Wafin.com: Where are you from Josh? Josh: I am a native New Yorker.
Wafin.com: How did you get the idea to make the film? Josh:I was working in the HipHop industry a few years ago when I visited Morocco for the first time. I was totally blown away by the HipHop scene there and decided to go back with a video camera to document what was going on. I wound up getting a Fulbright grant to study the whole phenomenon of HipHopin this Arab-Muslim country and I turned that research into a film project. As I became close with many of the groups, I wanted to become more involved in the movement and I offered to go to the US Embassy to pitch them the idea of sponsoring a HipHop festival, which they eventually went for and we produced a free 3-city concert tour in the summer of 2005, with over 35,000 people in attendance. The rest, as they say, is history.
Wafin.com: Who are the main characters in the film? Josh: DJ Key, H-Kayne, Fnaire, MC Bigg, BrownFingaz, Mot de Passe, FatiShow.
Wafin.com: Your Moroccan Arabic is very good. How did you learn it? Josh: I learned Moroccan Arabic while living inMorocco (ma3'aloum!). It was very important for me to be able to communicate with people in their native tongue, and not just in the colonial language of French or the globalized language of English. It had to be Darija!
Wafin.com:HipHop is typically viewed as genre adopted by the marginalized. Is that the case inMorocco? How is it different there?
Josh: I believe that Morocco is no exception in that it is mostly popular among young people, who are very marginalized in
a "traditional" society. It has also become popular among young women,
who are even more marginalized and, consequently, find a kind of
empowerment through this music and culture.
Wafin.com: What kind of audience did the Festival attract generally? Gender/age/etc./ Josh: The festival attracted over 30,000 young Moroccans, mostly male (though
we definitely had a few brave young women attend), mostly between the
ages of 13 and 30.
Wafin.com: The American Embassy inMorocco was key in funding the project. What do they gain from such an initiative? Josh: The US Embassy gained a great deal of positive exposure from the
festival, as it was the first time that the American government had
shown support for this popular youth movement, which originated in the US but, until 2005, had only been supported by the French and British.
Stay tuned for the upcoming release of the official "ILoveHipHopinMorocco" DVD at thefirst Brooklyn Hajj, August 22nd at Southpaw (BK) with live performances from MC Bigg (Casablanca) and Salah Edin (Amsterdam)www.brooklynhajj.com for more information go to to: http://www.ilovehiphopinmorocco.com
newyorkaise : This is an AMAZING documentary! I saw it twice and I recommend it to all those who haven't seen it yet. Its touching, funny, realistic...very well-made!
ahmed in la : When I first heard of I Love Hip Hop In Morocco, I cringed. I thought that all that Morocco needed was the import of trashy life style of some South Central L.A. youth, the drunken habits, the drug use and promotion, promiscuous sex and the demeaning of women in every other word in rap. What had started as a positive expression of ones environment, a celebration of life and as a positive message in early 80 by Grand Master Flash, Afrika Bambaataa and the likes, turned into a promotion of intoxication, drug use, violence, revenge and terror. Look up the historical civil war between the Bloods and the Cribs. I could not explain wearing pants bellow the buttocks, holding 40 once malt liquor bottles or smoking pot and the like while raping about sex with women whose purpose in life and whose mere existence were described or portrayed as sex objects.
I could never justify to humanity why would rapers hold their private parts when rapping, why they made inexplicable gestures with their hands and their fingers, the ridiculous chains around their necks or worst, diamond embedded teeth!
This is all in a community that has put its creator before anyone else, celebrates its worship and faith with diligence, devoting and passion. African Americans dress up on Sunday, get into their nice shiny cars, on the way to church and have an aura of happiness, contentment and bless. I envied that in them and thought that they deserved to be happy, especially after their historical suffering, and I thought that the creator needed their worship as to live up to the purpose of the creation and to affirm that humans do not exist in vain.
Yet, when you see the other side of the coin you are perplexed! Why aren t these young men working, creating families and living the American dream? As a matter of fact, since the Whites, Asians and African American exodus to the west, they had the best opportunity to squat on lands, own the town and prosper. However, for obvious reasons, the African American populous of L.A. ceded the opportunity to others, especially the Hispanic immigration, and lost out on an opportunity to excel in a land whose inhabitants they were part of, one they had paid greatly for.
On Tuesday, I happened to meet a young man who was being hired by a local utility company, working on power poles. I asked him where he moved from and he answered Michigan. I asked the reason why he moved from there and he answered that he was tired of the cold. I lastly asked how long he has been in L.A. and he answered: 2 weeks. A position of lineman in L.A. pays approximately $120,000/year and with the overtime, workers have been making $200K!
This was a young white male, who barely moved from Michigan, on his way to make a decent living in Los Angeles and who will, soon, be buying a house in the suburbs with a cute white picket fence, where he will, likely, live with his Michigan sweet heart. Both will soon have a family SUV and will soon take their kids to private schools for a better education! On the same day, I made it to Western and Slausson avenues, three of four freeway exits away, to the sight of poor and unemployed African Americans struggling to find a cigarette. (There is an evening class, few days a week, preparing people to become linemen; it takes 6 months to obtain a certification, the class is FREE and it at a reasonable driving distance from anywhere in L.A.)
My lack of education and academic qualifications, penalize me as to any ability to analyze the situation or to afford me to suggest what could be done to remedy the situation. Yet, I m a social observer and reporter and I will describe what I see and live for the rest of my brethren to make what they want out of.
I have not seen the video and I was very cordial with Josh when we spoke about promoting the film in L.A. I admit having mixed feelings about it and I that I might have underestimated its value as a social documentary. What I had wished to promote, is a positive image of Morocco, a creative effort emanating out of Morocco s culture, history and heritage.
Where I screwed up is when I denied the Moroccan youth its rights and privileges in being heard! My negative views on rap had acted on me again and had caused me to deny a whole class of Moroccans, what I had denied a whole class of Americans; the right to be who they are, in their country, in their age and their era.
I left Morocco 20 years ago and I should not have as much claim as the youth who is living in the present-day conditions. The importance of their message and the need to vent out the frustration, outweighs the mean of delivering the message. The content must matter more than the form it is delivered in; be it written, sang, acted, story-tolled or any other form.
The next video is a performance that had preceded rap; its positive conscious message has nothing to do with Eminem or Snoop Dog s trash and sadly, for more that its 25+ years, had only been seen 107 times on You Tube. Compare that to how many times, Snoop Dog, Drey, Ice whoever or any of the others were viewed and how many millions worth of their trash was sold.
So at the end, I will reserve my views on the subject and I will give people the right to express themselves in anyway they want.
Please copy and paste the following in your search window and view; it is clean!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZwnshU9MKg
Ahmed and the Wafiners.
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Wafin.com: Where are you from Josh?
