In its eighth year, the Hip-Hop Theater Festival brought culture shaper and revolutionary performer, Baba Israel, back on the stage at the New York Theatre Workshop with his freshly completed, introspective self-narrative Boom Bap Meditations. Israel is a veteran to the HHTF and a pioneer of the hip-hop theater movement that took off in New York. 
With his resident DJ Yako 440 by his side, Israel personified earlier versions of himself, along with other influential characters and adversaries along the way. Israel’s unique ability to transform himself, narrate through musical improvisations of complex beat-box rhythms through his didgeridoo, off the dome freestyles about audience members and the tape that was attached to his shoe upon entrance to the stage, and impressively accurate characterizations of his father, allowed him the ability to allow his audience into his mind, as well as more importantly to experience through him the power and seduction of hip-hop as a culture.
“Hip-hop is Black Music,” Israel exclaims throughout the performance. Along with Israel’s play, the main objective apparent throughout the HHTF is to educate hip-hop consumers about the history of the arts culture. The emphasis here is not on commercial success, nor does it disproportionately revere MCee’s and rappers. It gives equal stage opportunity to masters of the other elements, namely DJs, graph writers and b-boys and b-girls alike.
Israel’s play (a life’s worth of storytelling) reaches beyond his singular story. His objective is to also illuminate the cultural
appropriation of hip-hop and Black music in general by sampling sound clips from Elvis, Vanilla Ice, Eminem and others, and juxtaposing them with Public Enemy and Mos Def songs that denunciate culture stealing. Israel is a master at interactive performance. The song samples are in communication with one another; he is in dialogue with the audience, the audience responds to him through vocal affirmation. Beyond educating new generations about hip-hop history, Israel wants to ignite a fire in his audience to enact political change. That is the fundamental purpose of the hip-hop theater movement. With the economic woes of our country and the elections right around the corner, these times mirror closely with the conditions that hip-hop was conceived out of during the period of deindustrialization in the ‘80s. What more opportune a time to inspire an apathetic generation that cannot afford to be complacent any longer? Israel’s performance leaves us thinking critically about our environments, our purpose and our potential.
-Boyuan Gao
