What: Slingshot Hip Hop, a documenary film about Palestinian hip-hop music
When: Thu Feb 11, 2010, 7 – 8:30pm
Where: Rackham Amphitheater (915 E Washington Street)
Cost: Free and open to the public (Part of UM’s Black History Month celebrations)

The screening will be followed by a discussion led by Amer Ahmed, Associate Director of University of Michigan’s Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA).

Join the event on Facebook.

Click here to read the preview and review of this film from an earlier screening at UM.

 

 

Slingshot Hip Hop, a documentary film about Palestinian hip-hop music, is directed by Jackie Reem Salloum (who received her BFA from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti). The film was nominated for Grand Jury Prize in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. (Click here for a detailed review of the film by Maureen Clare Murphy.)

 

 

Salloum spent five years making Slingshot Hip Hop, at times raising money by working at her parents’ ice cream shop in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Her production company, Fresh Booza Productions, refers to this – booza being the Arabic word for “ice cream”.

 

 

After the film screening, film-maker Jackie Salloum will also lead a discussion about the film.

Featured in the documentary is the Palestinian rap group DAM (Da Arabian MCs).

 

 

You can check out an interview with Salloum in which she is discussing the film, by clicking here. You can also check out a trailer for the film.

 

 

A discussion which took place some time ago at Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse in Baltimore about this film, has this to say:

Slingshot Hip Hop braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and inside Israel as they discover hip hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and separation walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them.

 

 

As readers of the erstwhile Arts Lounge are well aware, Ann Arbor has a thriving hip-hop culture. This will be a very interesting film to see, and will be eagerly anticipated. As Eric Snider wrote in January in a Sundance Review on the Cinematical blog:

When you hear that Slingshot Hip Hop is a documentary about Palestinian rap groups, you probably have the same thought I had: “What, that old subject again? Why can’t filmmakers come up with something original?”

Just kidding. One of the joys of a film festival is seeing documentaries on unusual topics that you had never considered before, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who didn’t know Palestine had even one rap group, let alone a major hip hop movement. First-time feature filmmaker Jackie Reem Salloum (an American with Palestinian and Syrian roots) knows that our curiosity will be piqued simply by hearing the subject matter […]

Incidentally, this film is sort of a parallel project to UM graduate student Vanessa Diaz’s film Cuban Hip-hop, about which I blogged in the erstwhile Arts Lounge some time ago. (Just as Jackie Salloum went to Palestine and made this documentary on Palestinian hip-hop, Vanessa Diaz had gone to Cuba and shot a documentary on Cuban hip-hop.)

The top of the Sô Percussion website reads, “If you think about it, drums are the new violins.”  Uh, what?  It’s a quote from a recent New York Times article about the rise of percussionists.  I read the article. Uh, what the poop?

That’s not fair.  The article is pretty great- developing the journalist’s relationship to percussion along with the rise of percussion in the classical music world. But, still, I continue to have a difficult time understanding a drum as a violin.

We will see tonight as Sô Percussion, a quartet of young (for the classical music world at least) Yale School of Music grads, plays two sets at the UofM Museum of Art.  The first set (7:30pm) will be performed in the museum’s apse while the second (10pm) will start in the apse and travel around to different parts of the museum.

Then, Sô Percussion after party at eve in Kerrytown with DJ Forest Juziuk of Dark Matter on the ones and twos.  Showgoers and non-showgoers are very invited.

Tickets are steep and almost sold out but any open tickets will be available at the door.  (The $40 ticket price and limited availability raises the question of whether UMS should even be presenting Sô Percussion.  Very antithetical to a goal of inclusiveness.  How far should UMS stray from this mission to present top talent? Oh, Saturday afternoon philosophy).

Farewell me maties, Bennett

Said by Rolling Stones to be “about as badass as highbrow gets,” The Bad Plus presents a distinctive sound fusing together post-60’s jazz with indie rock to create an entirely new art form, now known as Nu Jazz. They’re no ordinary jazz trio and their unique take on classics create something that is truly inspiring.  (Just for you to get an idea)

The trio formed in 2000 and released their first album on Fresh Sound after playing only three gigs together and have just released their seventh e.p, For All I Care, joined by indie singer/songwriter, Wendy Lewis.  Their catalog is extensive and their performances seem to break the gap between the high culture/low culture distinctions.  As their name suggests, The Bad Plus has recorded jazzed versions of many rock artists.  Nirvana, Pixies, Neil Young, Yes, and Interpol just to name a few. (Check out this rendition of Aphex Twin’s Film)

If you have never gotten into jazz or if you are into jazz come check out these new happenings and I promise you will not be disappointed.

Save the Date!

Who: The Bad Plus

When: Two shows to choose from tomorrow evening, Thursday February 4th, 7:oo p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Where: Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, right inside the League (you can also purchase tickets at the UMS office located in the same building)

See you there!