A Lesson for European

Democracy?

6–7 February 2015

African Hip-Hop

IntroductionAfrican Hip-Hop – A Lesson for European Democracy?

While the Arab Spring was sweeping numerous governments out of office between 2010 and 2012, in the predominantly Muslim country of Senegal, a sensation with little western media coverage, but of quite a vociferous nature unfolded. President Abdoulaye Wade, who, by making changes to the constitution and intimidating his opposition, was primed for re-elected for the third time in a row as president and vice-president simultaneously, but was hindered by peaceful dem-onstrations.

The leading powers behind the initiation and execution of the democratic resistance was the people’s movement Y’en a Marre, which was founded by Senegal’s famous intellectuals, artists and musicians. The movement pursued a peaceful, yet effective protest strategy and thus has become the most powerful expression of the country’s discontent. They used the vocabulary of Hip-Hop culture, rapping political messages in French and Wolof (the country’s mother tongue) and thus creating a form of protest they referred to as urban guerilla poetry. The activists went to public places in the capital, en-tered overcrowded busses and winding alleyways to reach the youth with their songs and choreographies that oscillated between martial arts and break-dance.

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The symposium African Hip-Hop – A Lesson for European Democracy? will engage in the strategies of the Y’en a Marre activists, in their artistic methods and translatability of these strategies into a Euro-pean context. In cooperation with Hamburg Hip-Hop Academy and protagonists of the movement from Dakar, the symposium elaborates on questions like how can art develop political positions without be-coming part of politics? How does the Senegalese hip-hop culture manage to maintain its diversity, popularity and influence without any noteworthy financial support? How does the European scene react to that? What specific situation in Senegal lead up to the development of a healthy and vital cultural scene that, due to its moral incorruptibility has an immense influence on the youth.

The symposium will take up the task to initiate the exchange between artists and intellectuals from Africa, Europe and North America upon the mentioned questions, and also to introduce young people to the political aspects of Hip-Hop. Artists and intellectuals will present views on body politics, political art and artistic intervention in lec-tures and discussion panels. The theoretical part of the congress will be complemented by dance and beat-box battles, so the many di-mensions of hip-hop culture can be explored. Hip-Hop choreography, music and video documentation of former and current movements will be shown in “open spaces”. Thus the symposium is thought to welcome everyone to a collective reflection about the coexistence of Hip-Hop, politics and art in theory and practice.

Jens Dietrich Yolanda Gutiérrez

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Program

Friday 6th February 16:15 P1 Bakari Kitwana: Timeline of the politics of Hip-Hop

The presentation will examine the politicization of The Hip-Hop Generation in the US beginning with public policy toward youth and the poor in the early 1970s. Bakari Kitwana will discuss hip-hop’s emergence and the political lyrics of hip-hop pioneers like Afrika Bambaataa and Melle Mel. This presentation will turn to the political artists of 1980s hip-hop of the Golden Era. Bakari Kitwana will also discuss the rise of politically conscious MCs in the 1990s alongside the shifts in the corporate music industry fol-lowing downsizing and corporate buyouts of independent record labels. Artist movements and trends in the early to mid 2000s, like the emergence of national hip-hop political organizations, will be considered. Finally, this presentation will explore the rise of youth activism and artists during the Obama Era, including the recent wave of protests from Ferguson, MO and across the nation.

16:45 P1 Akua Naru – Kitwana Bakari – Falk Schacht Moderation: Michel Abdollahi: The future of Hip-Hop

Since its birth in the Bronx during the 1970s Hip-Hop evolved into a billion dollar industry and spread all across the globe. The discussion will examine the changing shifts in the music in terms of narrative scope, artist and culture representation and political or lack of political content in Hip-Hop. Beyond, the conversation will circulate around the question where Hip-Hop is going based on these factors.

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17:30 P1 Falk Schacht – Akua Naru: Sexism in Hip-HopHip-Hop experts Akua Naru and Falk Schacht will examine the representation of women in Hip-Hop culture. Moreover they will talk about the current discourse surrounding women in Hip-Hop within the last years and frame it within a larger cultural context.

18:15 P1 Bakari Kitwana – Fran Ilich – Djily Bagdad

Moderation: Michel Abdollahi: Local activists, global activism

Hip-Hop started as a form of local resistance to the systems of subjugation of African-American working class in the Bronx, and has now become a complex diaspora of pop culture consumerism and political activism. The global appropriation of Hip-Hop cul-ture has led to its expansion and influence, especially in African countries, where it has contributed largely to a political voice and community awareness.

22:00 KMH Concert: Djily Bagdad – 5kiem Underground

5kiem Underground – straight outta Dakar’s Médina, and one of the new stars in the politically engaged Hip-Hop scene of Sen-egal. His last album was nominated for best Senegal Rap album of 2010, and best Mixtape in 2013. Djily is presenting new songs and material for this event.

Saturday 7th February

11:00 P1 Niels “Storm” Robitzky: URBAN DANCE DEVELOPMENT

To create a structure within the urban dance styles we need to explore the historical events within a time frame of their relevance and impact. Storm will start the lecture in the swing era with danc-es that derived from the first generation after slavery and will go forth in a timeline and by explaining geographical differences in the development until we reach Hip-Hop culture. Its established

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dances all existed before the term Hip-Hop emerged and need to be described within their musical backgrounds. The dance styles were developed to a certain type of music. Analyzing the socio cultural background helps to get clarity in understanding the se-mantics of these artforms and their differences in approach.

12:00 KMH Beatbox Battle: PreliminariesThe Hamburg Beatbox Open is organized in cooperation with the Berlin based founder of the international Beatbox Battle network Bee Low and the Hip-Hop Academy Hamburg. The competition is open to all interested Beatboxers, the attendance is free. The battle will be hosted by Bee Low himself. Judges will be the dou-ble Beatbox Champion from Germany Zeero, famous Hip-Hop producer Sleepwalker and one of Hamburg’s finest Beatboxers Guido Höper. Sign in at: info@beatboxbattle.tv.

12:45 P1 Niels “Storm” Robitzky – Sangoné Vieira – B-Boy

Ben-J: Afropop & Breakdance: New Styles in Seneglase Hip-Hop (Lecture Performance)

In the tradition of Hip-Hop and following in their African roots, Vieira and Bboy Ben-J developed their own style and vocabulary in the Hip-Hop world. The lecture performance will discover their connection between the roots of Hip-Hop movements and its Af-rican adaptations.

15:45 P1 Djily Bagdad: Revolt and Engagement using the example of Y’en a Marre

As a co-founder from the Senegalese movement Y’en a Marre, the rapper Djily stood in front of the mass demonstrations of 2011. The success of Y’en a marre has shown that Hip-Hop is now more than just music or entertainment, it has become an efficient tool to mobilize people and raise awareness among the masses. In Africa it has become a powerful force to spread positive messages and encourage young leaders emerge in their communities.

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16:15 P1 Fran Ilich: New Media, new narratives: Subversion in cyberculture

In the 80s it took weeks to get video tapes of the newest Hip-Hop clips from the USA to Africa, now it’s just a second. The flow of information, at the same time, is not only one directional, people in Senegal produce Hip-Hop culture themselves. In his lecture Fran Illich explores the dimension of interconnectivity, the modes of (self)control and the possibility of using technology as a form of resistance.

16:45 P1 Fran Ilich – Djily Bagdad – Amadou Fall Ba The artists as activist (Moderation Michel Abdollahi)

Hacktivism meets the Nouveau Type of Senegalese, Cyberpunk meets Punch Line King. Working in very different fields with di-verse tools the rapper from Dakar and the Mexican media artists based in New York share similar goals: To develop artistic strate-gies that are able to influence politics. Art that is part of the global market and at the same time self determined and not subjugated under the control of the market.

17:30 P1 Koyo Kouoh: There is no escape from shaping society: art and non partisan politics in the public realm

In 2011, a group of young Senegalese professionals from the larger Hip-Hop community set out to redefine the notion of civic par-ticipation. They launched the movement Y’en a marre. The phrase is at best translated into “we are fed up”. The project aimed at bringing afore a fresh and engaged political attitude and revive people’s consciousness of their power over the political elite. This talk will retrace a critical moment of this initiative played out through the exhibition Chronicle of a Revolt: Photographs of a Season of Protest organised by Raw Material Company with the participation of Y’en a Marre.

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Friday 6th FebruaryK4 P1 KMH

14:30 Workshop with Akua Naru

16:00 Yolanda Gutiérrez – Jens Dietrich: Opening of the symposium

16:15 Bakari Kitwana: Timeline of the politics of Hip-Hop

16:45 Akua Naru – Kitwana Bakari – Falk Schacht Moderation: Michel Abdollahi: The future of Hip-Hop

17:30 Falk Schacht – Akua Naru: Sexism in Hip-Hop

18.15 Bakari Kitwana – Fran Ilich – Djily Bagdad Moderation: Michel Abdollahi: Local activists, global activism

22:00 Concert: Djily Bagdad – 5kiem Underground DJ Dovecake after party

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Saturday 7th FebruaryK4 P1 KMH

11:00 Niels “Storm” Robitzky: History of Urban Dance

12:00 Beatbox Battle: Preliminaries

12:45 Niels “Storm” Robitzky – Sangoné Vieira – Bboy Ben-J: Afropop & Breakdance: New Styles in Seneglase Hip-Hop (Lecture Performance)

13:30 Beatbox Battle: Quarter final

14:00 LUNCH BREAK15:00 Workshop with

Baïdy Bâ and Bboy Abdallah: Afro-Krump and Afro-Breakdance

Workshop with Pere Joseph Vilaplana: When the body sings with his dancer voice

15:45 Djily Bagdad: Revolt and Engage ment using the example of Y’en a Marre

16:15 Workshop Storm Fran Ilich: New Media, new narratives: Subversion in cyberculture

16:45 Fran Ilich – Djily Bagdad – Amadou Fall Ba The artists as activists (Modera-tion Michel Abdollahi)

17:15 Workshop with Lamine Diagne: Afro Dance Hall and Urban Afro

Koyo Kouoh: There is no escape from shaping society: art and non partisan politics in the public realm

18:00 Koyo Kouoh – Amelie Deuflhard: Outlook

18:30 Beatbox Battle: Semi-final & Finale

22:00 Concert: Matador / Body Battle: Hamburg vs. Dakar / DJ Dovecake – Afterparty

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Biographies

Amadou Fall Ba is a cultural operator, artivist and social entrepre-neur. In 1995, he discovered Hip-Hop culture as a kid, was artist rapper in the group Lyrics Mortels from 2001 to 2006. In February 2006 he participated in the creation of the Africulturban association which is now the largest Senegalese Hip-Hop organization with more than 1250 members. In 2010 he became the CEO of Hip-Hop Akademy (the first training and documentation center of Hip-Hop and Urban Culture) co-director of Urbanation Bboy (Panafrican urban dance festival) and in 2012 he founded the King Booking Management. Amadou Fall Ba has hosted conferences on youth self-employment and the role of cul-ture in the development of civic consciousness in Austria, Mauritania, Tunisia, Hungary, Denmark. Since March 2014 he is special adviser in Hip-Hop and urban culture for the Mayor of Dakar.

Djily Bagdad is a Senegalese Hip-Hop artist, song writer, activist and founding member of 5kiem Underground. He’s teaching and ani-mating workshops about Hip-Hop writing skills and techniques. In 2011 he’s been establishing together with other Hip-Hop artists and journalists the movement Y’en a marre, for which he’s actually lectur-ing in Senegal and Burkina Faso.

Jens Dietrich, theatre practitioner based in Hamburg, studied applied theater studies in Gießen under the director and composer Heiner Goebbels. After his studies he worked at Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theater in New York and at the Bühnen der Stadt Köln and the Theater Freiburg. He worked on numerous international theatre productions and has been cofounder of the Fleetstreet Theatre in Hamburg. From 2009 to 2013 he joined the International Institute of Political Murder, and worked as a dramaturge and producer of the productions “The Last Hour of Elena and Nicolae Ceausescu”, “Hate

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Radio” and “The Moscow Trials” that toured world-wide and was in-vited to the Berliner Theatertreffen. He currently works on “Planet Hamam”, an invasive mobile installation aiming to establish new nar-ratives beyond national identities.

Dovecake is the alias of Zen Jefferson. His musical interests explore a deep connection to the rhythm, melodies & bass patterns originally found in the ancient musical traditions of Africa and their influence on all modern day music. Diving into the future, with a strong connection to the past, his music is about bringing people together, breaking down boarders of class, gender, race by exploring these an-cient melodies & rhythms while creating an instant hybrid community and connecting us directly to our drum woven past and re-contextu-alizing that energy and empowerment in a modern day experience.

Yolanda Gutiérrez studied Modern Dance in Mexico City and New Dance & Performance in Hannover. She’s been working with video since 2001. Her project SUPERHERO received an award from the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung in Germany and her project with scholars SUPERHERO ACADEMY was nominated under the best youth Theater Project from the Berliner Festspiele – Theatertreffen der Jugend. Since 2010 she was worked together with the renowned Hamburg Theatre Kampnagel.

Fran Ilich is a Mexican media artist, essayist and novelist. He is the author of the novels Metro-pop, Tekno Guerrilla, Circa 94 (winner of the 2010 Frontera de Palabras Border of Words award), and the book-length essay “Otra Narrativa es Posible”. He studied the M.A. in Media Art Histories at Donau-Universität Krems and was Editor-at-Large for Sputnik Cultura Digital magazine in Mexico City. He lives in New York City and works in the Diego de la Vega Coffee Co-op.

Mbegné Kassé aka Ben-J, began practicing breakdance by himself from 2000. Crew member Med Break in Medina for a few years, he then joined the CRAZY ELEMENTS crew in 2005. Crazy won the Battle Elements National – Hip-Hop Dance 2007. Ben-J was selected for the

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Red Bull BC ONE Johannesburg and toured Australia with the best bboys in the world. The projection Turn it Loose, a documentary on bboying, which traces the preparation of BC One, in which a section on him is devoted.

Bakari Kitwana is a journalist and activist and co-founder of the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention, which brought over 4000 young people to Newark in 2004. He’s the author the bestsell-ing “The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture”, which has been adopted as a course book at over 100 colleges and universities across the country. The former Ex-ecutive Editor of the pioneering hip-hop lifestyle magazine The Source, his writings have appeared in important magazines and newspapers like The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Nation, among others. Kitwana has been a visiting scholar at Columbia College’s Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, the Editorial Director of Third World Press, a consultant for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Artist-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago.For the last decade, his organization Rap Sessions: Community Dialogues on Hip-Hop has conducted over 100 townhall meetings on difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop generation with youth in cities around the US. “Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era” is his forthcoming book.

Koyo Kouoh is the founding artistic director of RAW Material Com-pany, a center for art, knowledge and society in Dakar and the curator of FORUM, the education programme at 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London. She has served as curatorial advisor for documenta 12 and 13. Besides a sustained theoretical and exhibition program at Raw Material Company, she maintains a dynamic international cura-torial activity.

Matador is one of the most prominent figures of underground Hip-Hop in Senegal. Founding member of the Thiaroye’s group, WA BMG 44, Matador has toured throughout the world gaining an inter-national recognition from the underground Hip-Hop scenes abroad.

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Since 2006, his struggle to represent the voiceless youth of his home country has taken a renewed turn with the creation of his structure, Africulturban in Pikine. Through this space dedicated to the youth, Matador reiterates his social and political engagement while pursuing his role of “Number One System Enemy” and “General Major Chief of the Dying People Army”.

Since the January 2011 release of her debut album …The Journey Aflame, Akua Naru has in a short time solidified herself on the scene as a model for what women can be in Hip-Hop. The album has been written about in several countries and deemed a classic contribution by Hip-Hop and Jazz critics. Naru has performed with the world renowned Afro Beat pioneer and Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen and toured and shared the stage with artists like Lords of the Underground, Ursula Rucker, Patrice and Tete. Naru has also recently teamed up with one of the nation’s leading scholars, Dr. Tricia Rose, author of the classic book Black Noise & The Hip-Hop Wars, to lecture at The Hip-Hop Academy in Hamburg, Germany.

Niels “Storm” Robitzky Is part of the european Hip-Hop Old-school. He started dancing in 1983 when first broadcasts about this urban culture changed his reality in Germany. In the early nineties he became a relevant figure and developed his notoriety as a choreogra-pher, when urban dance entered into theatres worldwide. Ever since then he is travelling as a Hip-Hop ambassador. He is creating and performing dance pieces, judging competitions, teaching the styles of Popping, Locking and Bboying and most of all he philosophises on the subjects of urban art with his peers. From 1993 until 1995 he co-edited and co-hosted the Hip-Hop Magazine Freestyle on the Ger-man music TV channel VIVA. From 1996 until 2000 he toured with his dance company Storm and Jazzy Project. In 2000 he published a book about the development of Bboying in Germany called From Swipe to Storm. In the year 2006 Storm choreographed the opening ceremony of the FIFA world cup. From 2001 till 2010 his main occupation was the creation of different theatre pieces. The most notorious ones are Solo 4 two in 2001, The Art of urban Dance in 2003 and Geometronomics

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in 2006. In 2010 Storm choreographed the piece Schöner Wohnen for the Hip-Hop Academy Hamburg.

Falk Schacht is a journalist, consultant and youth culture expert with over 30 years of experience in Hip-Hop culture. He worked 14 years as a host, editor and producer for the longest running Hip-Hop TV format Mixery Raw Deluxe. He worked over 13 years as a column-ist for Intro Musikmagazin and Hip-Hop magazine Juice. He wrote articles for Jazzthing, Wax Poetics, Lodown, Backspin and so on. Since 2001 he worked as a lecturer at different German universities and me-dia academies. He has consulted for the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung and the Goethe Institut.

Papa Sangoné Vieira began his journey with martial arts at the age of 7 years and progressesed to gymnastics, capoeira, and finally Hip-Hop. He is one of the founders of the Afro Pop style, which fuses Hip-Hop with the energy and vibrancy of traditional African dances and re contexualizing them in a pop framework. He founded Afreekam, a research society that continues to explore the exchange of dance and movement through the cultural cross roads of tradition and modernity.

The HipHop Academy Hamburg is a unique cultural program in Germany that nurtures talents between 13 and 25 years of age in all forms of expression in Hip-Hop culture. The Academy reaches young people of diverse nationality and origin and offers them the oppurtin-ity to professionalize their skills. The Academy employs the best team of trainers in Germany. Beyond a widespread curriculum of workshops and masterclasses all over Hamburg, the HipHop Academy initiates and conducts international projects all over the globe, for instance in Russia, India, China, Denmark and Taiwan. Dörte Inselmann CEO & General Artistic Director of the HipHop Academy; Axel Zielke Artistic Director.

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CreditsArtistic Direction: Yolanda Gutiérrez, Jens Dietrich

Curation: Jens Dietrich, Yolanda Gutiérrez, Axel Zielke (HipHop Academy Hamburg)

Artistic Assistance: Daniel Chelminiak

Set Design: Anton Lukas

Photo: Siaka Soppo Traoré Costumes: Tukki Mode

Production Management: Janosch Pomerenke

Graphic Design: Daniel Sauthoff

Trainee: Joana Richter

Funded by TURN of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, Friede Springer Stiftung, Norddeutsche Stiftung für Umwelt und Entwicklung, the Ministry of Culture Hamburg, Hamburgische Kulturstiftung, Augstein Stiftung.

With friendly support of Brussels Airlines.

In cooperation with Kampnagel and the HipHop Academy Hamburg.

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Admission free. Kampnagel.deJarrestraße 20D – 22303 Hamburg+49 40 270 949 49