Acorn

Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: Arts and Leisure

Media Credit: Elizabeth Bowers Director John Asen speaks about his film on Moroccan hip-hop

The Middle East Film Festival kicked off Friday with its first movie, titled "I Love Hip Hop in Morocco." Filmmaker Josh Asen spoke afterwards and brought everyone outside the library to have a discussion about the movie. A large student audience attended the event.

The movie was a documentary that followed Asen as he set up the first hip-hop festival in Morocco. He went there on a Fullbright Scholarship, intending to do research on the American influence on music in Morocco.

The I Love Hip Hop in Morocco Festival took place over the course of three days in three different Moroccan cities-Meknes, Marrakesh and Casablanca-and featured local hip-hop artists.

There were also American artists from Brooklyn who performed. "Nobody was there to see the Americans," Asen said. "They were there to see the Moroccans." The movie has not been released for purchase yet, but a DVD release is planned for this summer.

The movie introduces five Moroccan hip-hop artists, H-Kayne, DJ Key, Mot de Passe, Fnaire and Brown Fingaz, and interviews them on their music.

Throughout the movie, they speak on their interpretations of what they perceive to be true hip-hop, which is closest to what in America would be called "old school" hip-hop.

"I see the same elements of the same hip-hop," Dawud Ingram ('08) said about the music produced by the artists in the movie.

Hip-hop artist Brown Fingaz, from Marrakesh in southwest Morocco, learned English from listening to hip-hop albums.

Up until the festival, he had only rapped in English. When he performed in Marrakesh, he free-styled in his native Arabic for the first time.

Fnaire, another hip-hop group from Marrakesh, had their own interpretation of hip-hop, specifically Moroccan hip-hop. Calling their style "traditional hip-hop," Fnaire takes elements from traditional Moroccan music and infuses it with hip hop beats and rhymes.

"I thought the topic was relevant to students here, in the way that cultural products move and change and travel," Adjunct Professor of Arabic Gretchen Head.

Mot De Passe is a male-female duo from Meknes. Fati Show, the female half of the group, was the only female hip-hop artist at the festival. Truly a representation of the diversity of the Moroccan population, Fati not only speaks but raps in three different languages: English, French and Arabic. "Morocco is right in the middle of Europe and the Middle East," Asen said. "What is purely Moroccan at the end of the day?"

The Middle East Film Festival continued on last Monday with the Iranian movie "Ten," followed by a discussion led by Professor of Economics Maliha Safri.

There is also a movie today, called "Raja," which is also about Morocco and two next week on Tuesday and Thursday. Thursday's movie will feature three short Israeli films, followed by a discussion from Israeli film scholar Aurital Bitton.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools