Cape Town hip hop pioneer Emile Jansen has returned to his hometown to heal communities through music.
Now living in Atlanta, USA, Jansen is this week hosting the International Hip Hop as Healing Festival, organised by his Heal The Hood Project, right here on the Cape Flats.
Jansen says the seven-day fest is aimed at showing how the connection between hip hop culture and indigenous forms of expression can be healing.
He also wants to shine a light on the ‘misrepresentation of hip hop culture by the rap industry’, on the backdrop of the industry being owned by corporations ‘creating a biased perception of black culture’.
Known by his B-boy persona, Emile YX?, Jansen is a founding member of Cape Flats hip hop crew, Black Noise.
In May this year, Jansen was among several South Africans who were honoured for their individual work with the Order of Ikhamanga in silver by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The Order of Ikhamanga is awarded to citizens who have excelled in the fields of arts, culture, literature, music, journalism, or sport.
Jansen, 55, says: “Hip hop Culture has been vilified and misrepresented by corporations that own the media and the rap music Industry.
“In order to heal the damage caused by the corporations of our culture and image, we needed time and space for healing the various elements of hip hop culture, which are sound and music making (DJing, beatmaking, beatboxing), MCing (rhyme writing, so-called rap, poetry, story telling), dance (breaking, freestyle, new skool), art (aerosol art, murals, tagging, related entrepreneurial creations for barter through art) and knowledge of self (learning self worth, self love, human consciousness, decolonisation, rehumanisation, afrocentricity).”
He concludes: “We mostly wanted to bring it to the Cape Flats to assert that we reach those who really need these healing sessions and conversations about reclaiming our worth and humanity in the very communities that people can walk to these events.”
The International Hip Hop as Healing Festival kicked off yesterday and will run up to 7 October, and various events will take place in areas such as Grassy Park, Mowbray, Manenberg, Pelican Park and Retreat.
The main performance showcase will take place on 5 October at the Every Nation Church in Cafda Village, Retreat, from 11am to 4pm.
The Heal The Hood Project Schools will perform, there will be a popping demo, art expo, and rap battle while artists such as HemelBesem will perform.
For the full programme of events, visit the Heal The Hood website.