by SCOTT C

This month, a fresh, new festival will be introduced to open-minded and hungry Montreal audiences - the first installment of L'International du Cinéma Hip Hop de Montréal. Along with films and documentaries originating from Japan, Brazil, Israel, Cuba, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, the USA and Canada, the five-day event also includes panel discussions, art exhibits, book launches, music video workshops and live performances.

So I guess it's only fitting then that the honorary president of the festival is none other than director Charlie Ahearn. His '82 underground classic Wild Style is considered one of the first movies to dive head-first into what was then an emerging hip hop scene in New York City, exploring and exporting the world of DJs, graffiti writers, breakdancers, and MCs. These days, Ahearn splits his time between cinematic projects and his hip hop culture radio show, "Yes Yes Y'all" on www.wps1.org. The Mirror spoke to Ahearn over the phone from his home in New York.

Mirror: When you were making Wild Style, did you have any kind of foresight or idea that hip hop culture was going to grow into what it has?

Charlie Ahearn: Of course not. Most of the people in that movie were involved in trying to entertain their own community or neighbourhood. Everybody was trying to be number one, but the situation was local. People were able to look at those graffiti scenes and take things "all city." It elevated itself above the little petty neighbourhood squabbles, and people were able to see themselves involved in a culture that spanned the entire city - that's what hip hop culture became like towards the end of the '70s. Now we're looking at an international culture, and that's one of the things that makes it so intriguing and profound.

Beats without borders

M: You still live in New York. Is there still a sense that NYC is the center of the hip hop universe, or can you put your finger on a map and find another international centre, where hip hop is just as alive and vibrant as it ever was in NYC?

CA: After the mid to late '80s, I think that New York could no longer claim to be directing the future of hip hop. Someone would have to be blind to believe that. It had already planted itself in Los Angeles and New Orleans, as well as places in Europe and Japan, which had real strong artists who were localized heroes, and made an identity for their areas through hip hop. That's something I find fantastic about this culture. The more localized you were, the more successful you would be. You had DJs in Detroit, or breakdancers and graffiti writers in Chicago who formed the local culture for that area. Now, they might have been doing what they were doing in relative isolation, but it was a genuine representation of a group of people. Hip hop culture seems to go through the same stages everywhere. The first wave is when people recognize and imitate it. The next wave is the point at which people start to make it their own. The third wave is when people start using their own language and culture to make a truly local expression, which becomes very powerful, bringing together people from other parts of the world who want to hear that.

Keeping records

M: How important is it that we document these things?

CA: We live in a media-saturated environment internationally. The bullshit is out there whether we contribute or not. There is so much bullshit that is infiltrating all areas of all people around the world. We're inundated by this continual cultural bullshit. The amount of genuine, reflective culture that gets made is so tiny compared to the crap that's churned out commercially and fed to people around the world, that it's never going to win, but we have to put it out there and disseminate it as much as we can. I think it's extremely important. How much can we do to counteract against all of this bullshit? Well, let's see how much we can do, because anything that's real and meaningful to a group of people is a gift to everyone.

L'International du Cinéma Hip Hop de Montréal takes place Wednesday, May 18 - Sunday, May 22. Charlie Ahearn presents Wild Style Thursday, May 19, 5 p.m. at de Sève Cinema at Concordia. For more info, visit www.hiphopcine.com

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