Susology , in their recent free mag, have an article about the underground hip hop & party scene in Tehran. Persian hip hop is known as rap-e-Fars and it’s most well known proponent is Hichkas (aka Soroush Lashkari).
As their music is essentially protest music against the oppressive leaders of Iranian society the artists rely entriely on the internet & an underground network of parties, held in people’s apartments. Here they get to meet the opposite sex, drink alcohol, dance, wear the latest fashions and rally against the state.
This, believe it or not is all very dangerous as the Revolutionary Guards regularly patrol neighbourhoods and enter apartments at will looking to drag away any one who denigrates Islam & the regime.
Check out these sites; www.parshiphop.com
And hear Hichkas here (in Farsi).
Beijing Olympics 2008 – out moded cultural exchange
April 25, 2008
image: found at Beau Bo D’Or
I was in Tiananmen Square 1990. It was creepy. Hardly anyone there.
Now the city has changed beyond almost all recognition. Freedom to block out their past. Freedom to eat American junk food. Freedom to spend.
Freedom to obliterate culture. The Olympics do exactly that. Waste of energy, waste of time. People can have their cultural exchange …. online …. any time.
map: torch route
Today’s run relay carrying the Olympic torch was marred by protest all the way along the London route. A protester in Bayswater, central London got his hand on the torch and almost got it off the torch bearer. See the video action here.
Later more protestors attempted to put out the torch flame using fire extinguishers. See this video action here.
The day was marred by farce with the Chinese ambassador having to change her route, taking the torch through London’s Chinatown instead. Gordon Brown refused to been seen holding the torch.
The protests will continue wherever this torch may go over the next few months. London has played it’s part and proudly.
Tony Blair’s $9million book advance.
November 1, 2007
Guarding Blair’s war cash.
Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Britain, has agreed to sell his memoir for an advance of about $9 million, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations.
After a four-day auction, the book was bought by two divisions of Random House, Alfred A. Knopf in the United States and Canada, and Hutchinson in Britain.
Sonny Mehta, chairman and editor in chief of Knopf, said that Blair intended to write a “serious and frank book” about his life and in particular his decade at 10 Downing Street.
More here.
That’s nice isn’t it. I’ll be reading the bit about where he ignored two million marchers in London before going to war. Tosser!
