The Words Beats & Life Biannual
TABLE OF
WBL Cultural Diplomacy Map
A look at all the countries where WBL has been hosted to teach, lecture, paint & perform.
Cuba: 23 Years Later
Kameron Matthews reconnects with the Island of Cuba to examine education, healthcare, art, culture and politics. Writer: Kameron Matthews, MD, JD, FAAFP
Ireland Droppin’ Science In The Emerald Isle
The editors of WBL’s “Rap Laureate Magazine,” travel to Cork, Ireland to present at the Droppin’ Science Conference. Writer: Mikal Amin Lee
Photo Essay: Nepal
WBL teaching artists head to Nepal for the Arts Envoy ‘24
Uganda: Bad Humn Arthaus Go Back To The Source
DC hip-hop legends, The Meridians of Bad Humn Arthaus, head to Uganda with WBL.
Writer: Crystal Alexandra
Germany: Dance
See how the 2023 finals for the international dance competition, Juste Debout, went down in Hamburg.
Artist Profile: DJ Fleg
Olympic-breaking DJ and long-time WBL event producer, DJ Fleg, talks about his world travels on the break dance competition circuit.
Interview by: Mikal Amin Lee
Colombia: Street Art
WBL’s resident globe-trotting muralist, MasPaz, heads home to Colombia for a new piece on the streets of Bogotá.
CONTRIBUTORS
Dominic Painter
Erica Keith Mikal Amin Lee Kameron Matthews
Vivian Trinh
Crystal Alexandra Richard Soben
Mazi Mutafa Adrienne Bedsole
Beats & Life
LETTER FROM THE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
t’s always fascinating how surprised people are when they learn about Words Beats & Life’s (WBL) cultural diplomacy work. The story of how it began is one I love to tell because it reminds me just how unpredictable and transformative a simple conversation can be. It all started in 2008 when a Ugandan MC named Saba Saba was visiting the U.S. and unexpectedly found himself in the backseat of a friend’s cab. As they chatted, my friend, knowing our work, said, "You’ve got to meet my friend Mazi." The next thing I knew, we had an international guest at our Saturday Academy at the Benning Park Recreation Center. Saba Saba shared his journey with our students, describing the rise of hip-hop in Uganda. And then, in what felt like a dream, he extended an invitation: "Come to Uganda. See what’s happening in the Pearl of Africa."
That invitation sparked a spark, but it took two years of persistence to find the resources to make the trip a reality. When we finally did, it marked the beginning of something we couldn’t have fully anticipated — a journey that, over the next 14 years, would take us across the globe. What began as a chance encounter evolved into an international endeavor. We’ve now traveled to over 20 countries, making murals, performing, teaching masterclasses, and building connections.
This past year was a recordbreaker for our cultural diplomacy work. We touched down in Cuba, Colombia, Congo, Brazil, Ireland, Germany, Nepal, and Uganda. It felt fitting, then, to dedicate this issue of
our publication, The EQ, to sharing this story of global connection and artistic exchange experienced in the last year.
The work isn’t slowing down either. This year alone, we’re planning three major initiatives as a follow-up to our international work: returning to Uganda to perform at the hip-hop summit, taking a delegation of North American dancers to Paris to compete in Juste Debout, and hosting a Jazz band from Pakistan at our very own WBL Fest at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage.
All of this happens under our program called The Embassy of Hip-Hop. This year, we’re selecting 10 new hip-hop ambassadors to join our roster, helping us grow the number of artists we employ while expanding our global reach. We will train these ambassadors to lead workshops and collaborate with artists abroad, furthering our mission of building cultural and economic ties between hip-hop communities worldwide.
What excites me most is the new practice we’re launching this year. When our ambassadors return from their travels, they’ll present their experiences and learnings to our students at the WBL Academy. They’ll also share their stories at Remixing the Art of Social Change during WBL Fest, spreading the impact of their journeys even further into the community.
It’s incredible how far we’ve come, all because of one conversation in a cab. Sometimes it just takes a spark to create a blazing fire. That’s the power of hiphop — building bridges where none existed before.
DROPPIN’ SCIENCE IN THE EMERALD ISLE B
e honest, when you read or hear the word “Ireland,” is hip-hop the first thing that comes to mind? I’d wager probably not. Yet if you have a chance to visit the “Emerald Isle” I think you’ll walk away with the knowledge that it is indeed there. This past spring, Words Beats & Life and I were invited to be a part of the seventh annual Droppin’ Science Global hip-hop conference. The conference is hosted and organized by the University of Cork in Cork, Ireland, in partnership with the European Hiphop Studies Network (EHHSN), a “group of artists, practitioners and researchers interested in sharing and expanding knowledge of hip hop culture.” The network publishes an academic peer-reviewed journal and is working on a 3D AI search engine in addition to the annual conference. All of the network’s endeavors are meant to fulfill their stated goals to:
• “Cultivate a cipherial hip-hop ethos inside academia, such as respect, circulation and exchange of knowledge, and ‘each one teach one.’
• “Validate the academic pursuit of hip-hop by transgressing the boundaries between the academy and the community
• “Create a platform for networking and collaborations of different kinds, between European and non-European scholars and practitioners.”
The broad theme and focus for this year was to “bear witness to the
strength of street knowledge.” The conference organizers stated that the event would, over the course of the weekend, “recognize hip hop as an organic intellectual arts practice and critically minded culture, building upon that foundation through workshops, conversations, performances, keynotes, scholarship, and fellowship.” But why Cork, Ireland? One reason is that one of the event’s organizers, J. Griffith Rollefson (a.k.a. “Professor Griff”), professor of music at the University of Cork, is based there. Different countries in Europe have hosted the conference since its inception, and this year it was Ireland’s turn. Cork is the “second city” in Ireland after Dublin. Relative to Dublin and other major cities across the world, Cork is quite small (a population of less than 250,000). However, it is known as a creative and cultural hub within Europe (it was named a European capital of culture in 2005).
Cork in some ways is very much like a United States college town, with the University of Cork dominating the geography and a significant amount of activity within the city being influenced or springing from the university.
Walking through the city center and to the various campus buildings used for the conference, there is a beautiful mix of urban scenery and nature, with natural brooks and small forests dotted between residential houses and businesses. The feel of Cork is very much a working-class city, and its downtown gives off a strong punk vibe. You might think you stepped back in time to the ‘70s or ‘80s with the types of record
Mikal Amin Lee presenting on behalf of WBL
Mikal Amin Lee
stores, music shops and patrons I saw milling in the streets. The underpinning of style and edge I attributed in part to the typically liberal and multicultural environment that universities create through attracting students from wide-ranging places and backgrounds, and Cork is no different.
I spoke with Professor Griff and asked him why it was important to think about and honor the idea of “street knowledge”
“Since hip-hop has its own organic intellectual tradition rooted in other knowledges and traditional ways of being, we thought we’d use one of those ‘gems of knowledge’ — that classic track from Marley Marl and Craig G where they define Hip Hop beats and rhymes as forms of ‘droppin’ science.’ That is; it’s no mistake that for people who had been systematically denied access to education for centuries, valuable knowledge and codes would be inscribed into music, rhymes and dance moves. So we wanted to honor that tradition of science that’s not legible or valued in universities because of those histories of racism, sexism, classism and other forms of exclusion that universities really pioneered and perfected over centuries.
As we put it in the conference call: ‘For four days in May, we will dance about ideas, considering what it means to flip the script on the university knowledge trade and reimagine our relationship to science, Wissenschaft and all the narrow ‘ologies’ with which white Europeans claimed mastery over the world. For four days in May, we will build a ‘pluriversity’ ‘that is open to epistemic diversity’ and ‘not merely the extension throughout the world of a Eurocentric model presumed to be universal’ (Mbembe, 2015). https://globalcipher.org/home/cfp-droppin-science-conference/
Because a lot of us are hip-hop kids who ended up doing their thing in university contexts — whether that’s in music, dance, linguistics, anthropology or whatever — we’ve
all realized that Mbembe is right — that we can honor those knowledges AND do a sort of reparative justice work in universities to both value hiphop’s way of knowing and remake the university into a truly pluralistic place not beholden to a singular and small-minded white colonial mode of knowledge production.”
Another conference organizer, the founder of the EHHSN, Dr. Sina Nitzsche, also weighed in on the importance of the conference and the network, expanding further on its purpose.
“The EHHSN is a research network which aspires to be community-oriented and community-driven. Its members consist of artists, scholars, educators and everybody in between. That is why the network has been connected with hip-hop culture since its beginnings.
Its meetings aim to bring together artists and non-artists from different disciplines, backgrounds and geographic locations to inspire exchange and collaboration. The inaugural meeting in Dortmund in 2018 aimed to connect artists, activists, educators and scholars to start a cross-disciplinary cooperation. The second meeting in Bristol in 2019 more forcefully asked about the role and meanings of elements in hip-hop culture and highlighted the desire for more equity with artist participation in academic spaces. Subsequent meetings in Rotterdam, Paris and
Photos are courtesy of the Droppin’ Science Hip Hop Festival and Mikal Amin Lee
Brno explored the role of practitioners in educational and cultural institutions. This year’s meeting in Cork succeeded in this important process by centering on artist contributions in keynotes, panel discussions, workshops, battles and ciphers.
Because of this, the network meetings have opened the previously rather exclusive academic spaces in Europe to not only include artists but to meaningfully engage with and honor their experiences. Members of the network see themselves as ‘facilitators,’ as American graffiti legend CARLOS MARE 139 was referred to at the 2015 Teach-In at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, which was organized by Words Beats & Life. To MARE 139, facilitators use their resources and networks to provide artists with opportunities to participate in institutionalized educational settings.
The idea of subverting and disrupting traditional norms and centers of power, while also reclaiming public and private (commercial) space, is at the very genesis of hiphop’s formation. The idea of having a conference that centers organic intellectual production and research on a traditional and prestigious research university campus is a great example of what one of hip-hop’s ethos has always been about.”
Over the time we were present, I attended workshops run by professors, artists, activists and various hyphenates of those three! The subjects ranged from thinking about technology and what it means for hip-hop creative output to mental health and how hip-hop practice can help with
trauma. The conference was designed to have a plenary of the participants at the start of each day, and each evening included a performance showcasing DJing and emceeing from local acts, attendees of the conference and some of the presenters (I got down in the rap cipher at one of the city’s more popular venues, “The Pav”). Words Beats & Life was invited to discuss our work creating the “Rap Laureate,” a yearly award that honors emcees whose contributions are significant to hip-hop culture and whose work inspires and educates young people from diverse backgrounds. Our talk and panel with me, co-author Dr. Jason Anthony Nichols and founder Mazi Mustafa as the moderator went into detail about our process of selection, why it’s important for the culture to recognize and honor its own impresarios and masters and why creating scholarship that is culturally relevant for the communities it wishes to engage is critical and important to the culture thriving. The discussion was robust, and what was of most interest to the audience was how we came to our two inaugural honorees, Lupe Fiasco and Black Thought. In particular, a large amount of time in the Q&A was engaging the audience in their selections for the next Laureate and also about how to further build out the process of selection.
This type of exchange, call-and response was a consistent component of every panel or workshop I attended. Unlike many conferences in which the lecturer presents their work and a polite inquiry ensues, almost every workshop I participated in was designed to encourage and engage dialogue, push-back, feedback and real-time problematizing of what was presented. Every presentation, panel and workshop truly was an active learning space and experience, not simply
WBL’s Rap Laureate Magazine co-editor Dr. Jason Nichols (right)
a place where the attendees were repositories for the presenter to pour knowledge into. Very much in the idea of hip-hop, “game recognize game,” and it wasn’t just presenters putting their attendees onto game — it very much was a cipher.
Two presentations really brought these ideas to mind, ‘I want a ceasefire / Fuck a response from Drake’: Spectacle and the War on Gaza presented by Adam Haupt and the breaking-in the Olympics panel with Jason Ng, Imani Johnson, Mary Fogarty, Frieda Frost and Tobi Omoteso. Adam’s session was actually a 20-minute choreopoem performance that incorporated video and visuals around the war. His scholarship embedded in the poem he recited with a cut-and-paste style collage of documentary and news footage and originally shot content. The idea was to present the friction and tensions of the war and the genocide in a way that demanded dialogue. It was beautiful, tense and powerful. Similarly, the panel discussing this year’s inclusion of breaking in the Olympics (more than two months before it would take place!) quickly turned into an open forum on its merits as well as its problems, which involved numerous voices in the audience, and not just the “experts” on the panel themselves. The dialogue and exchange were healthy, necessary and atypical of my experience at conferences, when many times the discussion is an echo chamber of sorts, whether out of politics, politeness or hegemony. “Droppin’ Science” in that way also was very much hip-op, be original, show and prove and keep it real.
With all of this going on, and as dope and as powerful as it was, the question still might be, Ireland and hip-op, is it really here? While Cork is a working-class city, it is still a city largely dominated by one of its biggest and most well-known universities. While there was engagement with the local community at the conference, and Cork is a city, the ideas of “street” or even “urban” don’t come to mind. Most importantly, Ireland is not a place that is predominately Black or Brown. Within that idea, Dr. Nitzsche talked about hip-hop culture at large within Europe:
“It is difficult to generalize ‘the [hip-hop] culture in Europe,’ as it is complex and multi-faceted depending on where you are. I think it is more appropriate to speak of ‘[hip–hop] cultures in Europe,’ which have shared and juxtaposed trajectories, [that] are both local and transnational and are overlapping and conflicting.
Over the past 10 years, there have been many important developments across Europe, such as the pandemic and its aftermath, climate change activism, digitization and new waves of global Black Lives Matter, feminist and queer movements in [their] localized versions. One of the major tendencies in my view is migration to predominantly Western European countries from diverse regions, such as Northern Africa,
Mikal Amin Lee (right) and friend at a pub in Cork, Ireland
the Middle East and Eastern Europe, due to geopolitical conflicts and wars, the effects of climate change and the search for a better life elsewhere. In Germany, for instance, this has led to an increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-racial culture. In 2022, about 30% of the population had either a non-German passport or a history of migration in their families. This cultural development results in a reconsideration of what it means to be German.
Recent migration to Europe has also led to a backlash from (far) right-wing movements, anti-immigration parties, such as Rassemblement National in France, the Identitarian Movement in several countries or the Forum voor Democratie in the Netherlands. They hold on to traditional white-dominated notions of national identities. Violent riots that are currently taking place in several cities in the U.K. are also part of this far-right backlash against global migration.
Another important development happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. The murder of George Floyd in 2020 was streamed to literally every corner of the globe and of course, also in Europe. Some privileged groups of Europeans who have not really thought about structural racism in their lives have realized the dysfunctional effects of racism on people of color. This event resulted in protest movements across many European cities, such as London, Paris, Helsinki and Berlin. It also instigated a larger cultural reflection process on systemic police brutality, white privilege and social justice in dominant societies in Europe. Some cultural milieus are beginning to realize their colorblindness attitudes to race.”
Dr. Nitzsche outlined conditions that in part, can become a catalyst and an accelerant to create an artistic response, a cultural response. Hip-Hop is a culture founded by Black and Brown people as a response to a specific type of isolation, marginalization and erasure. However, as the culture has expanded, others who have experienced similar
treatment have found hip-hop as a tool and a respite to be felt, seen, heard and respected.
Hip-hop culturally (not commercially) appeals also to people who may not be marginalized traditionally at all but still want to connect with themselves and their community at the root. This is something I felt in Cork. I asked Professor Griff, who, while an American, has lived and worked in Cork for years at the University. I wanted to hear from him, how hip-hop showed up in his city:
“The short answer is that, in Ireland, true hip-hop artists ‘dig where they stand.’ They find their authentic expression not by biting, but by doing their own thing — whether that’s by using Irish traditional music in their beats (like Scary Éire), rapping in Irish (like Kneecap) or focusing on Irish storytelling traditions and the famed ‘gift of gab’ (like my Ph.D. student, the MC 0phelia). My thinking about global hip-hop really evolved when I got to Cork and realized that MCs here look to their forebears — the epic bards of pre-colonial Ireland. Ireland is the only nation with a musical instrument as its national symbol — the harp. That’s the symbol because the ancient bards told their people’s history in rhyme. Who does that sound like? Y’all know the famed West African spike harp, the kora, right? And who do we associate with that instrument? The griots of West Africa — our most treasured hip-hop forebears. Well, this connection got me thinking that all peoples have those storyteller-poet-historians — we’ve just lost touch with them. Hip-hop has helped people around the world get back to that performed history. Not written history, but living breathing historians. That’s how hip-hop culture represents in Cork!”
So, Ireland and hip-hop may not be the first connection you make when thinking about the country, but it’s very much here, representing, thriving and, in Cork most certainly droppin’ science!
CULTURAL DIPLOMACY MAP WORDS BEATS & LIFE
In our 21-year history, Words Beats & Life has worked extensively with the State Department, USAID and on our own to bring our programming to countries abroad. Domestically we engage with international artists when they travel to the U.S., as well as bringing our programming to foreign embassies in Washington DC. Abroad we have led retreats, master classes, public art projects and festivals in 21 countries and counting. Check out the map to see where we’ve been hosted so far.
EXPLORING NEPAL THROUGH THE LENS OF
February 2024, I traveled to Kathmandu and Biratnagar in Nepal with Words Beats & Life. We had an amazing time working with the Nepal Hip Hop Foundation (NHHF), the U.S. Embassy Nepal and other organizations to celebrate 50 years of Hip-Hop. We performed with local artists at a variety of venues and conducted workshops that covered mcing, DJing, breaking and music production for the community. We participated in panels that discussed the history of hip-hop, empowering women in hip-hop and more. We also spent time building relationships with local media personal -
ities, community stakeholders and many performing artists.
This trip was my first time in Nepal, so I didn’t know what to expect. I knew it would be eye-opening, and I can safely say that my expectations were surpassed. The talent and skill of the artists there rival some of the best in the world. I love seeing artists express themselves via hip-hop while adding their culture and experiences to it to make it uniquely their own. So while it was awesome to share my art with them, I enjoyed watching them share theirs even more.
HIP HOP CULTURE
I always make it a point to try out local cuisine and support local small businesses when I travel. After wrapping up our busy work schedules and crushing more veggie “momos” (Nepalese dumplings) than I care to admit, we scoured the city looking for souvenirs, bracelets, necklaces and local fashion. While sightseeing, we decided to climb 365 steps to see Swayambhunath Stupa, also known as the Monkey Temple. The temple offered amazing views and it lived up to the name because there was no shortage of monkeys roaming the grounds.
I’m forever grateful for the experience. It’s a blessing to get an opportunity to take the work you’ve done at home for most of your life and share it with the world. Even more so, learning about other people’s experiences and finding inspiration in their stories. Shout out to Mazi, Fleg, Shanna, Words Beats & Life, NHHF, and the U.S. Embassy. Thanks for the memories.
Stan “Substantial” Robinson
Photos courtesy of Arts Envoy 2024
(left to right) Mazi Mutafa, Substantial, Shanna Lim, DJ Fleg in Nepal
CUBA
23 YEARS LATER
Words and images by Kameron Matthews, MD, JD, FAAFP
INJanuary of 2024, I had the pleasure of returning to the island of Cuba, accompanying my husband on a special celebration in honor of the American poet Langston Hughes. With Busboys and Poets of Washington, D.C., we were led by the poet Alice Walker on a journey around Havana that focused on history, culture and the arts. It was in every way enriching to recognize the important dynamics between the American and Cuban people, and how politics remains a thorn in the side of what is otherwise a beautiful partnership. The music, the food, the dance, the art — the United States and Cuba have leaned in and grown together over the decades, and there is such a great appreciation between our peoples of each other’s unique expressions. However, the questions about governance and freedom then unfortunately bolster the blockade between our physical borders.
This blockade impacts the livelihood and health of the Cuban people, and within healthcare and medicine we see a detrimental impact. In 2001, I visited the island as a young medical student, with big eyes and big ideas about how the U.S. healthcare system could be transformed and how lessons learned from other nations could eventually be applied to our own communities. As a guest of the government, we toured clinics, maternity hospitals, the school of public health and medical schools. We mingled and learned from medical students similar to ourselves. We had a minor language barrier between us, but we had mutual interest to bridge the divide between our nations — for the sake of our peoples. It became clear to me, even having only just started my journey into medicine, that the Cubans had figured out a great deal about public and population health that the U.S. continued to not only miss but also to resist.
space for its students, representing more than 100 countries, to learn from each other. Cuba has developed this capability to look beyond politics and even religion to ensure it is prioritizing health and well-being, which speaks to a broader commitment that the U.S. can actually adopt these same capabilities, rather than just observing. The American healthcare system continues to allow people with fewer resources to be denied care, and the country is comfortable with the inertia that results when it is challenged to transform how it pays for and approves care delivery. Even when considering Cuba’s approach to immediate masking and innovative vaccination
during the COVID-19 pandemic, I am frustrated at our American system and how we allowed the disease and death of that global threat to thrive in the face of great and sometimes more advanced resources.
Moving forward 23 years, in 2024, our larger group visited with leadership and students at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) outside of Havana. The students were Americans who had purposefully chosen to study in Cuba because of the country’s approach to health equity, primary care and public health — areas that continue to plague the U.S. With the 23-year difference in visits, it was impactful to recognize how ELAM had progressed as an institution — how the Cuban commitment to global medicine has helped not only the U.S. but also many other marginalized nations that need a path forward for training their healthcare workforce. The school maintains a larger commitment to provide training in community-based settings, ensuring that its graduates understand the importance of taking care of the whole patient and not just the disease, and providing a safe
The pride that the Cuban people have in their country, their work, their community, and their culture is palpable. Whether it be the creative economy or the healthcare system, the Cuban people and government have made at times scrappy decisions on how to remain at the forefront of global innovation. With the changes in Cuba’s leadership as well as the U.S., this trip 23 years ago revealed to me later the necessity of the partnership between our two nations and how we are overdue to remove the blockade that only promotes a political divide. If the students of ELAM can move beyond their beliefs and differences to study the human body under one roof, our governments have plenty of capacity to work together as well. I look forward to taking another group of primary care physicians back to Cuba in the coming year to learn more about how to integrate primary care and public health in a community-based setting, and I hope my colleagues will translate their observations, as I have done, to a better understanding of how best to serve their patients.
An Interview with DJ Fleg
Written by: Mikal Amin Lee
If you are a part of the breaking community, then you would have recognized the DJ playing alongside DJ Plash in this year’s Olympics. DJ Fleg has been a staple within the breaking realm, rising in prominence over a career going on twenty years. We chopped this interview up as he was making his way to a record store to do some digging (because what else are DJs doing in their spare time?).
I had to ask him about where the handle “The Octopus” came from?
Yeah, what’s the origin? I think that was my AIM screen name and I just made it (a part of my name). It was called octopus leg, but then it also was the fact that I’m always bending over this way for like a knob, and going that way. And being a producer as well, also looking at DJing like a producer, because of that, my hands are all over the place and you know, it became “the octopus.”
photo courtesy of DJ Fleg
Despite being a resident of the planet for the last ten years, his roots and his home are the DMV. We talked a little about his upbringing and how he became a part of the culture.
When I was a kid, because I grew up in a very musical family, my dad was a trumpet player and then my brothers were into hip-hop and that was the combination of a lot of things I do today. It’s like I’m somewhere in between jazz and hip-hop; perpetually, that’s my foundation for things.
So that was the start growing into that and then, by 2005, I DJ’d, my first jam and then maybe 2006 or 2007 I was Djing maybe one jam a year and then by 2008 it became a little bit more, maybe three jams, something like that and in 2009, I really tried to push myself out a lot more and I really started going full-on with it, so it was just this very slow process.
As we talked, it was clear how much the culture means to him, and how much he feels and embodies the culture. As a DJ whose mission it is to get the floor moving, there are traditional reasons we see and hear what we do
I tend to look at this as those of us doing this are an extension of this culture as a whole. So, it’s like I’m not playing “Yellow Sunshine,” because I (DJ Fleg) thought, ‘Oh, this is a great new song for me!’ No, this was established by people that had brought this onto the scene because they were all of that or just above that generation, when that music was created and that was the same generation that created hip-hop.
So it isn’t coming from nowhere. It’s coming from a very specific place. I just talked with Grandmaster Caz and I was on the phone with DJ Spinna, texting and whatnot and they’re like, ‘Whoa, that was ill to hear those songs at that level on that platform,’ and I thought so too. So, if there’s anyone that has something else to say, well, all right, take it up with Grandmaster Caz, you know?
I wanted to know a little more of what he meant as far as the choices on what to play, when to play and why? So I asked Fleg to give us a peek inside his approach.
Yeah, it’s sort of this thing where you’re trying to immediately activate, which also might explain why maybe some of my other sets will have these high-energy like transitions or something like that, because I’m used to this world of like an immediate activation, like. I play this joint and then all of a sudden boom, like people who know are like, oh, that’s my s*** and might even be before the dancers go out to battle. The hope is they’re getting hype. That’s the biggest, most important thing.
photo courtesy of DJ Fleg
With the Olympics not returning in 2028, I wondered, given the unique position that Fleg found himself in along with Plash, what did it mean to be representing the culture on this stage.
Just a side note, it’s never been a sport. That’s never how the dances worked and operated culturally, and so I refuse to ever, you know, kind of back down or concede stuff. That’s something I make clear in every interview, because I think it’s very important.
So what did it mean for me to be there? You know, as a part of this community, I feel the need to be able to represent it right. I was really just trying to put on for the culture and make sure I was doing it in a way that was culturally minded, in a way that really represented what we do.
Being that this was a moment that may never come again, I also wondered if he had a particular favorite moment.
Probably the last round with Phil (Wizard), because I got to play the Mexican. I mixed it the way that I like to mix it in, and I have to give a shout-out to DJ One Up, who was a big help in getting all the songs clear and making sure that it was all set to go. We could play those classic tracks and do all that and make it feel culturally relevant in the way that we did.
At this point, it was time for Fleg to hit the record spot, but I wanted to know if he had any last words to offer folks.
Shout out to my crew, Lines of Zion. Shout out to all of the people that helped me on my way. A lot of people helped me out, so it definitely takes a village. I definitely urge people in general to go out and visit a breaking event that’s happening in their community.
You can find DJ Fleg on Spotify and Instagram as DJ Fleg
photo by @osarararodrigues
BACK TO THE SOURCE IN UGANDA
DC’s legendary Bad Humn Arthaus crew fly to Uganda with WBL.
Written by Crystal Alexandra
TThrough the eyes of hip-hop, perspectives of triumphs, tribulations and art demonstrate the long tradition of African storytelling and cultural tradition. Hip-hop is an indigenous art form and expression, and it is unique to reach back to the source and share in the rich traditions of exchanging rhythmic calls and responses with tribal unity. Theory, Dimensions (DIMES), Lord Betta, Ben and Noyeek The Grizzly Bear make up the charismatic and genius collective known as badhumnARTHAUS now known as the MERIDIAN. In the latest iteration of Words Beats & Life Inc.’s dedication to cultural diplomacy in hip-hop, Founder and Executive Director Mazi Mutafa traveled with the five multidisciplinary artists as cultural diplomats. The annual Ugandan festival is an Indigenous hip-hop leader-ship event designed for artists to “explore the transformative power in reconnecting emerging hip-hop communities to their indigenous spirit.” The Meridian joined elders, scholars and practitioners to encourage education for liberation among young Indigenous leaders. With leaders from Uganda, Africa, Europe, North America and Australia, this conference was designed to hold space to share skills and sustainable strategies for entrepreneurial visions.
In true WBL fashion, each member brought a depth of experience, knowledge and principles to shaping the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia (DMV) hip-hop sound. With roots up and down the East Coast, and a longer lineage on the Continent of Africa, badhumnARTHAUS creates music that moves beyond the realm of time and space. Bringing unique rhythms that tap into the source of Indigenous African sounds that we know as hip-hop, they are
true pioneers of this art form. Traversing through experimental sonic terrains and breaking down various barriers within the music industry, the MERIDIAN is the latest iteration of the legacy of badhumnARTHAUS’s music in the DMV and around the world.
During the group’s inception, founding members Infinite Loop, Noyeek, DIMES and THEORY released several albums since 2009. With each new member joining at different periods of the group’s forming, the creation story of badhumnARTHAUS has had many twists and turns. Through every stitching of the fabric of this collective, each member has a unique origin story, each representing a deeply complex part of this hip-hop transformer badhumnARTHAUS. From Infinite Loop to A.R.K., each member of badhumnARTHAUS caught the sounds of producers Lord Betta, THEORY and Ben. In every era of the collective through present day, Words Beats & Life
Hip hop is OUR culture.
Inc. has been there each step of the journey. From 20 years of collaborations to the tune of the five pillars of hip-hop (knowledge, MCing, DJing, graffiti and breakdancing), badhumnARTHAUS and Words Beats & Life Inc. brought the energy and sound of DMV to Uganda. Fusing their love of the culture, the music and the art form, the cohort connected with fellow stewards of the culture in a mutual honorarium of the hip-hop art form.
“Hip hop is OUR culture.” - Noyeek The Grizzly Bear
In the moments between the rhymes, the intricate rhythms create a melodic force that drives the narrative of badhumnARTHAUS’s storytelling and iterations. Now known as the MERIDIAN, you can hear the influences of local sounds like go-go in the enclaves of their melodies, another indigenous African art form created by African-Americans in Washington, D.C., in the mid-to-late 1970s. It would be insurmountable to make these connections of how Black artists have continued to transform the music landscape today without referring back to the source. Artistic formulas for new waves of music genres have always been present in the history of the African diaspora. The rhythms and melodies once played on war drums and for elemental dances have transformed into what we have come to know as hip-hop. Much like its originators, the MERIDIAN has created its own unique sound from the roots of its musicianship and lived experiences as young Black men growing up during the inception of this trailblazing genre. With influences from other traditions of music, each member can vividly recount how music has changed their lives
at different stages. Using their ability to create anew each iteration of badhumnARTHAUS, each member recalls the journeys of their art through connecting with prolific visual artists as well as some of the most gifted producers among the DMV and beyond. Using the stories within to cultivate rich stories that are nestled between infinite loops, they have carried these seeds to the motherland for this immersion into Uganda as cultural diplomats.
“I never thought hip-hop would take us this far.” - Lord Betta
The first of many full-circle moments for the group, traveling to Uganda as cultural diplomats for their artistry and embodiment of the ingenuity of hip-hop has reignited some of the woes that come with participating in this industry. Because of the ways they have ushered in the DMV hip-hop sound and scene, this opportunity is obviously aligned with their tenacity for remixing the old, creating the new, and innovating with the future. Described as a “whirlwind of activity” through the lens of THEORY (producer), this lush country nestled to the west of Kenya and north of Tanzania encompasses rich natural resources and even more abundance in creative sounds. Beyond creativity, the void of familiar tropes and egos that plague mainstream hip-hop in the West created a refreshing experience for the group. Similar to the forming, storming and norming of a group, or song, they immediately felt the shared connection to the community. The synchronicity of their cultural communication to the continent was inevitable as they began their creative process in Uganda. With heavy impor-
tance on connecting to the land and exchanging free expression among other artists, badhumnARTHAUS shared in the inspirations of the past, present and future of hip-hop artists.
“It’s a source speaking through us.”- Dimensions, DIMES
Much like the camaraderie they experienced in Uganda, badhumnARTHAUS members describe at length how the experience with other hip-hop ambassadors resembled the pivotal elements of experiment and play that come with making music. Noyeek (a.k.a. The Grizz), recalls how being in Uganda felt like participating in the culture in ways fundamental to the traditions. Twenty and many moons ago, this cultural diplomacy partnership with badhumnARTHAUS generated new horizons for getting acquainted with the core knowledge of self. As Dimensions (a.k.a. DIMES) offers a new outlook on the perspectives of breaking the mold of the marketplace hip-hop, he insists we should examine our relationship with the heart of Africa, which is the people. He notes that leading with your heart and making connections with the people are part of the alignment of the hip-hop future … and that has been made clear.
From consistency and patience, the MERIDIAN reminds us of the ability to tap into the joys of the lessons of the ten thousand hours and how it should remind you of the source of your unique expression. Working out the aggressions of life and pain, as well as the ebb and flow of joy, this collective is practicing gratitude for new ways of thinking about their craft. Peering into this creative journey, the group hopes to continue combining various elements of their identities into their future vision of hip-hop. From culinary arts, education and financial literacy, badhumnARTHAUS is envisioning a hip-hop future that creates a true sense of community and stability for artists inside and outside the industry. In the rich tradition of creating space for release, the source of hip-hop is always resonant in each period of the group through the MERIDIAN.
STREET ART BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
Words Beats & Life’s resident globe-trotting muralist, MasPaz, heads home to Colombia for a new piece on the streets of Bogotá.
Photos by MasPaz
DANCE HAMBURG, GERMANY
Europe’s premier urban dance competition, Juste Debout (English translation “Just Upright”), returned this past summer 2023 after an extended pandemic pause. The Frenchbased tournament launched in 2002 filling a need for “upright” dancers specializing in Urban disciplines such as hip-hop, house, popping and locking as opposed to floor based styles like breaking. 22-years later it draws a massive crowd to watch internationally selected finalists face off. Words Beats & Life have had the pleasure of being a U.S. collaborator since 2018 offering a chance for American finalists to compete in Europe as well as providing workshops with globally recognized performers including dance super duo, Les Twins. WBL will be co-hosting the U.S. qualifiers in Washington, D.C. this upcoming December 8th, 2024. Until then, marvel over the talent from the 2023 finals in Hamburg, Germany.
Dominic Painter
Photos by Little Shao Courtesy of Juste Debout
OUR PRIORITIES
ARTS EDUCATION
Our Arts Education programming exposes students to new knowledge, techniques and methods, as well as provides opportunities to grow their knowledge and networking through alternative Winter and Spring break activities. We support opportunities for young artists to practice what we teach through performances and public art making. As well as encouraging these students to manage their own projects and events by participating in our Arts Management program. Our work in schools has been with young people in middle school, high school and college, with participants ranging from 12 to 22 years old. In community contexts, we work with people as young as 10 and with adults 23 and older. Despite popular misunderstandings about our culture, hip-hop is likely created, participated in, and celebrated by the most diverse set of people in terms of audiences, practitioners, supporters, and consumers. Our teachers, students, audiences, and selected master artists are diverse not just racially, ethnically, religiously, and economically, but also in terms of age, gender, orientation, and ability status. Programs include the WBL Academy, Like a Boss: Arts Management Program, Walk It Like I Talk It, and the Entrepreneurship Program. Finally, we have our college and career mentorship program, College Material.
CREATIVE EMPLOYMENT
Our Creative Employment work focuses on engaging members of the larger creative community, to share their knowledge and experience as guest speakers, mentors, and potential employers. To that end, WBL hosts a regional Alternative Spring Break focused on Visual Arts and Performing Arts, and a national Alternative Winter Break speaker series focused on the media arts. Each year we also host an annual Creative Economy Internship and career fair by partnering with creative nonprofits in the D.C. metro area. We emphasize creative employment as one of our core values at WBL. By engaging members of the larger creative community, we bridge the gap between the experienced and new through our Regional Alternative Break series, career fairs, and Creative Economy Internships.
CULTURAL DIPLOMACY
Since 2010, Words Beats and Life has been working to send artists abroad and bring overseas artists to the US. These collaborations have taken the form of master classes, musicals, dance performances, public art creation, and offering scholarships to pay for primary schools for students in partner organizations abroad. We are working to make more of these collaborations more focused in commerce. We want to develop cooperative agreements that allow for greater exchange and revenue generation for WBL and our international partners.
CENTERING MARGINALIZED VOICES
There is power in the margins. Power to innovate, create, and tell stories that are new for many Americans. Our priority is to expand minds, knock down walls, and build bridges between communities. Our approach to this work is interdisciplinary, people of color and often women-led. It has included theater, gallery shows, mural making, poetry performances, publishing, and documentary work. This work has allowed us to share the histories of people and places through the arts that would not ordinarily attend a hip-hop-based event.
FOR THE CULTURE
WBL creates work to reach outside the hip-hop community to continue to grow it across various demographics. We host events and create work that has the hiphop community and the process of building community, in person and virtually. These are done locally, nationally, and globally. This is arts for community-building and expanding sake through culture. This work is critical considering how common knowledge of hip-hop ends at rap music on the radio. This is our effort to showcase the culture in all of its forms by lifting up the work of artists from all over the world..
THANK WORDS
BEATS & LIFE WOULD LIKE TO FOR SPONSORING
Celebrating 45 Years of Service to the District
DC Housing Finance Agency was established on March 3, 1979 to stimulate and expand homeownership and rental housing opportunities in Washington, D.C.
The District’s resource for innovative solutions in affordable housing finance.
