It’s strange to think that there was a time, not too long ago, when hip-hop wasn’t considered “real” music. The rhythms and beats are now so ingrained in our culture, that music would be severely lacking without it. Hip-hop has stretched far beyond the confines of the United States seeping into every corner of the globe. The stories told through the music inspire those whose lives are far more devastating than we could ever imagine. The songs we blast through our open windows, and the movements that have inspired us for the last several decades, are the same ones they gravitate towards. Hip-hop has connected us all.
Directed by journalist turned filmmaker Adam Sjöberg, and executive produced by hip-hop icon Nasir ‘Nas’ Jones, "Shake the Dust" paints an inspiring portrait of b-boys and b-girls from Uganda, Colombia, Cambodia and Yemen. Their environments are bleak. Many of them were orphaned at a young age, and turned to drugs or a life of crime. And yet, for all of them, it was the music that brought them back from the brink. They have found happiness and satisfaction in break dancing. In Cambodia, mega talented B-Boy- Suicide spins on his head continuously as a crowd gathers around him. His name, he says, was given to him because of his willingness to go to the extreme to perfect his techniques. He has no fear, because as he states, “What’s left to fear?”
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Image: Shake The Dust Film