South Bound

OK, big news...in a couple of days I am headed to Caracas, Venezuela to cover the World Youth and Students Festival. The gathering includes a Hip-Hop Summit that will examine the role of hip-hop music in global movements for social change. Afrika Bambaataa will be delivering an address, and there will be performances and panels that include Dead Prez, Welfare Poets, and Immortal Technique, as well as artists from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Columbia, Cuba, Mexico, Somalia, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. You can guess how I am feeling about all this, especially since my bored-as-hell bug has kicked in yet again.

Packing my gear one more time, trying to figure out if it's alright to look cute at a gathering of serious activists. Reminds me of Lynn Yaeger's tongue-in-cheek guide to dressing for protests in the Village Voice, "Radical Chic".