13 April 2006
American Popular Music Groups Enjoy Tours to Middle East, Africa
U.S. State Department sends musicians abroad as cultural ambassadors
Washington -- Two American music groups, one playing hip-hop, the other Latin jazz, have returned to the United States enthusiastic about their one-month tours of the Middle East and Africa.
Ezra Greer, bassist for Opus Akoben Hip-Hop Ensemble, said he and his three fellow musicians were greeted by excited audiences and eager musicians at each stop on their tour through Bahrain, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
"The response everywhere we went was great," Greer said. "We performed with local musicians everywhere we went. In Egypt, we performed with the Nubian folklore group. We performed with musicians in Jordan. In Bahrain, we played with the leading producer of hip-hop. We traveled with him and his crew the whole week and that was nice."
He said Opus Akoben's concerts with instrumentalists and a singer in Saudi Arabia have led to the possibility of doing a joint recording. "It'll be a combination of their stuff and our stuff. It'll be a hybrid," Greer said.
One of the two Opus Akoben lyricists, Terrence "Sub-Z" Nicholson, said the high point of the tour for him came during the visit to the Palestinian Territories.
"I learned a lot from those people," he said. "Regardless of what sort of oppression is heaped on you, you still live your life. No one can take joy from you," he said.
Carl "Kokayi" Walker, the other lyricist for Opus Akoben, said the high point of the tour for him came in Saudi Arabia.
"We had academics. We had imams, we had singers, and everybody got together and we had an open exchange and that was very nice," he said.
Walker said music had the effect of removing barriers and bringing people from different backgrounds together. "The thing about music is it goes through and makes everything a little more permeable. You can just squeeze through social barriers and political barriers and other barriers. Once you start playing music, it makes everything a little more permeable. You can just squeeze through those things," he said.
Greer said that a number of Middle Eastern countries, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon and Egypt, have vibrant hip-hop scenes where singers perform in both English and Arabic. In Bahrain and Kuwait, hip-hop is voiced mainly in English, whereas in Egypt, the lyrics are voiced mainly in Arabic, Greer said.
While Opus Akoben toured the Middle East in March, the Jazz Sabrosón Latin Quartet performed, taught, and learned while traveling through Congo, Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco and Mali. Both groups embarked on their tours as unofficial cultural diplomats for the U.S. State Department, which organized the tours with the help of Jazz at Lincoln Center, a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to jazz. A joint concert at the American History Museum in Washington April 12 was the final event on their tours, which recently brought them back to the United States.
Steve Bloom, guitarist for Jazz Sabrosón, said in each country that the group visited they played with local artists who made music with their traditional instruments. He said the tour through Africa was especially valuable for the drummers and percussion players.
"For us, it was very important to learn about the roots of music. For the drummers and percussion, I mean, everywhere we went, that was the roots of everything we played," Bloom said. "I hope to be able to integrate some of the music I heard into my own music," he added.
He said one of the most memorable moments of the tour for him was a concert in Congo with two little boys and their father.
Miriam Sullivan, the bassist of the Jazz Sabrosón quartet, said that the musical tour took them to a village in Congo to which few outsiders ever have been.
"We went to a village. Tony [De Vivo], our drummer, asked one of the students in a workshop to make him some drums. So, we had to pick the drums up. We went to a village, and the people there were saying, 'who is this?' 'What do you guys want?' They were curious. For me, as an African American, I saw my mom, my aunt, my sister, my brother. It was a beautiful experience," Sullivan said.
Opus Akoben Hip-Hop Ensemble and Jazz Sabrosón Latin Quartet are two of eight American musical groups that the U.S. State Department sent on overseas tours in the past year as part of a program called “The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad.” The eight groups visited more than 30 countries.
Alina Romanowski, deputy assistant secretary of state for professional and cultural exchanges, said that hip-hop groups were brought into the mix of musical ambassadors for the first time during the past year.
"We've introduced hip-hop for the first time this year. It appeals to a younger group of people. Hip-hop is an interesting new genre to appreciate and understand. This has been really good to be able to engage directly with different parts of the population that are quite different," she said.
Additional information on the Rhythm Road program is available on the State Department Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
