Robert Cooper photo

Nico Cary of the spoken word collective iLL-Literacy.

Last year, Nas proclaimed, "Hip-hop is dead." Apparently the numerous MCs, DJs, B-Boys and B-Girls, graffiti artists, activists and attendants of Trinity College's Third Annual International Hip-Hop Festival didn't receive that memo. This past weekend, for three straight days, hip-hop was anything but dead. And the festival proved unequivocally that it is more than just music, it's a movement.

When I had my radio show "Revolution Radio" on Trinity's radio station 89.3, I would always advertise the event, but was never able to go.

For three years, the festival has celebrated the culture of hip-hop by highlighting the four elements (MC, DJ, dance and graffiti) that make up the culture. This year's festival featured workshops, demonstrations, panel discussions and live performances from acts that hailed from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.

The festival kicked off on Friday, April 4 starting with hip-hop history featuring Melissa Noel Green at Hartford High, hip-hop theater featuring Baba Israel, and the event's keynote speaker Bakari Kitwana with a lecture titled "Can Hip-Hop Make the Transition from Cultural Movement to Political Power?"

The performances started early in the evening at the Vernon Social Center. On the bill for the opening night was Baba Israel, who is of Australian and American descent; Cape Verdean rappers Shokanti and Chachi; Abyssinian Creole who hail from Seattle; Hartford's own Self-Suffice, and the event's co-host Eternia from Toronto.

When I arrived, Baba Israel was on stage amping the crowd with rhymes that were both written and improvised. He showed his versatility as he played the didgeridoo, an Australian wind instrument, before being joined onstage by the Czech Beat Box All-Stars for an entertaining demonstration of the near-forgotten art of beat-boxing.

Baba Israel said hip-hop has international appeal because it is a form of expression that stands up to injustices.

"In every corner of the world, a country has some form of problems," he said. "There is some form of cultural, political or religious oppression happening to a large group of people somewhere. Hip-hop is about self-expression. It captivates people and gives them a sense of freedom."

The highlight of the evening came when Eternia took center stage. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada and now living in New York City, Eternia showed why the T-Dot is fast becoming a vibrant mecca for lyrically creative rappers. Toronto rappers such as K-OS, K'naan, and Kardinal Offishall are pushing the limits of musical creativity in hip-hop, and Eternia believes that Canada's more liberal outlook on race and sex has helped shape the city's more eclectic sound.

"Here in America, people identify themselves based on race, gender or class," she said. "It is not like that in Canada. We are more open and respectful to other people's cultural background."

Saturday's events began with a graffiti mural painting, a panel discussion featuring hip-hop pioneers Tony Tone, Grandmaster Caz, Grand Wizard Theodore and DJ Disco Wiz titled "Born in the Bronx: the Origins of Hip-Hop," and a two-on-two B-boy battle. The performers for Saturday featured Zimbabwe Legit, Sam the Kid from Portugal, Jewish rapper Y-Love from the college's Hillel House, spoken word collective iLL-Literacy, the Chilean/Puerto Rican trio Rebel Diaz, Ghanaian rapper Blitz the Ambassador, and Grandmaster Caz.

Everyone has a fuck-you list full of names of hated individuals. Nico Cary of iLL-Literacy read his on stage dropping names like Ronald Reagan, George Bush and a list of white British singers.

Rebel Diaz were true to their name, as their take-no-prisoners, fuck-the-police, let's-start-a-riot style of hip-hop worked the crowd into a frenzy. Portuguese rapper Sam the Kid, who said he was responsible for producing much hip-hop in Portugal, made his first appearance in the United States. Blitz the Ambassador co-hosted the show and performed with a nine-piece band complete with a horn section that he repeatedly admitted sounded like "some old Earth, Wind, and Fire shit."

The evening concluded with the 40-plus -year-old rapper and legend Grandmaster Caz. A young friend of mine leaned over and asked me, "Who's he?" So for him, and for others under the age of 35, he is the first DJ to start rapping, one of the members of Cold Crush Brothers, the writer of Big Bank Hank's rhyme on the Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight," and he is the one rapping on the theme song from the original hip-hop movie Wild Style. Although he still rhymed like it was 1983, Caz's lyrics were message-driven and still resonated with an audience that wasn't even born during his heyday.

"If I would have known back then how big hip-hop would have gotten, I would have got more involved in the back end of it," said Caz. "I would have been in management, or I would have started my own record company."

At the end of both evenings of performances, all the performers were onstage for a final freestyle demonstration.

Sunday was a much quieter day, with no performances. Instead there was a documentary film, a panel discussion about Asians in hip-hop that featured iLL-Literacy, Koba and DJ Boo, as well as Noel Green making a return for a presentation called The Art of Rhyme.

Zee Santiago, a Trinity student and organizer of the event, said that the lineup was chosen from a network of performers from across the country and from researching MySpace.

"We only had one criteria for the performers: that they be dope, and that their rhymes speak to the people," said Santiago. " ¦

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