On a more personal note than most of my posts I wanted to give a shout out to my brother Matthew. He spent a year editing and co-producing a documentary on Ugandan hip hop called Diamonds in the Rough. It’s a great movie and I am really proud of him. It looked great on the big screen when I saw the premiere in Los Angeles. If you like hip hop you’ll enjoy the music.
If you happen to live in SF it will be showing at the 10th annual San Francisco Black Film Festival on Sunday June 15th at noon at Yoshi’s.
The description of the movie is below. While the director was in Uganda he filmed videos for a number of the artists in the film, you can also see those on YouTube.
DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH: A UGANDAN HIP HOP REVOLUTION
Diamonds in the Rough chronicles the incredible journey of the hip-hop group, the Bataka Squad, who use hip-hop to spread awareness of their countries’ troubles, and to offer positive alternatives for the youth. As narrator of the film, Michael Franti of Spearhead guides us through an incredible journey from the riot-torn streets of Uganda, to the remote villages in the countryside and finally to the concrete jungle of the United States.Babaluku and Saba Saba are the two remaining members of the Bataka Squad, Uganda’s first major hip hop group to rap in their native language, Luganda. We follow as Silas returns to his homeland to set up a charity foundation for young people living in Uganda’s ghettos, while Saba Saba concentrates on spreading their message to the international hip hop community. On the way we meet a host of other socially conscious hip hop artists from all over the world, that use the microphone as a platform for change.