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The 512 Collective, unless otherwise stated.
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| This is the End... |
| 06.27.04 (1:00 pm) [edit] |
Well, our exclusive 512 Collective Africa expedition has come to an end. For those of you who are new to this page, click here for an overview of what it's all about. You can also read a chronological version that details all of our adventures from start to finish.
The focus of our work during the trip was the two documentary films that we are producing. While the full- length projects will not be fully edited until December, you can check out 7- minute 'conceptual previews' at the following links:
My film Feast or Famine is an exploration of capitalism and how it relates to our planet's hunger crisis; it can be found here.
Justice's piece, which looks at the relationship between religion and revolutionary movements, is called Song of Savior and is featured here.
Comments are appreciated.
Highlights of our trip:
During our 6 months of traveling through Southern Africa, we had more amazing experiences than you could fit in a dozen blogs of this size. However, I'll just go over a few of the highlights (click the links to go to that post).
We started off the trip with a little African safari in one of SA's national parks, managing to see elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, and plenty more. The fancy resorts would contrast sharply with the, say, the 1960s- era bus that we would find ourselves sleeping in later on down the road...
Then was a short trip to Lesotho, where we were able to grab some amazing footage for my project. We also managed to post what appears to be the first blog update to ever come out of the tiny country. When we got back to Joburg, things really started heating up: we were on TV, on the radio, and we started working with a prominent local actor to create a short film on South Africa's AIDS crisis.
In April we got a little break for our work in Joburg, and we wasted no time in hitting the road. First it was off to Mozambique, a beautiful coastal country but also one of the three poorest in the world.
As we moved up the coast of the Indian Ocean, we broke inland to cross into Zimbabwe. In case you aren't very aware of the situation in Zimbabwe, it is in the midst of a political and economic disaster: the tyrannical dictatorship is accused of rigging elections and enforcing their rule through torture and killing, and inflation of the Zim dollar is the highest in the world. Foreign journalists are banned, but the World Food Programme (who I collaborated with to make my project) was willing to 'pretend' that we worked for them - so long as we smuggled our own camera across the border. This allowed us to film at one of their distribution centers, which ultimately became the last footage of any of Zimbabwe's emergency food distributions - the Zim government expelled the WFP just days after we left, leaving the lives of 5 million people in jeopardy. The 512 Collective Hip- Hop division also became the first American crew to perform in the country in quite some time.
South Africa's third elections since the overthrow of the racist Apartheid regime took place a week later. As these figured prominently into Justice's film, he traveled to Cape Town to document them while I took our backup camera out into Soweto (South Africa's most famous ghetto). These elections also marked 10 years of democracy in the country, which resulted in massive celebrations across the nation.
The following weeks saw riots on campus, South Africa's successful bid to host the 2010 World Cup, and a quick trip out to to the coastal city of Durban. Next on our increasingly- crowded list was a recording session in Cape Town, where we laid down a handful of tracks for the upcoming 512 musical release The Josi Tapes, a project that Justice has spearheaded. You can check out a few of the mastered tracks that we have posted online. And amidst all that excitement, I managed to squeeze a little political commentary onto the site as well.
Our last expedition out of South Africa began in early June, taking us first through the tiny monarchy of Swaziland, then into Mozambique, and finally back to Zimbabwe. It was an amazing journey, and I won't even try to get into the details here.
That trip really concluded our work, and we flew out of the country a few days later. As this blog is therefore 'finished', updates will be far and in between. I would recommend hitting the 'bot this bot' link to your left, however, as what I do post at this point will primarily consist of completed versions of our work and screening dates for the full- length documentaries, and you will not want to miss any of it ('bot this blog' means you will be e-mailed when the page is updated).
Well, what can I say... It's been great, and I want to thank everyone for joining us. The experiences we've had these past months were incredible, and it has been my great pleasure to share them with you. Until we meet again...
peace.out
D. Luke Fitch
512 Collective Executive Ambassador
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| And the 512 Collective Has Left South Africa |
| 06.24.04 (11:52 pm) [edit] |
I'm posting this from the London Heatrow Airport - I'm halfway along in my trip back to New York, and Justice should be at a similar point in his journey to LA.
There's really not that much news to report; I'm mostly posting this to add one more entry to the list of countries from which this page has been updated. We can now mark off South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, and the UK. We'll add the US once I get into NY and post a finale that will wrap up all of our adventures. Until then...
DL Fitch is signing off.
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| 'Song of Savior' Conceptual Preview |
| 06.22.04 (2:26 pm) [edit] |
Note: The High Quality video file has been corrupted by our server. The problem should be corrected soon.
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| The 512 Collective Gone CrazE (Pronounced 'Crazy') |
| 06.21.04 (1:30 pm) [edit] |
 A few of you old- timers will remember me mentioning Justice's appearance on a local South African Hip- Hop TV show called CrazE a while back. Well, I finally got around to digitizing a recording of it for you all to take a look at. It's a pretty silly show, but I would recommend checking it out to everyone who hasn't either seen Justice rocking the mic or watched an African TV broadcast before (that should be all of you...).
Hit the image to launch it in your movie player. If you would rather download the file, right- click here.
Enjoy.
DL Fitch
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| And Our Wild Adventures Come to an End... |
| 06.20.04 (6:50 am) [edit] |
Well, Justice and I have returned from a brutal, eight- day tour of Southern Africa, spanning four countries and over a thousand miles (traversed mostly in run- down busses).
 After you last heard from us, we hitch- hiked across Swaziland and up the coast of Mozambique. After a few days lounging on the beach and eating lobster meals for less than you all pay for a Big Mac, we broke West towards the Zimbabwe border. I managed to squeeze in one solid day of shooting along the way, grabbing some great footage in the rural areas of a country that is as depressing as it is beautiful.
We arrived at el frontier with only enough money for a single entry visa - my bank card doesn't work in Mozambique, so Justice's account had been extinguished during the previous few days. The plan was for me to go into the nearby city after crossing the border and withdraw enough for Justice's visa, but we discovered Zimbabwe Immigration won't accept their own money - one more sign of the Government's inflation- driven desperation for foreign currency.
Banks are not allowed exchange money, so I ended up having to spend five or six hours searching out black- market currency dealers in hopes of buying South African rand (the illegal market is so strong because of the profit made from selling Zimbabwe Dollars, but it makes buying other currencies extremely difficult). I was successful in the end, but it is not an endeavor that I would like to repeat. Luckily Zimbabwe customs checked the one bag of ours that didn't have any camera equipment in it, which avoided one potential hassle and a possible arrest...
We made our way down to the country's second- largest city, Bulawayo, the following day. That was when the trip really started to get interesting... A friend of ours from New York was visiting family and our plan was to meet up with her at some point. More monetary issues (the city's ATMs were all out of order) forced us to scrounge together our last few thousand Zim dollars in order to call her, in hopes she could help us work things out.
In a stroke of luck, she was just across the street with her aunt. They were on their way to see an Inyanga, a traditional shaman, and they invited us to come along. Now, I am your run- of- the mill agnostic/atheist who is pretty opposed to most organized forms of modern religion. Nevertheless, this was the most intensely spiritual experience of my entire life.
The ritual involved traditional music and the consumption of a brownish- black powder (by the Inyaga). She would then place a gourd- rattle to hear ear and 'speak' with each of our ancestors in a language which is not practiced under any other circumstances.
I'm not sure of exactly what took place, but I know that the things this woman told me came from someone or something with a very deep understanding of my life - it was literally as if I was watching her communicate with a higher power over a cell phone. Between the three of us, every word she said hit right on the head- of- the- nail. Fortunately, we were able to film the entire experience, and I will hold onto that footage for my entire life.
We were later invited to stay with the family that had brought us to the Inyaga. They had a long history in the Zimbabwe government, with our host having once been invited to be Zimbabwe's ambassador to the UN. The late grandfather Joshua Nkomo, or 'Father Zimbabwe', was former Vice- President of the country, and together they have led the minority ethnic group (which has been violently oppressed by the ruling government) for many years. The family holds great respect among the country's people - just last week, Nkomo was honored by an event they hosted that was attended by the infamous President Mugabe himself.
After a day trip out to one of the national parks yesterday, we caught a bus for the overnight trip back to Jo'burg. Justice and I are now settling down for four days of insanity before Thursday, when we catch our respective flights back to the USofA...
DL Fitch
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| 512 Reports in From Swaziland |
| 06.13.04 (2:32 am) [edit] |
He we are in the World's last true Monarchy, ruled by a 20- something- year-old King who likes women and palaces (he accumulates another of each every year). The country has the world's highest HIV prevalence rates, currently around 35%. It's also the smallest country south of the equator, and should only take us a few hours to get across so we can move into Mozambique this afternoon.
We're stationed in the capital of Swaziland right now, Mbabane, although it looks nothing like a nation's capital. Maybe 50,000 people tops - the Swazi bank is the only building with more than four stories. We got a pretty good look at the city on our morning climb up one of the nearby mountains.
Anyway, once we've crossed into Mozambique, we're gonna spend the night in Maputo. We'll then move up the coast and return to the serene beach town Tofu that we hit up on our last trip through. After that, we're gonna cut into the mainland - through some of the rural areas of the world's poorest country (or third- poorest, depending on your source). We'll take a backwater- border crossing into Zimbabwe, and finish off the trip in Bulawayo. You probably won't hear from us until that point, as Internet access is pretty limited in Mozambique...
DL Fitch & Justice
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| 'Feast or Famine' Conceptual Preview |
| 06.09.04 (1:55 pm) [edit] |
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| The Josi Tapes: Tracks 1 and 2 |
| 06.05.04 (9:07 pm) [edit] |
As promised, the first (semi-) mastered tracks from the recent 512 Collective recording session in Cape Town are now online. Keep in mind that these are just rough mixes, but they still sound pretty tight. For your convenience, I've provided two file types: Mp3 for those of you old- skool enough to still use it, and AAC for everyone who has iTunes and likes CD- quality sound. Click the icon to stream the track.
DL Fitch
| | | Track 1: Etiopian Gurl | | Track 2: Freakwency | | | |  | |  | | | | | | | | | | | | | To download the AAC or MP3 files, right click on the text link. | | |
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More to come...
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| The Cape Town Sessions |
| 06.03.04 (4:11 am) [edit] |
A rare treat to our avid readers: Justice reports in for the Collective, while currently stationed at our temporary outpost on the Cape Peninsula.
This week marks the beginning of the full scale production for the Josi Tapes, 'the dirtiest south'. This trip out of Jo'burg will kick off the album, featuring recordings with some of the dopest MC's in SA. Luke and I have rented a flat in Cape Town, set up our studio in the bathroom, and already laid down a track and- a- half with a crew from one of the nearby townships... It's going to be a milestone. In the past few years I have gathered a number of recordings with MC's from around the world, but the complete production of an international album with multiple crews and artists, including poets, R&B artists, producers, and DJ's? A milestone.
The studio is set up real nice. As I admire it, I'm reminded of an anecdote I heard while suffering through a HOT 97 broadcast in NY - one of the DJ's was explaining that many of Jay-Z's tracks for the Blueprint album were recorded in hotel rooms converted into studios. The line between high quality mobile equipment and studio time had merged, to the point where he could produce music in the same format that the Collective is (why that fool gotta be jockin my style?).
Really I hope that we're on to something, because someone has to take the torch that Sean Carter [Jay-Z] left as a burning ember. In order to lead black people to liberation, we must study who they have adopted as their leaders today. Unfortunately the values that Carter pushed with his work perpetuated the decay of Black people. But there are millions that are willing to rally behind the movements of one star - one leader. Someone must fill those shoes.
In Carter's lyrics on featured tracks with Dead Prez, and even on his much matured final album, The Black Album, we do hear that he is aware of his place in society. He says he would like to rap like Common Sense and Talib Kweli, but he couldn't have made the money selling that image. I believe his idea of rockin' bIing and popstarrin' with a sprinkle of reality can be reversed, to reveal a movement of revolutionary artists that remember people like to dance, and even look nice sometimes. And to reach a place where all the lil' Jay-Z's in Brooklyn can have those goals will come from them following a leader that will bring them down a different path - one of mobilization directly towards freedom, not just the riches it promises.
Thats what we're reppin on the Josi Tapes: the underground artists of South Africa, and the ghetto youth from the townships that are ready to show that their art is here to move the people in both the physical and the mental. They are the children of the revolution that America never had.
Look for online clips from the Josi Tapes in the next few days.
justice aka p[h]aze 3 aka the phoenix
512 International/Exec. Ambassador
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