more powerful than music.

When I was searching for the YouTube of Anis Mojgani's 'Shake the Dust' performance for yesterday's post I found another video & website entitled 'Shake the Dust.' It turns out to be a beautiful documentary on youth from around the world and their source of hope in seemingly hopeless circumstances through hip-hop and break dancing.

In college I knew a great teacher who was passionate about the beginnings of hip-hop culture in the Bronx--namely the transformative power that hip-hop had in enabling impoverished & underrepresented youth to have a voice. At the opening picnic for a service program we did with incoming freshmen to introduce them to the Bronx, this teacher would talk adamantly about the importance of hip-hop's transformation of the city, and would even bust out his best rendition of Grandmaster Flash. It is so amazing to see here that same power at work across the world, inspiring and uniting the youth in so many hard-pressed countries.

I love when filmmakers capture cultures, stories, and issues in such a beautiful way. In reading or watching the news from around the world we can so naturally become accustomed to statistics and/or generalities--more often than not surrounding what is negative or threatening. Thus it can become easy to lose touch of the actual people, the beautiful faces, and each of the individual hopes, dreams, and stories they possess until we travel or see something like this. (It ignites my travel bug, for sure.) Check it out:

Shake the Dust - Yemen from Loose Luggage on Vimeo.

"From its inception, hip-hop was a source of energy, community, strength, expression, and passion.  And in the years since its inception, hip-hop has become far more than just a musical genre or style of dance– it has stretched itself across the globe as one of the most influential and trend-setting sub-cultures that exist."

Check out more on Shake the Dust's website and help spread the word.
(photo credit Shake the Dust)