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If you saw The Motorcycle Diaries, you will learn about some of what Ernesto Guevara saw on his own trip through Peru. How much has changed since those revolutionary times, and the last calls of the gritos? More idealism than action. It was his own people that killed Che.

I am told, the indigenous people of the mountain lands want to live this way. The mud huts are made with straw. This keeps the mud together and pact tight. There are few tools. Everything is done with manual labor. There is no private property, only a squatting system. Because of the climate and altitude, the best crops are corn and potato. The children, dressed in traditional costumes, beg tourists for money. They are insistent. I am told not to give these children money because they are exploited by their parents. These children hustle 3x more than an adult worker earns during an entire day. It is a cyclical culture of begging. The basics for a subsistence existence are food, clean water, and shelter. Aldous Huxley quipped— Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

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A Treatise: Rap and the American Dream by Angela Kariotis

It has been easy to denounce the harrowing state of Hip Hop, or more accurately, rap music. Hip Hop is experiencing a strenuous time while developing into adult-hood. Hip Hop is constantly referred to as a culture. I believe it is part of my culture, and I participate in my culture actively. However, I also recognize that every successful culture adopts or creates a mission statement, a philosophy, a code. Because Hip Hop was made in America, I can only now contextualize it in our present framework. In terms of thesis statements there are two philosophical implications in Hip Hop that I have written about in my work. I haven’t written about these in an expositional sense, but they are the underlying themes behind my character’s motive power, the impetus of the story. These themes are making due with what you’ve got, and getting each other’s back. Loyalty and ingenuity are cornerstones in Hip Hop as a culture. I’m bringing it back to the neighborhood and the home, amongst relationships, these things all cultures depend on.

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From Waterfront Journal by Ahn Behrans, 8/4/2006: 

‘Jesus walked on water, / first, because he believed that he could. / Told it was a miracle, / I was convinced incapable of such things. / With each doubt I crucify myself, / without believing in my resurrection / I desire God-conciousness, / to free myself / to walk in my skin / no longer as enemy but as savior.’

-reads the vinyl lettering on the gallery wall by Angela Kariotis, a spoken word artist…

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Your Peoples were Sleepin/ Mine was Pioneering/
From, Feta Funk –BZ JAM GreekHipHop

On his latest album, My Big Phat Greek…, rapper BZ JAM, a first-generation Greek-Canadian, features a track titled, Tower of Babel. This track is the album finale, and epitomizes how Hip Hop has gone global. According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens. To prevent this project from succeeding, God confused their languages so that each spoke a different language. As a result, they could no longer communicate with one another and the work stopped. The builders were then scattered to different parts of Earth. This story is used to explain the existence of many different languages and races. BZ Jam knows history, and brings back an old school classic remixed with modern day relevancy. Featured in this track he is accompanied by his counterparts offering a Persian rap, the ancient language of Persia a/k/a/ Iran, and Serbian, Arabic, Greek, and English raps, verse for verse. The MC’s aren’t just from these native lands by way of one generation or another; they actually spit rhymes in their native tongues. Contrary to the title of the song, there is no babbling going on. This is a treatise, a summary statement; this song crystallizes what music does best—to bring people together through the universal language of music. Can BZ Jam take this to the United Nations? Number one question, how can I be down?

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