The Revival

AMERIE

LOVE & WAR

ON THE COURSE REDEFINING THE DESERT A NEW TAKE ON THE SOUTHWEST HIP-HOP THROUGH THE LENS OF LATIN AMERICA DJ LOIRA LIMBAL’S NEW DOCUMENTARY THE MINORITY REPORT DIVERSITY ON THE COURSE: RHETORIC OR REALITY? PUTTERS FROM ANOTHER PLANET TWO WHEELS, ONE OPEN ROAD FROM CHOPPERS TO SPORTBIKES

AUGUST 2009 TGMLINKS•COM e OUTTAKES, BEHIND THE SCENES FOOTAGE + MORE!

the

revival by laurance bass

Change remains an ever-present word in the annals of America’s vast lexicon of coined optimism. This six letter word was the key element in one of Sam Cooke’s most sobering ballads and the nucleus of President Obama’s rallying cry. Although the newspapers openly proclaim that “change” has come to this nation, Loira Limbal still waits for it to be placed flat on the checkout counter.

“There are times when I go into a store and when the cashier is about to give me my change back,” Limbal says.

“I ask him, ‘Could you please set it down for me?’ And then he starts with, ‘Huh? Why? Why?’ Then he gets real animated like most New Yorkers can get really quickly. I ask him again, nicely, if he can just place the change on the counter so I can be on my way. And depending how I’m feeling some days, I could either leave without the money or do the back and forth with people.”

When the over-the-counter quarrel reaches its boiling point, Limbal offers the annotated methodology of her path to becoming a Priestess of Yemaya in 58 August 2009

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the Yoruba religion. She is currently sixmonths deep into her year-long journey and one aspect of the process forbids physical contact with others. Limbal’s energetic anecdote is more than just a once every month occurrence—it’s commonplace. This almost daily foxtrot between her and merchants is filled with prying questions and cutting gawks. In New York City, where space is at a premium and close encounters with strangers are inevitable, Limbal is sometimes treated as an outcast. Circumstances such as these could easily make anyone feel claustrophobic, but she focuses on the positive.

“One of the things I found really interesting, being in this process, is that it has made me very aware of people whose garb is determined by their religion—in a way that I wasn’t really before,” says Limbal. “So, when I see Muslims, Sikhs and even Orthodox Jewish women, I really think about their commitment to their beliefs.” Her religious journey also entails that she wear all white. From her monochromatThe Green Magazine

ic platform shoes and stockings to the long day dress and head wrap, her process is on display. “And now when I see them and they see me, we’ll acknowledge each other. It’s a moment of recognition and solidarity.” Her universal outlook on the varying religious beliefs and practices of her peers is echoed in her voyage through one of the world’s most common languages—hip-hop.

Limbal’s apartment is nestled in the Tremont section of the Bronx. It’s a handful of streets, avenues and neighborhoods away from the congested artery that fostered the hip-hop’s genesis—the Cross Bronx Expressway. Graffiti-etched murals decorate the landscape of this borough. Her building is just due east of the folkloric 1520 Sedgwick Avenue address where DJ Kool Herc unveiled the sonic-altering break beat. Only a healthy walk along the Bronx Zoo’s southern façade divides her from the Bronx River Housing Projects where Afrika Bambaataa transformed the Black Spades gang into the world renowned Zulu Nation. In an era where August 2009 59

fans are quick to give hip-hop that long procession to the burial ground, its history beckons for a sustaining revival.

Upon entering Limbal’s living room, your eyes are drawn to the two large shelves of records. Champion sound Reggae and Afro-beat albums rest sideby-side with 70s jazz fusion and timeless soul albums—the archive is deep.

A cache of this magnitude comes with the territory of being a DJ. Her dedication to craft is one that started in the home. “It all comes down to my mom and hip-hop,” Limbal says. “She definitely did a great job raising me and my three younger sisters—she’s a wonderful woman. But the things she couldn’t give me in our new environment, I got from hip-hop. I got a real good sense of self and being proud of where I’m from. I also got a sense of myself as a woman who is Latina and black.” Limbal, known to her fans as DJ Laylo, is a devastating force in New York’s underground music scene. Her arsenal is one that continues to amaze crowds all over the city. Her knowledge of the scene began with her youthful treks to Harlem to discover the latest mixtapes.

“I used to go to Harlem Music Hut on 125th [Street] and flip through the little 60 August 2009

binders of the mixtape lists. I wanted to know what Chill Will was putting out or what G-Bo The Pro was doing. So I was always around music.” The weighty Brazilian portion of the record collection can easily be attributed to her husband, Eli Efi. The couple has been married for nearly six years and has managed to keep that newlywed glow as they sit on the couch. Before they discuss how they met, Eli Efi pulls one of his favorites from the library. He flashes the album cover revealing Jon Lucien’s 1973 classic Rashida. In his best Brazilian Portuguese-laden English, he asks, “This one?” Limbal nods with a smile. The whisper and hiss of the vinyl plays from their state-of-the-art recording studio in the next room. Both smile as Lucien’s vocals fill the room. The story begins.

In 2000 while attending Brown University, Limbal chose Brazil as her destination to do study abroad. She was pursuing a degree in History with a focus on the African Diaspora. A journey that led her from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro would eventually place her in the country’s artistic capital and where she would meet Eli Efi—São Paulo. “He was on a panel at this gathering of black members of thegreenmagazine.com

the Workers’ Party talking about black youth in the city,” Limbal recollects. “I was coming from a background of youth organizing. I also was involved with music and poetry here in New York. So we started ciphering after the meeting. I just thought I was meeting another activist.” Yes, she did meet a fellow social activist in Eli Efi, but his form of change came through provocative rhymes voiced through the microphone.

“At the time, his group was all over the radio,” exclaims Limbal. The group in question is Defensores do Movimento Negro, which translates into Defenders of the Black Movement, and Eli Efi was its front man. DMN’s content draws comparisons to one of hip-hop’s dominant forces of its golden era— Public Enemy. Unapologetic with its open critique of some of Brazil’s hotbutton issues such as racism, poverty and a faulty government, DMN became the voice of change using hip-hop as its catalyst. Off the stage, Eli Efi brought that same voice into the neighborhoods and classrooms of São Paulo. “It was our love of hip-hop and love for community that brought us together,” Limbal says as the last song on the B-Side of Rashida fades out. Luis responds with a

smile as wide as his now outstretched arms: “This is hip-hop, man!”

When she returned stateside, Limbal connected with Vee Bravo who had travelled frequently to Chile. They both saw how hip-hop was being used each in country. “Our first conversations were about producing events in South America to bring conscious U.S. hip-hop artists down there because people were asking us for that,” Limbal explains while Eli Efi places Little Brother’s The Minstrel Show on the turntable. “Through those conversations, we started to share some of the stories and the things we saw. After a trip to Brazil, we made the decision to embark on this journey to make this documentary back in 2001.”

Estilo Hip Hop, co-produced and co-directed by Limbal and Bravo, took seven years to complete. “We would throw fundraisers so we could go back out and shoot,” says Limbal. “It was an uphill struggle, but we were pretty creative in that sense. The biggest challenge for us was figuring out what our story was.”

The story would soon present itself.

Estilo Hip Hop is receiving praise from critics and hip-hop enthusiasts alike and was featured on the PBS World Channel as a part of the Global Voices Series. It is one of the few hiphop documentaries that have the same impact as the art-verses-policy film, Style Wars (1982). The film takes viewers on a first-hand experience following the lives of three lyricists from Chile, Cuba and Brazil as they use the culture to alter the chaotic paragon of injustice prevalent in their countries. Along with the formidable truths of their societies, it also offers viewers their day-today struggles. Guerrillero (Chile) is one of Santiago’s leading youth organizers and emcees. He is also a father who is confronted daily with raising his two daughters while juggling activism and superstardom. Magia (Cuba) and her group, Obsesión, is a driving force in Cuba’s growing hip-hop community.

She battles the stigma of Cuba’s antiquated race-relations and poverty with 62 August 2009

her husband and fellow emcee, El Tipo Este, at her side. The film shows Eli Efi (Brazil) engaged in the aforementioned dialogues with the youth of São Paulo.

It is also a retrospective of his eventual secession from DMN. At the height of DMN’s success, a major label offered the group a record deal. Eli Efi had his doubts seeing as how the label approached them as if they were doing DMN a favor. Problem was that DMN was already an established group. “That’s why I left the group,” Eli Efi says with Limbal translating his words into English. “I didn’t believe in what they we’re offering us and how they were treating us. I was fine with continuing to put the work in and still be independent, doing everything on our own terms.” The other members of the group disagreed with him and signed the deal. He decided to move to New York soon after the group’s breakup. Estilo Hip Hop shows Eli Efi, one of Brazil’s famed voices, shining shoes in the Lexington Avenue subway station.

“I was cringing when we were editing that scene,” Limbal says as Eli Efi taps his feet to Azymuth’s Outburo. “I kept asking him Eli Efi, ‘Are you sure it’s okay to show this?’” The juxtaposition may have been too grim for Limbal, but Eli Efi’s rationale was simple—Trabalho é trabalho (Work is work) and there is no shame in that.

The experience of making Estilo Hip Hop made Limbal question the level of true political involvement and activism in this country. “People were so happy with Obama winning and how the younger generation got so involved, but, compared to some of the things I’ve seen throughout Latin America, the dialogue here is on such a superficial level, there’s no real conversation about radical change,” Limbal says.

She continues, mockingly, ‘Oh, let’s make a music video with Will.I.Am and John Legend to get the youth engaged and share it on Facebook.’ There’s no real investment and stake in what’s happening after the election.” Limbal’s thegreenmagazine.com

way of engaging the youth is not to put them in the videos, but to give them the camera.

Reel X is a project that Limbal started to give young women from the Bronx an opportunity to make films. Themes of their documentaries deal with issues ranging from sexual harassment to foster care. Limbal said in a previous interview that: “I decided to propose doing something in my neighborhood. I feel passionate about the problems that young women face.” She also teaches participants the basics of cinematography and editing their work. Her project was awarded the New York City Community Fellowship by the Open Society Institute in 2005. Eli Efi no longer shines the shoes of commuters. His hands now instruct samba percussion and the varying aspects of music production to the middle students of The Maribal Sisters Campus Community School in Washington Heights.

Eli Efi looks like a giant in the makeshift sound booth at their apartment.

With the large flag of his homeland draped over the side, he and Limbal are hard at work on his independent album due out later this summer. Eli Efi rhymes in Brazilian Portuguese, but that has not stopped him from rocking the typically stone-faced crowds at S.O.B.’s and other venues in the city.

Their formula is akin to what many deem the archaic rubric of yesteryear, the wheels of steel and a microphone.

Limbal’s all white style of dress may make her stand out from the usual colors in her neighborhood, but she fits in perfectly. Her art and activism has transformed an unyielding passion into a historical touchstone. A pair of activists, a pair of turntables and an undying language—a history awaits.