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My Turn by Toni Tabora-Roberts

From The Asian Reporter, V18, #38 (September 23, 2008), page 6.

Earlier this month, I joined fellow organizers, volunteers, partner organizations, and participants for the second Portland Grassroots Media Camp, a weekend of free knowledge shares aimed at empowering community members and activist organizations with media skills of all kinds. (AR columnist Polo held an amazing workshop called "Messing with Local Media," which garnered rave reviews from participants.)

It was an awesome, motivating, exhausting, wonderful gathering of folks who challenged and inspired each other through workshops, panels, skillshares, screenings, conversations, and discussions. A highlight was the Saturday evening screening of locally made documentary films. The films were diverse, powerful, and extremely well done. The final film of the night really inspired this column.

Moving to the Beat is a new documentary following local hip-hop group Rebel Soulz as they journey to Freetown, Sierra Leone, the country from which they originally emigrated. It’s a fascinating and encouraging story about the power of hip-hop music and culture.

We all know hip-hop is pervasive in American culture — sometimes in a scary way, other times in a positive way. Folks have probably heard, too, that hip-hop has become a world sensation, particularly among younger performers and audiences, taking inspiration from American hip-hop and transforming it to blend with their own cultures and communities. Moving to the Beat shows that relationship in Sierra Leone.

The film introduces us to emcees such as Alusine, rapping about war, and Mems Bee, who raps about being HIV positive. These Sierra Leone youth, while buying into the American fashion and attitudes that have come to symbolize hip-hop, have also reshaped it in a way that they can use it to best express themselves. The film does a great job of going beyond the stereotype of commercial hip-hop to uncover its value in bridging cultures and provoking dialogue.

Watching the film got me thinking about the power of hip-hop to move people, both literally and ideologically, especially young people. The four-plus elements of hip-hop include emceeing, DJing, breakdancing, and graffiti. (Some consider the fifth element to be beat-boxing, others fashion, and others still, like me, consider consciousness to be the fifth element.) Hip-hop’s roots stem from a desire to communicate and express individuality. Early hip-hop, with the likes of DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, began as dance beats under conversations between the DJ and audiences. It evolved into emcees bringing their own unique styles, with breakdancers and graffiti artists taking part as well. Alongside the more entertaining aspects of hip-hop has always been a more political, more conscious use to express commentary and frustration with ongoing oppression and abuses, beginning with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s early single, "The Message."

These days young Asian Americans, Latinos, and other communities around the world have embraced hip-hop in its most materialistic, misogynistic, and oppressive forms, but also in its most expressive, creative, conscious, and empowering manifestations. Asian-American hip-hop artists who’ve found success include DJ Qbert, apl.de.ap of the Black Eyed Peas, Dan The Automator, Geologic from Seattle-based Blue Scholars, and many others.

I admit, much of the aforementioned materialistic and misogynistic nature of commercial hip-hop is extremely disappointing and even scary. But (here I go again with that pesky optimism) I feel hopeful and heartened by the potential and power of hip-hop to speak to young people around the world. Hip-hop is a culture that can work positively and progressively to tell stories, bring folks together, and even change the world around us. In the words of the original political rappers Public Enemy, "It’s a start, a work of art / to revolutionize make a change …"

To find out more about the Portland Grassroots Media Camp, check out <www.pdxmediacamp.wordpress.com>; to learn more about the film Moving to the Beat, visit <www.moving2thebeat.com>.