The Brothers Fantauzzi, Eli and Khalil we featured them on this newscast a few weeks ago talking about their course in the visual arts. But more than just teach, they also make films and on Tuesday night, they will be premiering their musical documentary called: "Home Grown Hip Life In Ghana."
Like their first film "Inventos" which studied the hip hop movement in Cuba, this one goes to Ghana in Western Africa to find that the popular urban music is also taking root their.
Eli Fantauzzi told us it all started when he went to Ghana as a DJ back in 1997.
Eli Fantauzzi
"I was over there as a DJ at the local radio station and the kids would come to me with their music and said 'play this track' and it was Ghanaian hip hop and so I just fell in love with it, they brought me to their shows and went I went back home and showed people what they were doing. They were like 'we want to see more' so I was able to go back the next year and this time I had my camera. They started growing, merging more of their own culture in the hip hop, so over these 10 years you see it becoming more and more Ghanaian, more West African rather than just the imitation."
Eli Fantauzzi
"That's our style of film making. It's not just to go and do a musical documentary but to really see their life. It's like you walk away with the feeling knowing who these kids are, so it's more a cultural exploration as well. You get to see what they eat, in the film they are eating their kin kin, their banku and make these similarities to here; the corn wrapped up; I heard they have something called ducunu here and it's also wrapped in that corn leaf and that's straight West Africa. So you start to make these connections and see the similarities around the world."
Eli Fantauzzi
"One of the main reasons why we did the films is because in the media we only get to see one side of Africa; usually it's the poverty, famine, war or its animals and safaris. And so it's important to see other sides of Africa; see things like 'I can relate to that' I want to go to Africa, I want to check out this for myself and that's one of the main reasons why we made this film."
Eli Fantauzzi
"It's bigger than hip hop. This is about culture, this about music, family, This is about a group that went from having nothing in the hood of Nema to the big stage in London to the Kora Music Awards in South Africa and I followed them to these places and now they are world renown and they are holding up the flag of Ghana so proud."
Khalil Fantauzzi
"Along with the showing about home growing hip life in Ghana we will be showing our students' photography as well as the video classes' works on Tuesday 17th at 5:30 pm here at the Bliss and it's free."
The documentary will be shown on Tuesday at 5:30 at the Bliss Center and admission is free....
