Duce Khan and Tsis K, the two best MCs who rap in Hmong, performed together live for the first time at Boom Bap Village 2009. 

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been working on a project with The Blackbird Elements, a group coordinated by Tou SaiKo Lee and featuring a number of the best young Hmong MCs the Twin Cities have to offer. Their debut mixtape dropped this week, and here’s a little video I put together for the occassion. Plans are to do a longer video on the group, so watch for much, much more soon.

From the mixtape’s notes:

The Blackbird Elements project is a fresh movement to bring visibility and elevate Hmong MCs that strive to make an impact through Hip-Hop music with words that move, inspire, and connect and “save” elements of Hmong heritage, history, honor hip-hop culture.

The first step for this movement is a Mix CD project that includes at least one song from every MC or MC crew that have met all the requirements of the Blackbird Elements project process.

This CD brings together MCs with the potential to move hip-hop forward by representing genuine experiences of the Hmong people in Minnesota.

For more information, see http://www.myspace.com/blackbirdelements

Here’s a video I put together from footage shot at the Dinkytowner’s last night. Thanks to everybody who shared their thoughts, memories, and laughter.

The good folks over at Minnesota Microphone have a wonderful write-up of the Minneapolis Slam Finals, held last week at Kieran’s, which included four videos that I shot.

Here are some videos from the release show for Start A Fire, the debut EP from producer Big Cats! and MC/poet/activist El Guante. Sorry about the poor lighting, some of the Nomad’s lights were broken that night.

Here’s a short video I put together from Monday’s rally for Fong Lee. For more information, see the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

Check out these performances from the first ever Urban Griots Spoken Word Awards. I’ll have a couple more up from this event in the next week, hopefully, and watch for video in the next couple of weeks of both the St. Paul and Minneapolis Slam Finals! See my good friends over at Minnesota Microphone for more information.

The first in my series of articles on Somali rap in Minnesota is live at the Twin Cities Daily Planet. Over the next few months, I’ll discuss the many dimensions of Minnesota Somalis making and listening to rap, from its relationship to Islam, the controversy surrounding its links to gang violence, as well as how artists and fans use hip-hop to connect themselves to the global Somali diaspora.

My latest video posted to YouTube, an interview with the young Somali rap group, Dem Supa Staz.