Benekas

Filming

Director: Christos Sarris

Director of Photography: Evan Maragoudakis

Cameras: Dimitris Zivopoulos, Orfeas Kalafatis, Koralia Dogani

Recording Engineer - Mixing Engineer: Jacopo Focas

Editor: Tryfon Karatzinas

Colorist: Manthos Sardis

Photography: Pinelopi Gerasimou

Gagarin 205 Live Music Space

Gagarin 205 Manager: Marina Danezi

Light Engineer: Melina Zervaki

Sound Engineer: Grigoris Prassas

Production Manager: Steven Elpiziotis

Production Assistant: Philip Zamidis

Onassis Stegi

Technical Manager: Lefteris Karabilas

Technical Director & Project Support: Phil Hills

Lighting Technicians: Antonis Kokkoris, Giannis Psarros, Pavlos Pappas

Assistant Lighting Technician: Giorgos Tsitsigos

Stage Technicians: Aris Ragavis, Nikos Nizamis

Production Manager – Production Management Consultant: Dimitra Dernikou

Production Coordinators: Smaragda Dogani, Elena Choremi

Line Production: Irilena Tsami, Nikitas Vasilakis

Read more about ATH Kids

MAJIN COST

Majin Cost is a rapper of Sierra Leonean descent, a blood diamond born and raised in Athens, Greece. His influences in his formative years included US East and West Coast sounds, as well as Southern rappers like Jeezy. Cost is also a member of the ATH Kids collective. He first indulged in the music world while in junior high school when, along with a friend, they decided to start recording in a home studio. This encouraged other members from their circle to get involved alongside them – whether it was rapping or producing – to create music. As years passed, Cost began developing his own unique and darker sound which granted him the alias ‘Black Poseidon.’ The reference comes from the Greek mythology – the idea that his voice could create waves on a track.

KAREEM KALOKOH

Athens-born and raised hip-hop artist Kareem Kalokoh is a member and cofounder of the ATH Kids collective. He started making music at the age of 17, after he decided to drop out of high school and work his way into the hip-hop echelon. Kareem’s first EP, released on SoundCloud and titled “ATH2090s,” was paying homage to his hometown of Athens. Along with Valentin Rivera, his partner and cofounder of the ATH Kids collective, he managed to create his own unique world: their new street Athenian perspective, being portrayed through music and visuals, was enough to captivate the audience, whereas dark heavy-hitting anthems like “OTAM” and “New Flame” created a huge buzz in the city. His debut album “CONGO” included fan favorites such as “Whip Game” and landed him a spot at the YouTube channel “A Colors Show,” being the only artist from Greece to ever do so. He went on tour to support the album, with shows in France, Germany, USA, United Kingdom, and The Netherlands.

JOSEPH

Joseph Mouzakitis is a DJ and visionary artist, born, raised and based in Athens, Greece. From a very young age he always brings a brand-new sound out, mixing hip-hop with afro beats and electronic music, from basements to festivals and from festivals to overseas gigs. He is a member and DJ of ATH Kids collective known for their contemporary creativity, reshaping Athens identity and putting it on the global scene.

VALENTIN RIVERA

A photographer and director, Valentin Rivera has a Latin American background. In 2015, along with Kareem Kalokoh, they cofounded the ATH Kids collective, aiming to portrait Athens to the outside world, through their music and images. During these last five years, he has greatly contributed to the Greek hip-hop/rap scene, as far as video clips concerned, always pursuing a high standard image quality and a respective aesthetics.