MC Yogi (Nicholas Giacomini) grew up in Northern California painting graffiti and listening to hip hop.  He spent much of his high school years in a group home for at-risk youth then at the age of 18 he discovered yoga which changed his life.  By combining yoga with his love of hip hop music, MC Yogi brings the wisdom of yoga and peace to his music and now has an internet hit on his hands with "Vote For Change".



Over 150,000 people have watched your "Vote For Hope" video on You Tube and for many young people this is the first election where we feel that there is a candidate that speaks to us and will hear us and protect our future.  How has this election changed you?

I think what has occurred to me and a lot of other Americans is that voting for Barack Obama in this election is not just voting for a Democrat over a Republican. It's about voting for a paradigm shift. Our country has gone so off course in the last eight years with unrestricted corporate corruption, an imploded economy, and this unjust war. Barack Obama is a smart man with sound values. Qualities that our head of state desperately needs. In making "Vote For Hope" I am adding my voice to the voices of so many other young people calling for change. It gives me hope to think that I can get involved in the political process through my art.   

Does the world of viral videos and marketing make it easier to get your music out or is it a crowded market?  And if so what do you do to get noticed like you have with "Vote For Change".  How did digg.com help your video spike recently.

To be honest, this is the first video I have ever made. I wrote the song and my record label supported the project by printing 15,000 hard copies of it which we gave away, mostly on the streets of Denver during the Democratic convention. I knew that having a visual to the song would make the message even more powerful, and started designing the artwork for the video. I had no idea how I was going to fund the video, I just had faith. I started to raise some money from my community, and then out of no where an amazing man contacted me and donated the bulk of the funds we needed to pay for the animation and production. It all happened so fast, maybe a week from start to finish. As soon as the video was done, we sent it out to our email contacts through the yoga studio that my wife and I run, I sent it out to my friends on Facebook, the other people who worked on the video sent it out to their personal email lists, and then BOOM! It spread like wildfire. We posted it on vimeo and youtube. For the first week I was logging in every few hours to see how the views were escalating by the thousands. It was an amazing thing to witness. When digg posted it on their homepage the views almost doubled overnight. It had a huge impact. As I write this there are over 250,000 views between youtube and vimeo combined in only a couple of weeks.

I learned more about Mahatma Ghandi from your "Be The Change" song that I did in school how did you become so influenced by Indian culture? Why is Ghandi's message still so relevant today?

Mahatma Gandhi has been a hero of mine for a long time now. I loved the movie Gandhi and watched it over and over when I was a teenager. Then I got into yoga and traveled to India to study with the masters. The idea of  being a non-violent revolutionary, a spiritual warrior, had a huge impact on me.  I think Gandhi's message is so relevant today because he believed that true change can only begin with ourselves. Today, we are so disillusioned with our leaders and our government, we are starting to realize that if we want change we have to make it happen. We can no longer pretend that someone or something outside ourselves is going to do it for us.

Hip Hop gets generalized as negative or having a negative impact yet you've found a way to enlighten people to not only eastern sounds but concepts such as non-violence, vegetarianism, meditation, history and a true message from Obama without the spin.   What do you think is the future of hip hop?

Barack Obama actually said one of the coolest things about hip hop I have heard in awhile. In an interview given earlier this year he said, "hip hop is not just a mirror of what is, it should also be a reflection of what can be." This basically sums up my purpose for being an emcee.

How has meditation changed your life?

Meditation continues to be one of the most valuable practices I've found. It has helped me to realize the Truth that underneath all the layers of separation there is Oneness.   

Obama is going to have a tough job ahead. If you were djing and had to pick a victory song (other than your own of course) for Obama on the night of the 4th what would it be?

Harold Melvin "Wake Up Everybody" and Bill Withers "Lovely Day"

Do you have kids?

Not yet. Our "baby" right now is our very spoiled, very beautiful, rescued pitbull mix named Mo, short for Mahatma (which means 'great soul' in sanskrit). In fact my wife, Amanda, just illustrated a children's book about Mo's adventures called "Mo Smells Red" . Check it out on www.MosNose.com. A portion of proceeds from the book are donated to help animals in need.

The album ELEPHANT POWER is available on itunes, www.mcyogi.com and the next video "Be The Change" about Mahatma Gandhi is coming soon.