Concert Against War Relies on Familiar Rituals

In a long Sunday night of music, poetry and art at the Palace in protest of post-Sept. 11 U.S. military actions, the truest words spoken from the stage may have been about the event itself.

“Performance isn’t strictly performance. It’s ritual. We are here tonight for ritual,” said poet-rapper Saul Williams midway through the nearly eight-hour “ArtSpeaks! A Concert Against the War,” put on by the Artists Network of Refuse & Resist.

Indeed, rituals from past protest and pop culture movements shaped the event. L.A. ensemble Ozomatli, honored with the organization’s Cultural Resistor award for its stance after the attacks, screened Vietnam-era film clips in its set. Bay Area rap acts the Coup (given the same award) and Blackalicious slotted their criticisms alongside throw-your-hands-in-the-air hip-hop rituals.

The event’s titular slogan, “Not in Our Name,” lacks the rhetorical wallop of “Hell, no, we won’t go” or “No justice, no peace,” and the emotions of the situations in the spotlight can be contradictory.

While art projected throughout the evening and chants and commentary from various speakers and emcees were pointed, there was little outright topical music.

That’s not actually bad, given the pedantic nature of most protest music. As always, Ozomatli led by example, letting its culturally blended lineup and music be the message. The Coup and Blackalicious offered sharp observations, but little specifically about the topics at hand.

In an event that also featured hip-hop artists Mystic and Dilated Peoples, Moroccan rock from Hassan Hakmoun and progressive jazz from the Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra, the most pointed call for peace came in brief remarks by Ji Sung Kim, who had family members on the second plane that crashed into the World Trade Center. And the most effective representation of the issues and emotions came in a video of Brooklyn-based Palestinian American poet Suheir Hammad performing the first piece she wrote after Sept. 11.

Laying out a personal perspective with passion and grace, the piece concludes with a statement worth ritualizing: “You are either with life or against it. Affirm life.”