Spanning, spinning global beats

DJ Rekha’s grooves are multicultural mix

By Siddhartha Mitter
Globe Correspondent / January 30, 2008
NEW YORK – She’s as conversant in the arcana of classic, early-’90s hip-hop as she is in the folk music of her family’s native Punjab, India. Spinning on her turntables today, you might find Bollywood anthems, baile funk from Brazil, or neo-Balkan brass-band grooves from her adopted Brooklyn.

Rekha Malhotra, known to one and all as DJ Rekha, is as globalized, hybrid, diasporic – all those adjectives that attempt to encapsulate the cross-fertilizing spirit of our time – a cultural figure as you could ask to encounter.

Her monthly dance party, "Basement Bhangra," is an institution in the club scene here, having recently entered its 11th year at the downtown nightspot S.O.B.’s and still packing the house with its signature mix of South Asians and their multicultural friends. (She headlines the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge tonight.)

Now she has a brand-new album, also called "Basement Bhangra," that, for the first time, documents the sound of the scene. It’s an exhilarating mix of club anthems battle-tested on the dance floor at her parties, alongside new tracks that she helped to conceive and produce with collaborators in the United States and the United Kingdom.

At her Brooklyn apartment on a recent evening, Rekha is amid her record crates, assembling materials for a quick weekend swing to Utah, where she’ll open for rapper Rahzel, and then Colorado, where she has a gig with the activist-MC Michael Franti. Earlier this month, she spun in St. Thomas at the opening of a reggae club.

"I love the challenge of these situations," she says, taking a break over a whiskey and soda. "I walk in there with a bag of tricks. I got it all, right? Because my musical tastes are diverse. But I bring them onto my side eventually. I won’t walk out of there, usually, without playing desi music."

Desi (pronounced day-see, it means "from the homeland") is the self-identifying term of young South Asians in the diaspora. As that community has gained visibility, Rekha has done as much as anyone to shape its soundtrack.

At the heart of her sound, of course, is bhangra – a traditional folk music from the agrarian Punjab region that emphasizes repetitive lyrical forms called bolis, to the beat of shoulder-slung drums called dhol.

The first stage in bhangra’s mutation took place in the immigrant communities of the English Midlands, amid the influence of house and other club styles and, perhaps most of all, Caribbean sounds. But with the spread of the diaspora and the rise of instant electronic collaboration, she says, the music is now made all over. One song, for instance, features Gunjan, a singer who flew up from North Carolina to record vocals in New York for a track assembled in Glasgow.

The taste for bhangra comes naturally to Rekha, who grew up in a Punjabi family, first in London and then, from age 5, in and around New York City – though she also points out that at home, Bollywood was more the fare.

"Being Punjabi definitely had some benefits, having some familiarity with the lyrics," she says. "And having ties to England helped a lot, having a cousin there, having that easy connection, in terms of access to music pre-Internet and all that."

Rekha feels bound neither by the "traditional" Punjabi folk sound nor by the strictures of the UK scene, which she finds insular and competitive. As perhaps bhangra’s foremost ambassador in this country, she offers a take on the sound that is more attuned to the American desi experience.

"There’s more hybridity here," she says. "We grew up listening to different kinds of music, whereas even the third-generation kids in the UK, the ones that listen to bhangra, only listen to bhangra."

That outlook helps explain the enduring success of Rekha’s party, says Dave Sharma, a producer who has collaborated with Rekha for several years.

"She’s found that formula that keeps Indian kids coming and they feel it’s an Indian party, and hipsters from downtown and Williamsburg feel welcome," Sharma says. "No other party even comes close to that."

As bhangra, hip-hop, reggae, Bollywood, and other forms of what she calls "international aggressive dance music" lap up against one another in the sets she spins, Rekha worries less about authenticity than about the way it comes together on the dance floor.

"That’s the fun about doing a live DJ set," she says. "You get to build that bridge. And to me the art of DJing is like that, when you are truly eclectic and really can just go anywhere. It’s a question of figuring out the balance and bringing them in."

Sudan Activists Call for Help in Darfur

By ANITA POWELL – 15 hours ago
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — In a former life, Emmanuel Jal turned a gun against his government as a conscripted rebel soldier in his native Sudan.
These days, the 28-year-old is a hip-hop artist who gave up his machine gun for a microphone, but keeps his aim on the Sudanese government. He accuses Khartoum of committing human rights abuses in Darfur, and alleges African leaders are allowing it to happen.
He and other Darfur citizen-activists brought their case to the Ethiopian capital Tuesday to "tell the African leaders, ‘You’ve failed us,’" he said. More than 40 heads of state are expected here for the African Union’s annual summit, which starts Thursday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to visit Addis Ababa during the summit to hold talks with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir about Darfur.
The Sudanese campaigners — who included Darfuri women — urged the speedy full deployment of an AU-United Nations force to the war-ravaged western Sudanese region. They also demanded a stronger mandate for the troops that would allow the soldiers to better protect civilians.
The U.N. estimates that 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated central government, accusing it of discrimination, in 2003. The government denies accusations it has committed widespread atrocities against civilians in the ensuing fighting.
The AU and U.N. have pledged to send a 26,000-strong peacekeeping force to Darfur to replace an undermanned, under-equipped AU force. About a third of that force, which largely incorporates the previous African peacekeepers, has been on the ground since Jan. 1 and has begun to secure the refugee camps.
Full deployment of the so-called hybrid force has been delayed because the Sudanese government has been reluctant to accept non-African troops, and the United Nations has not been able to get governments to supply helicopters, which it says are essential for the mission to succeed.
The future of the joint force, slated to become the largest peacekeeping operation in the world, is among topics to be discussed at the AU summit. The activists argued that it wasn’t being raised urgently or forcefully enough.
"Basically, send troops and make the people secure," said Jal, accusing the Sudanese government of foot-dragging to hold onto power.
"The AU needs to be strong. African leaders need to sanction Sudan," said Jal, who now lives in London.
But Sudanese Foreign Minister Deng Alor said he hoped all the troops would arrive within a year.
"The hybrid force, as a host country, we accept," Alor said. "We are ready to receive the troops. It is not Sudan" slowing the process.
AU officials say finding soldiers — particularly enough soldiers to satisfy Sudan’s demand for a "predominantly African" peacekeeping force — has been a challenge.
"We got some offers, but the countries that made the offers are not ready to go in, as such," said Mahmoud Kane, chief of the AU’s Darfur desk.
He said one battalion each from Ethiopia and Egypt — a U.N. battalion can contain between 750 and 850 soldiers — should arrive by March. A battalion from Thailand should follow, he said.
Nawal Hassan, 45, one of a handful of Darfuri women calling on the African Union to come to their region’s aid, said more soldiers won’t solve the problems.
"We need protection, especially for the women," she said. "We need troops with a strong mandate. We want an international force. Really, we need neutral forces who have no interest with the Sudanese government."
Other activists complained about soldiers who were unfamiliar with the language and culture, and about the lack of female soldiers and police officers.

The sounds of Public Enemy re-routed through Burj al-Barajneh

BEIRUT: In the 1980s, hip hop exploded onto the world music scene like a heat-seeking missile. Groups like Public Enemy spat poetic political activism into the formerly apolitical "party music" of their predecessors. In doing so, they gave America’s black, poverty-stricken and racially oppressed underclass much more than entertainment.

"Fight the Power," "Don’t Believe the Hype," "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" – these were anthems of emancipation, empowerment and education, a lyrical call to arms charged with the poetry of Gil Scott-Heron and the fury of Malcolm X.

Today, however, political hip hop in the United States is as dead as disco. Flip through any of the music channels and a horde of diamond-encrusted children flog you with crass, self-indulgent materialism, vanity-label perfumes and a shopping list of expensive pretty things you will never own.

The articulate activism that once defined the genre has all but disappeared, leaving in its place a grotesque serving of the worst kind of capitalism – a vain, vacuous, self-serving materialism where you either get rich or die trying. Little wonder, then, that one of American hip hop’s most successful sons, Nas, entitled his last album "Hip Hop is Dead."

But, then again, don’t believe the hype. Hip hop as a political medium is far from dead. Throughout Africa and across the Arab world it is thriving. In particular, young musical renegades from Algeria to Gaza have embraced the genre as an exciting new sociopolitical platform. The subculture of Palestinian hip hop is adeptly captured in Jackie Salloum’s critically acclaimed documentary, "Slingshot Hip Hop," which made its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, earlier this month. Salloum’s film profiles a number of home-grown hip-hop groups, including DAM, Palestinian Rapperz (PR), Arapeyat, Abeer, Mahmoud Shalabi and more.

Another group at the forefront of this musical intifada is Beirut’s latest hip-hop sensation, Katibe 5. Refugees straight outta Burj al-Barajneh, these five talented twenty-something MCs are the heirs of Public Enemy and its ilk. As artists who combine Arabic music, political activism, social commentary and, of course, hip hop, they are creating a fresh, dynamic form of political resistance.

Each member of Katibe 5 goes by his chosen nom de guerre. Nadir, or Moscow, is the group’s stern-faced, serious and solemn pragmatist. The affable Amro, aka C-4, boasts a confident, extroverted charisma that is nowhere near as menacing as his plastic-explosives nickname would suggest. Katibe 5’s resident graphic artist is Tarek "The Butcher" Jazzar. Bobo is quick-tongued and articulate, originally from Sierra Leone. And Yousri, known as Molotov – "Or Molo," he quips, "What name do you want? I’ve got plenty" – is the joker of the pack.

These eclectic characters have been recording music together since they were 15-year-old mates in a Burj al-Barajneh school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). "No, not a school exactly. It was a small prison," Bobo promptly clarifies.

The group recently signed a deal with Lebanon’s Incognito, an upstart record label and independent distributor associated with La CD-Theque, a record shop with branches near Sassine in Achrafieh and the American University of Beirut in Hamra.

"Like the name says, they’re not commercial," says Bobo. "They’re underground." Katibe 5’s first album, "Welcome, My Brother, to the Camps," is due to be released on Incognito in two weeks’ time.

The group’s music encompasses a variety of subjects, including the conditions of refugee life, corrupt humanitarian aid agencies and non-governmental organizations, Iraq, capitalism, Palestine, the 2007 conflict in Nahr al-Bared and relaxing on a Saturday night. Inspired by the older, more political generation of US hip-hop acts, Katibe 5 shares their same idealism.

"We’re the students of Public Enemy," says Bobo. "They succeeded in teaching people and we want to continue this. Our message is sociopolitical. You can’t separate the social from the political."

Chatting on the roof of the building in Burj al-Barajneh where Jazzar lives with his family, the members of Katibe 5 converse about politics, philosophy, literature and economics with the same passion and energy they put into their music.

"Have you read Nietzsche?" asks Moscow. "You like Frantz Fanon?" chimes Bobo. "What about Yukio Mishima?" adds Molo. "You don’t know Mishima? Kenzaburo Oe then? C’mon, man. You must read Mishima, Oe, all the Japanese writers, man. They’re good. They’re like this," Molo explains, holding his thumb and forefinger together to create an exact, precise point. "They give the wall its true image."

These well-read, fast-talking, wisecracking, chain-smoking refugees don’t present themselves as musicians but rather as Marxist revolutionaries – more PFLP than Notorious B.I.G.

"We are part of a revolution," says Moscow, "a musical revolution. It’s happening here and all over the world. We’re the adverb. We come before the verb. We’re preparing people for action," he says, a Che Guevara bracelet slipping out from under his sleeve to punctuate his revolutionary rhetoric.

Katibe 5 sees itself as being on a genuine musical mission to increase awareness, educate people and instigate global action and resistance.

"We want people to wake up and realize their rights and responsibilities. We want people to realize that companies are trying to control their behavior," says C-4.

The audience that Katibe 5 addresses doesn’t only reside in the refugee camps. The group expresses a Trotskyite solidarity for all of the world’s oppressed.

As Moscow explains Katibe 5’s aims, "We have a responsibility not just to reflect this life. We’re not just Palestinian refugees speaking about our problems, or our lives in the camps, because the problems we face are not only a Palestinian problem. All over the world there are people who are oppressed, people who are incarcerated, people who are suffering."

So what or who, in Katibe 5’s view, is the cause of this global suffering? "It’s the system, man," says Bobo

"The system" is a recurring bogeyman in Katibe 5’s music and ideology: a perceived, pervasive superstructure that keeps people ignorant, poor and backward.

"We’re fighting the system," Bobo expounds, "the system that makes people blind, and makes people ignore their rights and responsibilities.

"Look at hip hop," he adds. "The mainstream record companies want to say that hip hop is about cars, b****** and getting money. You should have this, you should have that. You should have a mobile phone because if you don’t have a mobile phone, you’re not a human. [But] hip hop’s not about that."

So what, exactly, is hip hop  about, then?

"Hip hop is a weapon for all oppressed people," says C-4.

"Hip hop is a movement," says Bobo. "It has always existed because hip hop is life. From the beginning there were always people living, people suffering. Hip hop is the art of talking, of expressing yourself. Lyrics are its base. You find it in poetry, essays and here in Arabic culture. It has existed from the beginning. As long as people are oppressed and incarcerated they will have something to say."

Illustrating their point, they start free-styling over the camp’s background beats: children playing, hammers hammering, the call to prayer coming from a nearby mosque and – this being last Sunday afternoon – the sounds of deadly riots in the Dahiyeh.

"Hip hop is based on the street and so it cannot be anything but political," says Bobo, satisfied with the clarification.

Perhaps it’s a reflection of their context, youth or political and musical influences but there is an ominous paranoia undercutting Katibe 5’s worldview, as well as an open acceptance of resistance by any means necessary.

"You know what, man?" C-4 warns. "They know what hip hop does to society and they want to kill it and stop its flow."

"You have to fight for your rights," adds Molo. "Peace means politics, politics means negotiations, negotiations are meant to sustain negotiations and not bring a solution. So I say, f*** negotiations, f*** politics and f*** peace."

Putting aside the philosophical musings and antagonistic worldview for a bit, what really counts is the music and, thankfully, Katibe 5’s debut album is good, good enough to give some merit to Katibe 5’s grand ideas and political pretensions.

The group’s sound – a mix of traditional Arabic melodies, rap, beat-boxing, poetry and sampled news footage – is in many ways unique. It’s a far cry from the majority of loved-up popular Arabic music and perhaps more importantly, it’s enjoyable to listen to. Think Public Enemy with an Arabic twist – loud, satirical, relevant and hard to ignore.

The contrasting voices and styles of the five members complement one another well, and they give the music variety and depth. To be sure, some songs are a little rough around the edges, but that is also part of the appeal. On track after track, Katibe 5’s sincerity, raw energy and youthful vigor carry their music. Furthermore, the group isn’t afraid to experiment. This gives them the potential to get bigger and better, and to receive the attention they deserve.

But ultimately, they couldn’t care less about what other people think. "All that matters is this," insists Molo. "Know your aim in life, do it and then die. There’s nothing else. Everything else is emptiness."

10 Questions w Chachi

Tell us a little about Cape Verde?

Cabo Verde is a collective of 10 islands off the west coast of
Africa. The language spoken is called criolo which is a pigeon language comprimised of Portuguese and west African dialects. The islands are located near the equator so the hot climate and beatiful land make for a future tourist hot spot. Beautiful people, beautiful music and katchupa on sunday… nuff said!

What is Hip Hop like in Cape Verde?
Hip Hop in Cape Verde is like Hip Hop everywhere. It is an ever growing culture which influences the youth which in turn influence the world. It continues to grow and change and
evolve into a powerful force used to connect the world thru music. It also offers big business opportunities and hope to youth from the street that someday they could be the next "big thing".

What were your first experiences with hip-hop? What made you gravitate towards hip-hop? Why hip-hop as opposed to other traditional or local music?

My first experience with hip hop came at an early age. I grew up with hip hop so I was around to see many stages of the culture. I guess Herbie Hancock’s dj was my first "WOW" experience when he was cutting and scratching on "Rock It", that was fresh and it was on tv. Even my dad liked some Herbie, but he definitely didn’t like NWA or Too Short… he actually hated rap which made me gravitate towards it even more. As long as my dad hated it… I was all about it, loud rap, graffitti, all of it. It made me want more and more because it was not accepted and I loved it. I also love traditional music from my country but that belongs to my dads generation. I grew up with Hip Hop, when hip hop was a baby, I was
a baby. It was supposed to be mine… it is.

Cape Verde has many forms of traditional music and several musical legends who have been successful in the global music market (Cesaria Evora, Tito Paris, Bana, Lura). Who are your musical inspirations?
My inspirations come from many genres and time periods as far as music is concerned… Bob Marley and the Wailers, Marvin Gaye, Fela Kuti, Curtis Mayfield, The Roots, Sam Cooke, Tropical Power, Tavares, Common, John Mayer, Philladelphia Hip Hop and Soul, Sade, New York City, Miles Davis, Luis Morais and my dad Carlos "Diamantino" Carvalho to name a few.
What issues do your people struggle with in your country?
In my countries, Cape Verde and USA, one of the biggest problems I see is identity crisis amongst youths and lack of proper role modeling. I am confident that the negative portrayal of hip hop culture and the over exposure of violence and materialism through media has a tremendous impact on society as a whole. The violence negatively inspires the youth to become overly aggressive and out of control. Cape Verde is traditionally a very respectful culture. The negative impact of gang culture and violently
charged music is making the next generation of youth uncontrollable. It will all get worse before it gets better.

What role does hip-hop play in dealing with/talking about these issues?
I feel that hip hop as a culture is dealing with and has been dealing with these issues for a long time. The problem is that this hip hop, the true spirit of hip hop, the healing power of hip hop is overshadowed by the more popular, negative energy put out by main stream record execs, labels and stations. Until more light is shined on more positive hip hop, the culture will continue to suffer.

Can hip-hop be used as a means for political transformation?
I know that hip hop can be used for political transformation. Music is a powerful weapon. It can sway people’s opinions about life in general. If enough people recite the truth through song, it could, would and will change the world

Hip-Hop has been around for over 30 years. Where do you see hip-hop heading on a global scale over the next 10 years?
Over the next ten years I can see people in power who have grown up with hip hop making some of the worlds major decisions. I can see a turning of the tides and a rise of more positive people creating positive music and really making a difference. I believe in our culture and I embrace it. Times are hard. Hip
Hop will play an important roll in the healing of many nations

Have you four every performed together before? What can people expect at the this year’s Trinity International Hip Hop Festival?
I have performed with Tem Blessed and Shokanti before. They are both full of energy and offer an amazingly insightful perspective on life and hip hop as a culture of growth and opportunity. Peace and Love. I can’t wait for the festival to be able to share some of my music and life with the world.