We are now living in the future. A place where knowledge has increased (and continues to do so)
exponentially, where the Internet era ushered with it an abundance of knowledge, a time where so
many options are now available to the consumer.
An active citizenry whose responsibility extends beyond personal gain and aspire more towards collective benefit. An accountable citizenry that values the principles of service
Dr. Martin Luther King said “Everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love”.
Ironically the theme for this years Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) was Whats Next? After the festival that is the very question that stuck in my mind. What is next with HIFA because they have certainly come to a cross roads. I have been going to HIFA since 2008 and I have been impressed by the festival, always finding an excuse to be present each year. Planned my meetings to coincide with the festival. But after all these years its becoming a bit monotonous.
Living in London, I suppose my view of hip hop is skewed differently. The way hip hop was born in the Bronx is a mix of a very long tradition of Latino and African American poetry by the last poets and people like that. But then honestly we have all heard African apart from anyone else coming from Caribbean it’s like this blend of two different African cultures.
What we do hope to see is not just having Shoko as an event but seeing it as part of process and hoping that 100s, we do have 100s of people passing through especially, youth and from diverse backgrounds from the, from the townships and from the suburbs. On the one hand participating in the workshops, in the conferences but we are also aiming to build up more of a database because for every event we have we will always have contact of what’s going on.
Outspoken
The art form that has grown in Zimbabwe while many others have suffered has been poetry and spoken word which actually, the spoken word movement did not really exist here until the early 2000s. And our idea is it not just being about poetry and not just about hip hop but about all facets of urban culture that are progressive. So that’s why you will see we've got, we will have the social media reporting going on, tweeting, blogging about the festival in real time.
Each year the number of fancy cameras and lenses increases at HIFA but I am still to see the content of the festival grow proportionally. It seems since HIFA have dedicated cameras for certain shows but even they don't seem to upload enough content from the festival to create a huge internet buzz around the festival. The ratio between men and women with cameras and shooting at HIFA. The number increases when you add the number of photos taken by smartphones. Most of these end up on Facebook and transferred via Whatsapp so won't be seen in the public domain.
Took some time out to take random pics in and around the HIFA precinct.
