Benazir Bhutto’s teenaged daughter has released a rap song, breaking her silence about the assassination of her legendary mother. “Why did you have to go? Why did you have to leave?” Bakhtawar Zardari raps in English. “Aseefa’s only 14 and I ain’t even ready, I barely hit 18.”

An accompanying video shows clips from Ms. Bhutto’s political life and scenes from her funeral, and ends with pictures from the family album. The song, I Would Take the Pain Away, has been airing on Pakistani state television and posted to YouTube. Ms. Bhutto’s three children, Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Aseefa, have spoken very little about the assassination of their mother, who was killed in December of 2007 as she campaigned for a third term as prime minister. (more…)

Panama is a musical crossroads, a silk road of beats, tempos and rhythms reflecting the country’s unique geography that has brought political calamity as well as a rich diversity. But it’s a country few in the United States know much news about. One place to start might be the Oakland-Panamanian hip-hop duo of Ricardo Guillam Bethancourt and Abdull Dominguez — aka Los Rakas.

Their first CD “Panabay Twist” is a lesson in the events that have shaped the Latin American country that celebrated its 105th year of independence yesterday. One of the most significant was the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama City to oust military dictator Manuel Noriega — an event recalled in Los Rakas’ song “Invasion of Panama 1989.” (more…)

Hip-hop artist Common, a 2008 Grammy Award winner and five time NAACP Image Award winner, and Bakari Kitwana, co-founder of the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention, are the keynote speakers for Third Annual Clarion University Hip-Hop Symposium on Thursday, Oct. 23. The program features speakers from around the world and an International Film Festival based around the theme “Hip-Hop Symposium 2008: Global Impact!”

Common and Kitwana will highlight the day’s events with their presentation at 2 p.m. in Gemmell Student Complex. A panel program will close the activities at 7 p.m. also in the Gemmell Student Complex. Kitwana, in addition to being the co-founder of the first ever National Hip-Hop Political Convention is the author of “The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture.” He is currently an artist-in-residence at the University of Chicago. (more…)

Scores of children and young adults gathered in Haiti’s largest slum on Friday to celebrate the 36th birthday of Haitian-born rap star Wyclef Jean and vowed to embrace hip-hop to escape misery. In Cite Soleil, a sprawling seaside shantytown in the capital, several young artists took turns rapping in Haiti’s Creole language and said they wanted to follow in Jean’s footsteps.

“I want to become somebody. I want to make myself known and earn my living through hip-hop,” said Josue Morancy, a 12-year-old who called himself “Mr. Jo.” “Wyclef was also poor like us, but he made it. We can do it too. You never know.” Jean — who according to news sources was not in Haiti for the birthday celebration — born on October 17, 1972, in the Haitian town of Croix-des-Bouquets, moved to New York as a child. (more…)

Dakar, Senegal – In a country where journalists are banned from saying or writing what they want, hip-hop artists have stepped up to speak for those who can’t. Moussa Lo, a.k.a. Waterflow, is one of Senegal’s most famous hip-hop artists. He said he became a hip-hop singer not for success or his own glory, but to be “the voice of the voiceless.” “Hip-hop in Africa needs to grow,” Waterflow told ABC News, “because we are the journalists for the people.”

While Senegal’s daily news papers praise the government’s action – new roads being built for a recent summit, urban renovations — Waterflow denounces the corruption and the poverty that plague his country. “Most people,” he said, “the masses, don’t have everything they [need] to live a normal life. They don’t have running water, often they don’t have electricity.” (more…)

Accompanied by a representative of the U.S. Embassy in Managua, Brooklyn-born rapper George “Ritmo” Martinez and DJ Smash toured some of the more depressed barrios in Nicaragua this week in an attempt to inspire at-risk youth by channeling their creative talents through hip-hop. The “cultural ambassadors,” as a U.S. embassy called them, visited León, Rivas and Managua this week, where they discovered that the U.S.-born art form is well-received among young Nicaraguans.

Martinez said Nicaraguan culture has a “different type of feel” than other Central American countries. “There’s a sense of optimism, hopefulness here that’s not in other places. Most people have some sort of connection to this culture of hip hop. It’s hip hop al estilo nicaragüense,” he said. (more…)

ALMOST every taxi stereo vibrates with its beat, its images inevitably flicker across your screen as you surf the TV news channels, its graffiti is scrawled across the back of buildings and in all the alleyways – it’s hip hop, Mongolian hip hop to be precise.

Although a relatively recent arrival to the land of the blue skies and throat singers, the unmistakable sound of the rhyming raps over the bass-laden backbeats has reached a level of ubiquity in the nation’s popular culture. “Hip hop is the movement of the moment,” says Benj Binks, an Australian filmmaker so intrigued by the Mongolian take on this American cultural movement that he is making a documentary on the subject. (more…)

It’s a world in which hundreds of hip-hop groups are forming across the island, inspired by not only the love of the beat, but of the forceful, often-political, empowerment that it brings. But unlike hip-hop in the United States, there’s no promise of a better life in Cuba for rappers or those who crave that musical motivation for change.

Albuquerque’s Cyrus Gould knows the world news well. Gould, 26, is among the more than 130 Pastors for Peace volunteers from the United States, Canada and Europe who will challenge what they believe is the immoral and illegal U.S. travel and trade restrictions against Cuba on July 3. Gould and a few others were picked up by a caravan winding its way across the U.S. on Thursday night. (more…)

Take music and DJs, breakdancing, graffiti, rhythms and poetry. Swirl it around. The result is hip-hop, which has recently become a tool to fight human trafficking in Brazil. The new video clip “Don’t Traffic,” by a hip hop group from the outskirts of the capital Brasilia, is reaching youngsters with simple and effective language. “The message uses their own language, including slang,” said 25-year-old group member Allison Costa. “These lyrics stick.” (more…)