Global Youth Cultures
Our first event for the Radical Distrust project, the Global Youth Cultures conference, was held at the University of Kent on October 24-25 2009 and brought together academics, writers and spoken word artists to discuss youth cultures in a postcolonial context. By combining theoretical papers and performances, we hoped that the conference would serve to introduce academic faculty to contemporary youth culture, and vice versa, in an accessible environment.
The event was comprised of one day of academic discussion and readings, and a second day of musical and dramatic performances.
Day two
The second day was a dynamic day of inspiring musical performances, a dynamic piece of hip hop political theatre, and the screening of an acclaimed documentary on Palestinian hip hop. Unfortunately, our billed artist Gabriel Teodros was unable to attend but in his place we had a showcase of talent from YouTube, in itself demonstrating how the production and dissemination of youth culture are rapidly changing with technological developments.
Put together by conference co-organiser Blake Brandes, the YouTube Showcase featured a selection of artists who have developed cult followings on the web broadcaster. We had individual performances from:
Cherry Lee
Todd Kuffner
Ana Free
as well as a very special medley performed together by all the artists, together with Blake in his DJ Decryption guise.
The showcase was followed by a performance of The Rebel Cell, performed by Baba Brinkman (The Rap Canterbury Tales) and Dizraeli (BBC Radio 4 Poetry Slam Winner). The Rebel Cell is a multi-awarded work of hip hop theatre that imagines a dystopian future of terror and surveillance in order to explore different views on youth radicalisation. It has been performed in several incarnations at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and beyond, and we got to see it in its latest guise!
Radical Distrust’s relationship with The Rebel Cell continues: we are excited to announce that Baba Brinkman and Dizraeli will be performing the play in Egypt to coincide with the forthcoming Egyptian Literary Culture and Modernity symposium to be held at Cairo University in April 2010.
The conference concluded with a screening of Slingshot Hip Hop, an award-winning musical documentary that shows how hip hop is being used by young performers to address divisions in Israel/Palestine. Director Jackie Salloum and Suhell, member of internationally renowned hip hop group DAM, introduced the film and took questions.
Overall the conference was a unique and innovative blending of academic discussion and youth culture in action, which provided fertile material for further discussion and collaboration. On that note, we are thrilled to announce that a special commemorative issue of Wasafiri has now been accepted on the theme of global youth cultures, slated for publication in early 2012.
