What if someone told you that Senegal would one day be the best hip hop scene in the world? Or that Turkish is the best language to rap in after English? These are the type of attitudes expressed through a bevy of new films shining a light on the different global hip hop scenes.

This weekend, the Atlanta Hip Hop Film Festival screened five of the newest of these films, much to my pleasant surprise. It’s not often that these types of films are shown in Atlanta, so I jumped at the chances to widen my viewing experiences. Now, I would like to say that this festival is run by a fantastic group of women whose mission is to honor the arts where film meets hip hop, as well as bring more education and cultural exchanges to Atlanta. My hat is off to them. In their third year, they had panels, discussion groups, parties, a gala event and even a youth event, where young people could spend the afternoon learning the four elements (breaking, graffiti art, DJing and MCing). But since I’m searching for global hip hop, I went for the five films (out of 25 total).

The first day started kind of rough. They had switched venues one day before the festival started and attendance started slow. The first two films on Friday were set to be Counting Headz: South Afrika’s Sistaz in Hip Hop and Cuban Hip Hop: Desde el Principio. Sadly, due to scheduling and technical issues, they started very late Friday and I had to leave before viewing either film. I can say I’ve heard good things about Counting Headz and I already saw Cuban Hip Hop at the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival in March and it is an amazing story of the history of hip hop in Cuba.

I returned this morning and did see the other three films after a slight delay. First up was Like An Ambassador of His People - The Rappers of Senegal. I am more familiar with Senegalese hip hop than any other African country, so I was glad to see featured the familiar Positive Black Soul (PBS), Daara J, BMG 44 and Alif. The film shows performances and interviews with many Senegalese rappers including a lot of footage with PBS and Xuman and Pee Froiss (another extremely well known rapper there).

A large protion of the middle followed Xuman and Pee Froiss (and then later another MC called Black Starr) into the areas where they lived and spoke with everyday people in Dakar. It seemed that hip hop was woven into the fabric of the Senegalese culture much deeper than in America. A grop of school kids were weighing in on rap and rappers they liked (Darra J and Pee Froiss were the winners there), why they liked it (”they tell the truth”) and their disgust with commercial American hip hop (”Americans are really assholes” said one kid who certainly wasn’t older then 10). One girl said her mother liked rap, and sure enough, a bit later, a women with two young kids was rapping and talking shit to the filmmaker. (”Yes, of course I rap. You want to battle right now and I’ll show you?”)

Next they traveled out of Dakar to M’Bour (I think), a smaller town along the ocean. A group there spoke about how there are many rapper but few have access to the equipment to record. So he said all they can do is wait, while practicing their rap and banging beats on a drum. Senegal is obviously a very poor country, and the rappers never speak of money or material things. Their topics cover politics, HIV, education and even oil pollution in the ocean. Despite their third world status, their goal is to become known to wider international audience and ”become number one in world hip hop.”

After spending some time in the nightclubs and markets, the final part of the film follows the female trio Alif as they finish their first album and travel to Germany for a 12-day tour. The group’s German producer, Steven Toteburg, has to speak with the girls’ parents and convince them to allow the girls to stay at the studio for three weeks to finish the album and rehearse for the tour. Myraime’s mother was a hard sell. (”Will you miss school? How many men are there?”) The girls are the first female rap group from Senegal and they are also Muslim, two cultural factors working against them. But the girl’s father seemed to understand. (”It doesn’t matter if it is school or music if you are working to support your family.”)

The second film of the morning was HIPHOPistan: Representing Locality in a Global City, a film focused on the emerging hip hop scene in Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul stands on the line between ancient and modern, betweeen Europe and Asia, and all things can be found there. Turkey is a Muslim country and was presented as somewhat conservative when it came to hip hop. Most of the older people interviewed in the film didn’t like hip hop music and didn’t like graffiti. It was the youth who dominated the hip hop scene and the elements of breaking and graffiti seemed especially important to them. DJs were almost non-existant in the film, but MCs were emerging as the voice of the movement. The leading performer was Ceza (pronounced “JEZ-uh”, meaning “punishment”). The film was short (about 35 minutes) and left me feeling like Istanbul’s hip hop scene was very young and still trying to find its identity. But it shouldn’t be too hard for them if all the kids hold on to their passion for their arts. 

Finally we watched a very well produced film called I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. The film followed DJ Key and Josh the American as they spent six months planning a free three day hip hop festival, in three cities, on three days, called I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. Each city was headlined by a well known local group, and two were heavily featured: H-Kayne and Fnaire, both groups who rapped in Arabic, as well as Brown Fingaz, A Marrakech MC who raps in English, and Mot de Passe, a male-female duo who rap in French.

The conservative Musilim culture of Morocco was presented as even more oppressive than Turkey’s. Two topics you were never to speak about were religion and the king. There was no freedom of speech. Cursing was frowned upon. At one point, several of the rappers seemed seriously worried when their friend was speaking negatively about the king and the government. One promoter told a story of 14 rock musicians who were imprisoned for a year simply for performing hard rock music. Rappers repeated made statements that the common people in Morocco did not have anything. They said they write raps in double meanings and hidden messages to avoid government problems. However, they claimed that if they had money like American artists, they would probably also rap about girls.

Perhaps the strongest moment of the film came from Fati Show, the female half of Mot de Passe. People yelled “you should be ashamed” when she walked down the street with her rhyme partner. And at the show, the crowd booed her when she walked on stage. She told them she didn’t care, then proceeded to tear up the beat with her lyrics. And the crowd came to its feet and cheered her loudly when she was done. Effecting change, fo sho.