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PIRIRA: Hip-Hop’s Worldwide Power Lyrics by SameOldShawn

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Hip-hop may have started in America, but its power is now being felt all over the world. A play opening this week in Queens demonstrates this. PIRIRA takes place simultaneously in Lilongwe, Malawi and New York City. In the African part of the tale, NGO workers are hiding from a country erupting into riots, while in New York, a Malawian immigrant gets to know his openly gay co-worker.
The show, written by J.Stephen Brantley and directed by Ari Laura Kreith, will be showing at the Chain Theatre in Long Island City starting this Thursday
The play, explained Brantley, is based on real events. There really were riots on July 20, 2011.
"There were nation-wide demonstrations in Malawi that eventually turned violent when the crowds began to surge and the police didn't know how to react," he said.
On the American side, the main character is Gilbert, who is from Malawi but in New York to study. He works at a flower shop and comes into contact with the first openly gay person he's ever met, his co-worker Chad.
Brantley stressed that the connections between the two stories, seen side by side, will become apparent.
"Both stories take place onstage at the same time," he said. "It's structured so that the dialogue in each of these locations are interwoven with one another. You're watching both scenes take place at the same time with a relationship between them."
This show, which is all about what Brantley calls "cultural difference," is bound together by music. Gilbert is an aspiring rapper, and several of the raps (written by Brantley and performed by Adrian Baidoo, who plays Gilbert) make their way into the show. He also bonds with Chad over hip-hop.
"When people think of hip-hop, they don't think of an African who's an immigrant to America," Baidoo, who is an immigrant from Ghana and someone who has "dabbled" in rapping himself, said. "I think it'll be really cool for the audience to see how hip-hop in general has involved, and how it has a wider base."
Brantley has become a big fan of Malawi hip-hop over the course of writing the show, and found that much about it lent itself to the themes of the show.
"When you look at hip-hop in Africa, certainly in Malawi, what you see is a synthesis of all the new styles. If you turn on radio in Malawi, most of the time you're going to get gospel and reggae. But there's this burgeoning hip-hop scene that combines a lot of both. Most of the rap artists there rap in both English and Chichewa -- they go back and forth within one song. That very much embodies the spirit of this whole show."
The playwright also loved the fact that, unlike in the materialistic land of its birth, hip-hop in Malawi is closely tied to social movements.
"In sub-Saharan Africa, when people are looking for an expression of political dissatisfaction, when people want to speak out, that doesn't happen through gospel or reggae. It happens through hip-hop. That has a lot to do with why it's taking hold in places like Malawi, because artists can express themselves in a way that no other musical form does as well."
PRIRIA opens on October 17th and runs through November 10th. Details can be found at theatre167.org
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SameOldShawn

SameOldShawn

About “PIRIRA: Hip-Hop’s Worldwide Power” by SameOldShawn

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