Shoko hip-hop and spoken word fest: Zim in for a treat

 Together with the Alliance Francaise, numerous corporate sponsors and a small band of theatrical angels, they have created Shoko, an international spoken word and hip-hop festival, to be celebrated from September 21 to 24 in a number of local venues.
Conferences, concerts, workshops, debates, live graffiti, break dancing, social media and urban culture will all take place at the Alliance Francaise, the Book Café and the Mannenberg.
Apart from a line up of some of Zimbabwe’s finest spoken word artistes and hip-hop bands, an impressive array of internationally-acclaimed emcees, break dancers and poets is about to debut in Harare.
Brooklyn-based Hired Gun is a young black performer who has toured extensively in the US, Europe and in South America. Growing up in a family of teachers, he embraces hip-hop culture as an educator, emcee, writer and event organiser.
In 1987, aged 11, he heard the protest song Self Destruction for the first time: Hired Gun decided then and there that his career would be to make a positive contribution in quelling violence, through his love of music.
“Hip-hop”, he said, “makes you look at the world in a different way. It helps you survive and thrive in certain conditions.”
Award-winning rapper, Akala, who grew up in North London, fuses rap and rock with fierce lyrical story telling. Although a talented footballer and mathematician, he made music his career.
“Music was always in my face,” he said. “Both my dads – step dad and real dad – were DJs, and hip-hop has been my life since age seven.”
Hip-hop might appear to be male-dominated, but Hired Gun and Akala said they would encourage women to participate in this genre and denied hotly that hip-hop was a “poster for misogyny”.
Hired Gun encouraged emcees to “be nice on the mike, be nice on the turntable and get down and break!” More women currently are attracted to the spoken word than to hip-hop.
Andreatta Chuma (Drea), an award-winning poet from Botswana, will talk at the festival about being a woman emcee. She will also give song-writing workshops.
Although the organisers of Shoko have not had an easy time of it, as bringing artistes to Zimbabwe involves many processes and metres of red tape, this is likely to become an annual festival. Besides creating an opportunity for freedom of expression, Shoko will allow cross-pollination between local and foreign artistes and provide access to urban culture through tweeting, blogging and debate.
The slogan for this year’s festival is “Make it Happen!” and Zim audiences are in for a treat.