Shadow Cities shows a new take on hiphop and violence at Trouw De Verdieping

Dec 13, 2012 | by Rozemarijn | Event, Music

About the author

Rozemarijn, pleased to meet you. Interested as I am in very many things - cities, musicians' biographies and early morning swims to name but a few - in the end I like to stick to the basics: music, food and the image. Suffering from limitless energy and curiosity, I'm always up for something.

Sometimes it’s only a good thing to change horizons. Where Trouw usually is your spot to experience the latest in techno and house, next week will offer an insight in another musical genre that evolved in the context of the deindustrialization of cities: hiphop. It’s time for some serious business, though. With Uprising. Hip Hop & The LA Riots – that premiered at this year’s IDFA – this edition of Shadow Cities takes us back to the early nineties, when major riots erupted in LA after four white policemen were founded innocent for the brutal beating of Afro-American taxi driver Rodney King.

Hip hop and violence have been connected pretty much ever since the genre originated in inner-city New York. Dissatisfaction with societal and political realities has always been an inspiration for rap music. In 1992, N.W.A.’s song ‘F**k tha police’ was taken to heart. Narrated by Snoop Dogg, Uprising shows the major force hip hop proved to be in predicting and cranking up the 1992 riots. Director Mark Ford intertwines contemporary video material with interviews with those involved, such as policemen and journalists but also rioters and rappers. Dr. Dre, Nas, Ice T and Kurupt, among others, make their appearance. KRS One: “Rodney King was the confirmation of everything we had been rapping about since the early ’70s”.

Uprising is basically already worth seeing just because of a twenty years younger Dr. Dre.

After the film, which is basically already worth seeing just because of a twenty years younger Dr. Dre, Shadow Cities will offer an in-depth discussion on hip hop in relation to violence, also with regard to The Netherlands. Their guest Tineke Timmerman organised a hip hop festival here in Amsterdam in 1999 that turned into the infamous Mercatorplein riots after a performance of hiphop group De Spookrijders. Not exactly comparable to the LA riots that shook up the entire city, but then again, it’s probably the closest we ever got! Assistent professor in American Studies and History at Radboud University Nijmegen Markha Valenta will offer an academic perspective on segregation and discrimination in the US.