.Best All-Ages Event: Effusive gassing, braking, and dipping

Local teens have E-40 to thank for a good-sized chunk of their slang, given that such 40isms as “ghost ride the whip” and “gas, brake, dip” (both of which derive from stupid car tricks) are now common coin in Bay Area high schools. On the other hand, 40 can thank teenagers for spawning the cult of fandom (né “the hyphy movement”) that ultimately gassed up his record sales. Now Oakland youth are looking for places to get hyphy and boogie down without having to flash a fake ID. Enter the Weekend Wake-Up, a free all-ages hip-hop event held every third Friday of the month at East Oakland’s Youth Uprising Center. With shows featuring such enterprising East Bay hustlers as D Labrie, the Jacka, Raw G, and members of the Unity High School DJ Project — plus occasional B-boy jams — Weekend Wake-Up provides a safe, not-too-sideshowish space for youth to swap their new slang terms, floss their Air Force Ones, and go dumb without actually going dumb. No reported 40 sightings as of yet … but wait.