July/August 2003

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Not Your Mother’s Peace Concert: Beats for Peace

Katrina Weber is a Peace Education Fellow in the American Friends Service Committee’s Peacebuilding and Demilitarization Program. She was one of the organizers of this spring’s Beats for Peace tour.

This is a review of something that is decidedly not your mother’s peace concert. In fact, the program I am talking about has it in mind to give the peace and justice movement a whole new perspective, to listen to and join with those who are the most affected by the social justice issues that the movement purports to address—youth, particularly youth of color. By now everyone knows that the “traditional” peace movement often gets stuck in the ruts of previous campaigns and familiar circles. If a social justice movement truly intends to grow and make change evident in the world, it must constantly be evolving and connecting, but how does one move beyond the well-loved choir to take up a new path and seek new voices? How does the traditional peace and justice movement re-connect with the energy of the young? And what would it mean for this movement to listen to and follow the youth?

In the case of Beats for Peace, the answer is deeply rooted in the socially conscious art and music of young people, ranging from hip hop and spoken word, to the music of traditional cultures and a range of dance and visual arts. The inspiration—and the lead organizing for our kick-off tour this past May which spanned six cities in six nights and brought together four months of concentrated organizing —came from Eric Wisa in AFSC’s Cambridge office.

Beats for Peace is a new program sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, which grew out of the need to address the widening war on terror and its effects on education, social security, and civil liberties, and the increasing militarization of society. Those who are most affected by and have the greatest potential to change these destructive realities are youth, particularly in communities of color. Beats is not seeking to bring the issues to the masses—the issues are already there—but is instead focused on using socially conscious art to support youth in expressing and organizing resistance.

The music of this particular tour was mostly hip hop and spoken word, though it was greatly infused by the talented and often off-the-cuff beats of Berklee’s Jazz Hip Hop Orchestra and mixed well with diverse local acts in each city (ranging from traditional Korean drumming to Filipino-American hip hop to jembe rappercussionism). The artists included high-school-aged youth, professional troupes that have performed with Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, and everything in between. The audience was also diverse: people came from all over our cities, from culturally-based community groups and youth-led high school organizations, to community artist networks and the traditional peace circles.

Yellow Rage, Philadelphia-based Asian-American female group, at Beats for Peace concert, Somerville, MA. AFSC Photo: Terry Foss

Misconceptions about hip hop music
The misconceptions about hip hop, namely that it is limited to a certain form of rap or that it is an inherently negative and often debasing medium, keep some from seeing it for its true nature, as an art that has developed from the social justice struggle. Hip hop is more than simply a style of music—it is a culture of thinking and expression in dance, dress, word, and beat that speaks the truth of social conditions and life experiences. Its roots run deep in African and African American culture and oral traditions and have always been connected to social criticism. Following this tradition, education on social issues was woven into the experience of Beats for Peace as much as possible. Every audience member was handed an informative program that talked not only about the participating artists but also about the issues that brought us all together: the heavy recruitment of students; military spending and its effect on social services like education and housing; threats to immigrant communities; the erosion of civil liberties and the USA Patriot Acts I & II; and international military corporations. Local organizations also held tables at most venues providing information on local anti-war groups, voter registration, community art groups, and AIDS education.

Reaching the people
We tried to keep the tour experience as accessible as possible by having low ticket prices, all-ages venues, early show openings, and centrally located performances. Each show started with a community hour, which was jam-packed with local artists, many of them young people, mostly people of color, to perform socially conscious lyrics backed by slick, awe-inspiring DJ beats. Our local hosts talked about the issues in between acts and the charged, inspired energy of the crowd carried through as our tour emcees Toni Blackman and Jahi introduced the headlining performers.

Reactions were enthusiastic from everyone involved:
“Hip-hop already deals with issues like social justice, nonviolence, and peace. It is just a matter of having a vehicle to get these artists seen and heard and I feel like that’s what beats for peace is doing. And who better to cover these issues because…nine times out of ten that is who these issues are affecting the most”
—Kufie, youth from Philadelphia

“They [the young people working with community artists in Northampton] flourished... Beats for Peace allowed them to work in a contemporary, hip context. I have never seen them more engaged or excited about their work.”
—Jo Comerford, AFSC organizer in Western Massachusetts

A new model
The process leading up to this tour was not all easy. As with most large-scale, first-time ventures there was a lot of on-the-job learning, about the industry, tactics, and the strong potential in this kind of organizing. While we arranged for discounts or contributions from almost everyone we worked with and were blessed with the amazing donated talent from our local artists, finding funding for a show of this magnitude was problematic. The task of raising funds was all the more complicated because the scope and design of Beats for Peace is untried, new, and therefore seen as somewhat risky. The new direction of Beats for Peace presents a larger generational and cultural challenge to the movement. AFSC is working to figure out exactly how hip hop culture and language best fit into its existing work and will continue to struggle with these questions as the program keeps on growing and developing.

These difficulties notwithstanding, everyone is looking forward to the next Beats for Peace event. Beats for Peace is focusing on more community and local workshop-based tours and may plan upcoming performance tours on the West Coast. We are all excited about learning to better support our goals of building and supporting relationships between community activists and community artists, educating about US policies of militarism and war, and increasing involvement and support of traditionally unrepresented groups such as youth and communities of color in the peace and social justice movement.

However, even the most excited organizers would agree that Beats for Peace alone is not going to solve the larger disconnect between the traditional peace and justice community and youth of color. Our commitment as a movement to youth, especially youth of color, has to go beyond this one program—and it has to be deeper than occasional economic assistance and perfunctory inclusion in event planning. To fully enact its spoken commitment to the inclusion of youth and youth of color, the larger movement must be willing to listen to and follow new directions.

This means a commitment to youth, especially youth of color, in leadership roles.
This means examining the difficult topics of language, culture, method, and audience.
This means growing as a movement and developing a new range of possibilities.

Beats for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102; 215/241-7199; www.beatsforpeace.org; Eric Wissa, 617/661-6130, ewissa@afsc.org

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