Taking the time to celebrate the contributions of different members of the human family is core to the work of Words Beats & Life. This May we want to celebrate the contributions of members of our Asian American Pacific Islander community.  For many people hip-hop is understood to be a set of cultural practices and artistic forms created by Black and Latino communities on the East and West coasts of the United States but most of this culture and its artifacts would not have been possible without Japanese technology.  

Many of hip-hops innovators have been AAPI and we want to take this month to lift up some of the most important to us: Turntablaist DJ Qbert, Scholar and DJ Jeff Chang, up and coming rap artists G. Yamazawa, just to name a few.  We must give a head nod to the movement of Asian American DJs and Breakers, especially on the west coast and from Filipino communities.  Folks from Beat Junkies and Fifth Platoon, tons of bboys, bgirl Asia One, Boo-Yaa TRIBE and Punahele.  These folks are part of a continuum of AAPI innovators, archivists and scholars of hip-hop culture that we celebrate this month.   

We have been fortunate to have members of the AAPI community as leaders in our own ranks.  Most have been American born creatives but some have joined us from abroad.    Simone Jacobson (Burma) was the first director of the Cipher and single handedly responsible for helping bring Juste Debout back to the USA, and hosted here in Washington DC.  B-Boy Toyz R Us (S. Korea) was the driving force behind almost every b-boy jam we hosted for the last 15 years. Shero (Japan) is an amazing graffiti writer that traveled with us to Uganda and painted in our paint jams in DC. Vy Vu (Vietnam) is a teacher of one of our most innovative classes, Roses and Concrete, a flower based street art class.  Richard Soben (Cambodia) joined our marketing team almost two years ago and brought his illustration skills to refresh our look for 2020.  Shanna Lim (Chinese/Thai) a staple in the DMV dance community took our arts presenting to another level in the covid era by producing the Groove Junkies series of videos.  Alice Sandosharaj (India) is an important leader on the editorial board of hte WBL Global Journal of hip-hop.  Gulshan Khan (South Africa) is part of our international family and contributed her work to our most popular gallery show, Rumi Nations.  Finally,  Muhamad ”Aerosol” Ali (Bangladesh) was instrumental in developing our first time-based food experience in the Museum of Food and Drink in Brooklyn NY with the support of Simone Jacobson and Asad Ali Jafri.

This year, our long time friend and comrade, Asad Ali Jafri (Pakistan/India) has brought his skills and vision to the table to pioneer the next phase of theWBL Fest, and the launch of the Towards 2040 Fellowship.  We give thanks for the many ways AAPI community members have been part of the development of hip-hop in general and the leadership of WBL in particular.