Josh Asen, CEO and Co-Founder of Hip Hop Diplomacy is a guestblogger and collaborator on The Imagination Age.
Mazzi & Sneakas perform at the Nuyorican Cafe. All videos copyright Josh Asen.
Having just completed my last post about the Arab-Israeli film "Ajami", I felt it only right to brave the (second) blizzard of aught-ten to go see Mazzi & Sneakas, your favorite rapper's favorite Arab-Israeli rap duo, at the world-famous Nuyorican Poets Café. The pair were performing alongside their spoken word sisters, the veiled Palestinian poetess, Tahani Salah, and the 'Jewish Mamita', Vanessa Hidary, as part of the Tug of War Tour, a project they describe on Facebook as a "thought-provoking and multi-dimensional artistic endeavor that explores narratives of conflict and co-existence between Muslims and Jews".
After seeing the show last night, I am prepared to cosign that description. The rappers' lyrics and the women's words relayed stories that made me think, laugh, and then think some more about the state of co-existence between Muslims and Jews the world over. Indeed, it is laughably and tragically poor.
And yet, witnessing performances like this one keeps me stocked with confidence that my generation, the Hip Hop generation, has the power to change the narrative, nay, is already changing it. I saw this last week in "Ajami", imagining the young co-directors, one Arab Christian, the other Israeli Jew, working together for 7 years to realize a vision of storytelling in the Middle East that noone had realized (or perhaps even had) before. And I saw it last night, as four New Yorkers, two male, two female, two Jews, two Muslims, took to the stage in a display of artistic solidarity that was neither corny nor cheesy, but completely genuine, proving that concepts like 'collaboration', 'cooperation' and 'coexistence' do not have to be cynical punchlines or pie-in-the-sky dreamings, but real goals that we can strive for in life as in art.
The above video is one highlight from Mazzi & Sneakas' set, where the two pair off in a cultural rap battle that could only happen in Jew York Medina. As Sneakas puts it, "We're all Jews, we're all Arabs, we're all the same, yada, yada, yada."
Tahani Salah and Vanessa Hidary
The next clip is of the two ladies, Tahani Salah and Vanessa Hidary, prefacing their presentation as not another tired rant about the Arab-Israeli conflict, nor a fuzzy "Muslim-Jewish lovefest," but rather an honest retelling of their awkward first encounter, and the prejudiced expectations that were quickly overcome by their mutual curiosity. In fact, they got so caught up in their exchange, at Starbucks no less, that they forgot "there's a war going on!"
And, for your pan-global, multi-cultural, Hip Hop dessert. a tasty drum solo from the legendary Swiss Chris, our Euro-Caucasian rhythmic genius (rockin the Obama t-shirt, gotta love it!).
About Joshua Asen, Co-Founder/CEO, Hip Hop Diplomacy
After graduating from Brown University, Joshua made the first of several trips across the Atlantic to promote Hip Hop abroad. This first crossing was on behalf of storied Hip Hop label, Rocafella Records, for whom he created the label's first international promotions campaign in Paris. Later, Joshua ventured further south to Morocco, earning a Fulbright grant to study Hip Hop in an Arab/Muslim context. Joshua immediately expanded his project into a documentary film and became the first American to interview the leading Hip Hop groups in Morocco. Responding to their need for more performance opportunities, Joshua began developing plans for the country’s first Hip Hop festival, which he convinced the American Embassy and the Coca-Cola Company to co-sponsor. The 3-city concert tour was attended by over 36,000 young Moroccans and reached thousands more, across the globe, in screenings of the eponymous documentary film (www.ilovehiphopinmorocco.com).
Joshua has since gone on to produce independent films and video content, and continues to develop the Hip Hop Diplomacy brand, encompassing a number of cultural diplomacy and youth outreach campaigns, with varied public- and private-sector partners, as well as an online journal of global Hip Hop and geopolitics, www.hiphopdiplomacy.org.
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