Cuban Hip Hop film debuts at the Bliss
Rounding out entertainment news tonight is the Cuban story of hip hop. “InVentos Hip Hop Cubano” is an award winning, medium length documentary by Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi that chronicles how Cuban youth have used the popular music genre to express themselves and make it their own by injecting “Latin flavours, culture and politics”. The film made its Belizean debut at the Bliss Centre for the Performing Arts this afternoon and according to executive producer Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, should inspire local artists to tell their own stories.
Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, InVentos Hip Hop Cubano
“The word “inventos” in Spanish means to create something and the reason why we used it is because the young people in Cuba kinda created something out of nothing. They really didn’t have the big booming speakers, they didn’t have he fancy DJ and equipment but at the same time they had ideas and a voice and a message that they wanted to put out. So this film really documents their daily lives, it documents how young people can use music to talk about issues relative to the African Diaspora, relative to what’s going on in terms of how they see the world.”
“A lot of the time the focus of hip hop that comes from America being a capitalist country is one that kinda perpetuates the same ideals that capitalism does, whether its violence, making money at any means necessary, sexism, those are thing that you see very much in hip hop. But there’s another aspect to the culture that sometimes doesn’t get the same exposure that other parts do and that’s what this film is about; showing how hip hop also has underground aspect to it as well.”
“I think there’s a lot of amazing things in terms of Belize, whether it’s the punta rock music that comes from the Garifuna people. But this is a way that they can see for themselves and in terms of how it compares and the connections. Hopefully somebody does a similar documentary about the music here so that it can be shown all over the world.”
Another free showing of InVentos Hip Hop Cubano is set for seven tonight. In addition to the screening, the event also featured live performances by local poets, dancers and musicians.
