Planet Hip Hop Festival Concert on Saturday in Fayerweather Beckham Hall (Sept. 20)

Pamela Tatge, Director of the Center for the Arts, discusses the Planet Hip Hop Festival, curated by Nomadic Wax, taking place on Saturday, September 20, 2014 as part of "Muslim Women's Voices at Wesleyan" in this entry from the Center for the Arts blog. 

Meryem Saci (third from right) with members of R.A.W.
(Rap Assembly at Wesleyan) at their weekly
freestyle rap cipher on Wednesday, September 17, 2014.
Photo courtesy David Stouck '15.

This Saturday, audiences have a rare opportunity to witness performances by three international Muslim women in hip hop, including Montreal-based Algerian singer-songwriter and rapper Meryem Saci, the Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter, poet, and emcee Maimouna Youssef a.k.a. Mumu Fresh, and Tavasha Shannon a.k.a. Miss Undastood of Queens, New York.

The Planet Hip Hop Festival is an anchor event of Muslim Women’s Voices at Wesleyan, a year-long exploration of Muslim women in performance. Each of the performers to be featured is Muslim or of Muslim heritage, has a distinct set of personal experiences, and is embedded in a particular place, society, and cultural tradition. This yearlong program is our way of inviting audiences to celebrate the complexity of Muslim women today, while at the same time exploring the historical and cultural context from which these women have emerged.

Anyone who writes poetry, raps, or sings is invited to attend three workshops this Saturday from 11am to 5pm in World Music Hall, before the evening concert in Fayerweather Beckham Hall at 9pm, where the women will be joined on stage by the Nomadic Wax Collective, a live backing band that will include bass, drums, keys, guitar, and a DJ.  The evening concert will be hosted by Boston's Mr. Lif.

Performer Meryem Saci has been on campus all week visiting classes. In preparation for her visit to Wesleyan, she worked with Professor of French and Letters Typhaine Leservot to design a module for her class Negotiating Gender in the Maghreb. Likewise, Ms. Saci collaborated with Professor of Religion Peter Gottschalk on the curriculum for his course Muslim/Western Engagements in Film and Performance.

Ms. Saci will lead the first of Saturday’s workshops, Music is Medicine: Hip Hop Therapy for the Bifurcated Soul, which will unpack the therapeutic and spiritual benefits that music can provide. A refugee herself, Ms. Saci moved from Algeria to Canada at the age of thirteen where she quite literally found her voice. Drawing from her own history and life story, she will explore what it means to be a refugee, an artist, and a Muslim woman.

I wish I had been at the R.A.W. (Rap Assembly at Wesleyan) weekly freestyle rap cipher on Wednesday night where Ms. Saci joined a circle of students rapping and singing together. Believe me when I say that she, like the other performers in this Saturday night’s Planet Hip Hop Festival concert, will strike a chord deep within you.

Planet Hip Hop Festival
Curated by Nomadic Wax
Afternoon workshops and evening performances by international Muslim women in hip hop, including the U.S. debut of Montreal-based Algerian singer-songwriter and rapper Meryem Saci as a solo artist, the New England debut of Washington, D.C.-based and Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter, poet, and emcee Maimouna Youssef a.k.a. Mumu Fresh as a solo artist, and Tavasha Shannon a.k.a. Miss Undastood of Queens, New York.  The evening concert will be hosted by Boston's Mr. Lif, and will also feature the Nomadic Wax Collective, a live backing band that will include bass, drums, keys, guitar, and a DJ.

Meryem Saci Workshop: Music Is Medicine—Hip Hop Therapy for the Bifurcated Soul
Saturday, September 20, 2014 at 11am
World Music Hall, 40 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
$12 per workshop; $30 for all three workshops. FREE for Wesleyan students!

Maimouna Youssef Workshop: Freestyling through the History of American Music—Improvisation 101
Saturday, September 20, 2014 at 1:45pm
World Music Hall, 40 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
$12 per workshop; $30 for all three workshops. FREE for Wesleyan students!

Miss Undastood Workshop: The Art of Rhyme—Exploring Islam and Hip Hop through Verse Writing
Saturday, September 20, 2014 at 3:30pm
World Music Hall, 40 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
$12 per workshop; $30 for all three workshops. FREE for Wesleyan students!

Planet Hip Hop Festival Concert
Saturday, September 20, 2014 at 9pm
Fayerweather Beckham Hall, 55 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown
$18 general public; $15 senior citizens, Wesleyan faculty/staff/alumni, non-Wesleyan students; $6 Wesleyan students