Middle East to Midwest

MC Invincible on Israeli injustice and Motor City music

Though she spent the first seven years of her life living in “Israeli-occupied Palestine,” Detroit rapper and community activist Invincible’s understanding of Middle Eastern politics was shaped largely on American soil, hearing the stories of the friends she made in the Arab community she was raised among there.

“A good friend of mine, when I was in sixth grade, her uncle had been imprisoned by the Israeli Defence Force and tortured in prison,” says Invincible, aka Ilana Weaver, 29. “That was one of my first times hearing about the injustices that Israel commits.” Already rapping at that stage of her adolescence, the young lady connected the dots with her own Middle East experience.

“One of my earliest memories of living in Israel-occupied Palestine was being in like, first grade, and there was like, a day where they had all the soldiers come out to our school.

“They had all the kids out in the playground with the soldiers. [It was] almost like a secret-Santa-type situation, where you’d give a soldier a gift. You kind of teamed up with a sol­dier. It was like an early indoctrination. They were preparing us to be those soldiers that were doing that to my friend’s uncle.”

The rapper, who headlines Artists Against Apartheid XIV this Saturday, is becoming more visible through music, film and community involvement, notably her 2008 album Shapeshifters, on which she collaborated with producers like Black Milk and Waajeed of Platinum Pied Pipers.

“I was able to learn firsthand from my friends’ stories about their families and about what was happening in the Middle East, and un-learn some of the stories that I had been taught grow­ing up, whether on the playground or by my family. Hip hop was one of the main ways that I was also able to learn stories that aren’t normally told in the media or in school.”

Between ages 17 and 20, the MC lived in New York City and was a member of the all-female hip hop collective Anomolies, where she found artistic kinship unheard of to her until then.

“I realized I was definitely not an anomaly,” Invincible explains of her exposure to the league of heavy female rap talent. “There were so many of us that were doing it, and were dedi­cated to it, and we were able to have this mutual support network.”

Invincible’s politics are definitely on the agenda but she is adamant that despite that, music comes before message. “It comes first—the skill, the technicality, the style,” she says. “Living in Detroit, we have some of the most amazing musical legacies in the world. We also have some of the greatest movement and activism legacies, and I am equally inspired by both of those move­ments.”

Invincible is enthused to be involved in this year’s AAA event, crediting the organization for their efforts toward an Israeli boycott. “When we’re looking at the content of what we’ll be doing [at the show], it’s important to realize that it’s not just about looking at what’s happening in Palestine, but connecting to injustices in our local communities. Whether that is connecting it to First Nations folks in Canada, or looking at what’s happening in Arizona right now. It’s important to make connections to our local struggles.” ■

WITH OBSESIÓN AT LE CONSULAT ON SATURDAY, OCT. 23, 8:30 P.M, $12

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