What happens when a global pandemic throws your plans overboard? For the past 11 years, young artists from both sides of the Atlantic have been meeting in NYC and Berlin. Not wanting to sit this year out and driven by an enormous desire to further their transatlantic exchange, they decide to take it virtual: CyberCypher NYC/Berlin is born. In hip hop and rap culture, cypher stands for an informal gathering of artists (musicians, beatboxers and dancers) for the purpose of improvising together. And now, these young artists from Brooklyn and Kreuzberg, the Bronx and Neukölln are inviting you to follow them as they get to know each other virtually, create lyrics, make songs and shoot videos. Follow their challenges with new mediums, ask questions and see human relationships blossom accross cultural boundaries, despite all difficulties.
The Berlin and New York groups are ready to go. Now it`s your turn: Are there any questions you`d like to the participating artists? Commentary? Encouraging words? You can ask anything: Life in Germany, German language, artistic trajectory, creative process, pandemic life etc. Submit your questions here. The groups will chose a few to answer at their next meeting and we will post their answers here as well.
Olad Aden is an African-German-American street social worker, photographer and videographer based in Berlin, Germany. He has been working with youth in a Berlin detention facility (Zwischen Welten) and facilitating cultural exchanges between young people from Berlin and New York (BronxBerlinConnection). His projects include Translating Hip Hop (Manila /Bogota/Beirut/Nairobi/Berlin); SPOKEN WOR:L:DS, a literature/rap project (Berlin/Nairobi) and DExZA & Be-troit (Detroit/Berlin), a performance exchange program.
Fabian “Farbeon” Saucedo is a world-renowned hip hop artist and activist based in Brooklyn, New York. Farbeon champions a community-based approach to the creative process and has inspired young and old for nearly 20 years throughout the United States and abroad: in Germany, Indonesia, Iraq, Eritrea, and Thailand. He is the founding director of the Hip Hop Re:Education Project, a creative youth development organization that engages young artists in the hip hop elements.
