Multimedia trip through hip-hop history

One could describe Marc Bamuthi Joseph's "the break/s" as a mix tape for stage, the charted course of hip-hop over continents and generations.

Joseph does. He also calls it "a dream journal," as he guides audiences across Planet Hip Hop.

"The break/s," a multimedia trip, chronicles the history of the hip-hop generation, born roughly between 1960 and 1990, Joseph says. The poet uses personal narrative, tracing the art form's roots from Africa and the West Indies to New York block parties. He incorporates verse, dance, film, plus a pair of turntables, meshing word and movement into discourse, and delineating the music's cultural impact.

"It's so much more about the shared philosophy of the arts, a shared sociological and political reaction to post-civil rights, multiculturalism, a time of AIDS, Reaganomics," he says. "We are the children of those social phenomenon."

Jeff Chang raised similar ideas in his hip-hop opus, "Can't Stop Won't Stop," the telling of hip-hop history in a historical context. Chang's style inspired "the break/s."

"What affected me most was the form of (Chang's) piece," Joseph says. "I felt like there was more going on than just a kind of reporting of events."

Joseph, a Broadway veteran and National Poetry Slam champion, recalls his first transformative experience with hip-hop. He was 11, and he was listening to "All Means Necessary" from the socially conscious group, Boogie Down Productions.

"I had listened to rap music all my life," he says. "But I remember hearing that music, that it was probably the first time I had heard a certain type of politics. It was the fervor, the political push, the racial tension in New York City. It was a mirror to our reality, and an awareness that I was part of something larger."

Joseph hopes audiences can relate to his passion, and his travelogue, which jumps from Haiti to Japan, Senegal to Paris, Bosnia and Wisconsin.

"I want to create an environment where folks are safely provoked," he says.

"This is not a passive experience. What folks come away with is less important to me than folks being moved in the moment."

Joining him on stage are DJ Excess of Queens and San Francisco musician Tommy Shepherd, aka Soulati. Excess is a wizard on the ones and twos, cutting scratches, while Soulati adds percussion and beats.

Besides using interview and documentary footage, "the break/s" also uses a call-and-response live collaboration.

Joseph characterizes the show: "There are three folks on stage. One makes music in real time. One samples in real time. One plays body and voice."

Joseph's message is one of finding common ground, the breaking down of barriers and a fresh way of recording the values and vision of a generation.

"Our generation ultimately will move away from binary structures and binary definitions of right and wrong," Joseph says. "In the most ideal way, I'd like to frame and understand the hip-hop generation as being more expansive, welcoming and multiracial."

Reach Rob Young at 937-5518 or ryoung@postandcourier.com.

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