March 31, 2011 in Philadelphia: Spoken Word and Hip-Hop were the theme of the day.
The eloquent artists of The Human Writes Project sparked conversations on a range of social justice issues. Mexican-American poet/educator MARK GONZALES, Palestinian-American MC/writer NIZAR WATTAD, and Syrican-American MC/architect OMAR OFFENDUM, shared their passion for standing united against injustice. Drawing on literature, political events, and their own life stories, the three artists demonstrated the universality of the human experience in their presentations. From loving someone despite a family’s disapproval (as in Romeo and Juliet and Majnoon Layla) to being denied freedom by the establishment of barriers (like the wall between the US and Mexico and the Israeli wall in the West Bank) they made connections across the globe.
Their first stop in the morning was at Northeast High School, the largest school in the Philadelphia district, where Al-Bustan has ongoing Arab arts programming. After taking a quick poll of the 70 students gathered and hearing that almost all were born outside of America, Gonzales opened with a deeply moving poem, “Made in America,” which begins “In 1975 this Mexican was born in Alaska, land of the midnight sun, and by the age of one forget trying to crawl, I wanted to walk and talk in my own language even though I couldn’t understand….I was made and born and raised in America…”
As each of the guests performed excerpts of their work they acknowledged the diversity of the students while emphasizing the importance of reaching out to those who seem different from us. Wattad invited the audience to engage, asking “Are there any people who love words as much as I do?” This encouraged the students to share something about themselves, and one student got up to the stage and rapped his own poem to great applause from his peers. This pushed one of the teachers to also take center stage and burst in song with Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love with You. As the hour of thought-provoking inspiration and sharing drew to an end, Offendum offered these parting words: “We’re all in this together: one world, one love.” This whole exchange at Northeast High was captured in a web piece by WHYY-TV’s Friday Arts Program.
The guest artists’ second stop was at the UPenn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology where they performed their play Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets, co-presented by Al-Bustan and several UPenn departments and student groups. In this spoken word performance to an audience of almost 100 students, faculty, and community residents, Gonzales, Wattad and Offendum wove a chronology of their personal stories with concurrent political events and moments in the development of Hip-Hop. Although we may have personal attachments to certain issues, their point is that we live in an interconnected world that requires us to be aware of injustices outside of our personal sphere, and that we can no longer separate our actions from their ramifications on the lives of others. It was a sobering, thought-provoking presentation with keen wit and humor which culminated in a long Q & A with audience members.
The day ended on the UPenn campus with a Hip-Hop performance at St. Mary’s Parish Hall. Gonzales delivered impassioned poetry; Wattad, aka Ragtop, entertained the crowd with cuts from Free the P; and Offendum performed his latest songs from the newly released album SyrianAmericana.
It was truly an inspiring day of education and entertainment. Thank you to our amazing guests, our co-presenters and school partners, and all the wonderful people that joined us!
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