The Arab Culture Initiative
Hip Hop for social change & political awareness
Saturday May 05, 2007
$12 gen. $10 stdnts. & snrs. - 9pm
The Arab Cultural and Community Center, La Peña Cultural Center, and ACCESS (Dearborn) present May Day: Hip Hop. An evening of Hip Hop for social change and political awareness, featuring The Rogue State, with RagtOp (of the Philistines), Omar Offendem (of the N.O.M.A.D.S), Excentric, and Iron Sheik.
Omar Offendem was born in the Middle East and emigrated to the U.S. at age 4. He earned a Bachelor’s in Architecture/Digital Art from the University of Virginia. He has since worked for the Georgetown-based firm OTJ Architects, and has been an instrumental part of their award-winning design team (AIA & IIDA Awards 2004-2006). Omar currently resides in Los Angeles, performing with the hip-hop group The N.O.M.A.D.S. across the globe – from the world-famous House of Blues in Hollywood, to the Citadel in Amman, Jordan. Excentrik is a Bay Area and Los Angeles Musician, MC and Producer. He has performed with many Arab-American Hip Hop artists including The Philistines, The N.O.M.A.D.S., Narcy of Euphrates and Iron Sheik. His current project, The Arab Summit (founded and conceptualized by Narcy H), is a collaborative work with Ragtop and Omar Offendum.
Nizar Wattad was born in the Middle East and emigrated to the U.S. as an infant. He was raised in the Tennessee Hills, and earned a Bachelor’s in English, Theater and Creative Writing from the George Washington University. He has since written as a reporter for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, edited and updated a book for Congressman Paul Findley, and edited a bi-monthly newspaper in Guatemala. In addition to his role as Ragtop of the Los Angeles-based hip-hop group the Philistines, Wattad has earned a Masters degree in screenwriting from the University of Southern California. His thesis screenplay, Agency, was a semi-finalist or finalist in the 2006 Final Draft Big Break, Brass Brad Mentorship, and ABC/Walt Disney Studios Writer’s Fellowship competitions.
Using hip-hop as his medium, Iron Sheik relays informed views on the Palestinian movement for independence, the war on terrorism, US foreign policy in general, the Arab world, and growing up Arab-American. Since releasing his first album, 'Camel Clutch 2003,' he has toured nationally and internationally. Musically, the Sheik often draws on Arabic music, such as the legendary Um Kulthoum, Fairuz, Marcel Khalife, Abdel-Halim, and more. Intellectually, he draws inspiration from thinkers such as Edward Said, Ilan Pappe, Walid Khalidi, Hannah Arendt, and many others.
For over the past 10 years, Head-Roc has been regarded as the best that DC Hip Hop has to offer! Dubbed “The Mayor” of the DC Hip Hop, Head-Roc has come to embody the passions, hopes and dreams of a wonderfully talented and all too often overlooked DC music scene. His unparalleled ability to reach music lovers of all tastes puts him on par with established national recording artists in both music creation and live performance. Head-Roc’s honest and relevant lyrics are a refreshing change in this current era of corporate Hip-Hop exploitation. His music has inspired many in the progressive movement to rethink Hip Hop’s potential for achieving social change and he is widely regarded as one of the key voices in this movement – setting the perfect stage to release his sophomore solo album: Negrophobia!
Palestinian-born, Saed Muhssin is a oud player and composer. His musical education includes Arabic and Turkish classical, North Indian, Jazz, Western classical and Composition. He is currently completing an MFA in improvisation at Mills College. Saed has performed widely as a soloist, with Al-Marjanah Ensemble, which he founded and directed, Aswat Choir which he directed, and in collaboration with other musicians in a variety of idioms.
