The United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says its program, Transcultura: Integrating Cuba, the Caribbean and the European Union through culture and creativity, funded by the European Union, has joined forces with the Goethe Institute and the Centre for InterAmerican Studies of Bielefeld University in Germany to highlight “The Caribbean hip-hop beat in Europe.”
On Wednesday, UNESCO said this event will be held in the framework of the inter-regional festival and symposium “Re-inventing Europe from the Caribbean. Urban cultures, trans-local identities, and social movements in the Black Atlantic,” which will take place at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, from July 28 to 31, 2022.
Selected via an open call, and sponsored by UNESCO Transcultura, the Caribbean hip-hop artists Alexx A-Game, from Jamaica, and DelmaT1, from the Dominican Republic, and who is of Haitian descent, will have “the opportunity for the first time to perform in this important inter-regional artistic event,” UNESCO said.
It said the artistes will join the participating Cuban hip-hop artistes supported by the Goethe Institute.
UNESCO said the festival and symposium, organized around the thematic of the Cuban hip-hop scene under the name of #hiphophavanaberlin, will widen its scope in 2022 to other Caribbean artistes, thanks to the UNESCO Transcultura program.
“Thanks to the UNESCO and its Transcultura program, the Goethe Institute can connect with artistes and other cultural players in the Caribbean, a region ingeniously productive in arts and culture,” said Michael Thoss, Goethe Institute representative in Cuba.
UNESCO said this event will provide artistes with exposure to the European market, making the most of attendance to the festival and symposium by stakeholders from the European hip-hop scene.
“It will give Caribbean artistes an excellent platform to showcase their talent,” it said in a statement. “It will further foster creative dialogue and entrepreneurial networking with Afro-diasporic and migrant youth in Europe.
Alexx A-Game said: “This UNESCO Transcultura opportunity is a very significant mark in my career and my upbringing as an artiste because of what the Transcultura program represents in bridging gaps, and that is synonymous with what I believe in. I am happy to be a part of this exchange.”
In addition, UNESCO said hip-hop will be presented as a cultural tool of resilience and advocacy against social exclusion, racism, sexism, colonial heritage and persisting inequalities by providing “underrepresented voices with a platform to make their experiences, life stories and artistic products more visible in the European context.”
It said the symposium/festival #hiphophavanaberlin at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin is dedicated to the social and transnational dimensions of hip-hop as a “diasporic lingua franca” (El-Tayeb).
UNESCO said musicians, DJs, activists, artistes and researchers from Havana, Berlin, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic will engage in a dialogue about the importance of hip-hop for the creation of a “global Afro-diasporic counter-discourse and resistance through lectures, panel discussions, film screenings and live performances.”
CMC/
