Existence is Resistance
Nancy Mansour Leigh and Mariam Aryai Rivera founded Existence is Resistance in 2009 as a way to encourage Palestinian youths to convey their feelings about living in containment and isolation through hip-hop and other urban art forms.
Cultures of Resistance applauds Existence is Resistance's first Bus Stop Hip Hop tour through Israel and the West Bank in July 2010. During the 10-day tour, hip-hop artists like M-1 of the American duo Dead Prez and British-Iraqi Lowkey, with whom CoR has teamed up before, joined grassroots activists and other artists to organize interactive educational workshops on break dancing, graffiti, and other forms of urban expression. In 2011 Existence is Resistance launched their feature-length documentary, "Hip Hop is Bigger Than the Occupation," about their work in the Palestinian territories. Take a minute to check out the trailer.
Hip-Hop Resistance Gone Global
In an entry on her Huffington Post blog, Cultures of Resistance director Iara Lee describes hip-hop as "a party sport" that "morphed into an expression of grief and outrage" against the poverty, crack cocaine epidemic, and gang violence that plagued African-American urban communities. In the 1980s, hip-hop exploded into an American national sub-culture that served as a medium of political resistance and as an affirmation of the experiences of African-American youths. And while some commentators predicted that the genre would be a passing fad, it has continued to serve as a powerful expression of rebellion both in the U.S. and abroad. Existence is Resistance uses the international reach of hip-hop to "connect people, especially youth, in solidarity with one another from New York City to international communities in struggle."
During each day of the first Bus Stop Hip Hop tour, artists worked with residents at different refugee camps, sharing various talents and creative techniques. Numerous participants shared stories about their brutal encounters with Israeli forces. In an environment where the frustrations of being ignored and isolated can easily erupt into violence, Existence is Resistance hopes that hip-hop will become "an outlet to self-empower, express, and resist oppression while rejecting the notion of violence as a solution to occupation."
Take a look at this video, filmed during the Bus Stop tour, of M-1 freestyling a sneak preview of a coming Dead Prez song.
As hip-hop has evolved into an international sub-culture, marginalized communities have adopted and adapted the art form to vocalize their own experiences of inequality, discrimination, and oppression. Existence is Resistance firmly asserts that "hip hop is a form of music that was born out of oppression and inequality, a positive answer to a volatile imposition" and that "the broader mission is in finding commonality in the struggles of oppressed people everywhere."
Existence is Resistance and other organizations like it are taking a preemptive strike against the cycle of violence by offering youths alternate avenues of expression and opposition. As hip-hop takes root in the Middle East, local artists demonstrate that the voice of the Palestine's young people cannot be silenced and will be heard above concrete apartheid walls, through military blockades, and across international borders.
Click here to visit their website, and check out our page about the history of musical resistance.
