BrainMunchie.com

This is an AFAR throwback video. We were in Valencia, Venezuela and we had just finished the show. Anybody that knows Jahah knows that he’s a Sneaker Pimp. Here’s his ode to buying shows backed by me and BlackFist… Dinero was making his cinematographic debut…

I guess this is it!  AFAR had a really great tour in South America.  We met so many great and interesting people and had a chance to share experiences that have become lifelong memories.  On behalf of AFAR, I would like to thank Jazz at Lincoln Center and their incredible team - Alexis, Monak and Susan, The United States Department of State, The offices of the Consulate General in every country that we visited, our local embassy officials, our hosts in each city, the embassy drivers, the hotel staff in all the hotels, the chefs in the restaurants, the pilots of the 17 planes we were one, the airline stewardesses, the baggage handlers, the ticket agents - especially the ones that didn’t charge us overweight!, and all the many people we just happened to either bump into or meet that made our time in South America wonderful!!!

Here are the last few pictures from after our Hutuz performance:

AFAR and the producers of the Hutuz festival:

TV interview with MTV Brazil:

Part of the team that took excellent care of us in Rio, Victor Tamm and Anna Vianna - We miss you guys!!

AFAR has a lot of stuff brewing in 2007!  Keep checking us out!!

We’ve had a lot of programmed events the last couple of days here in Rio. I just want to re-cap you on everything that’s been happening.

The main reason that we were able to be here in Brazil is because of the Hutuz Festival. This event is the biggest festival dedicated to hip hop in Latin America and the Counselor General’s office has been involved for the past five years. An organization called CUFA (Unique Central of the Favelas) is the force behind the festival and let me tell you I was very excited to see all of the many great things that they have offered.

CUFA is a self-sufficient organization that has made so many tremendous strides in the community that the Department of Labor and Tourism partners with them to provide programs and training in Break Dancing, Grafitti, Basketball (street ball), DJ’ing, Audiovisual and Theater.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well everyone, it looks like we’ve made it to our last stop on the tour. I couldn’t think of a better way to end a great tour than in Rio! This is a place that I’ve heard so much about and it’s great to finally be here. We arrived Sunday evening and everyone was so tired that we just got dinner and called a night.

Mondays are days off for us, so we decided to get some sightseeing in. As we were riding from the airport our host, Victor Tamm, suggested that we at least check out two of the city’s attractions - Cristo Redenter (Christ the Redeemer) and Sugarloaf. We took him up on his offer and had a great time! Here are some pics from the day!

Oh wait! Before we begin. I was about to brush my teeth and saw this bottle of water:

So uh, you replace the comma with a period, divide the number by about 1.6 or so (because the dollar is continuing to weaken), and there you have it!…. an $11.04 bottle of water! I later found out that we are staying in arguably the best hotel in Rio.

Since it was night when we arrived, I couldn’t really see the area that we were staying in. I could smell and hear the water but I couldn’t see it. When I woke up I was able to see this from my hotel room:

Read the rest of this entry »

Check out the vid from a perforamance in Santa Cruz. We solicited some audience participation on this one!

You know, Santa Cruz was kind of a bust for us as far as seeing the city goes. After we arrived at the hotel (after leaving the previous night’s show at 11:30pm, leaving the hotel at 5:30am and catching a 7:00am flight), we ate breakfast, did an interview and everyone was so tired that we slept until the night’s sound check at 9:00pm. Flying everyday really can take its toll on your body. You really don’t realize how tired you are until you sit on the bed and next thing you know its like 6 hours later. Sorry Santa Cruz, we’ll have to come back when we’re well rested so we can enjoy it more!

These are the young ladies that organized our coming and all of the events here in Bolivia:

I know I have a very interesting name, but it baffles me sometime how people screw up the spelling of it. I was told that the press had a copy of our press release, yet my name was still misspelled as “Demonsterius”:

Read the rest of this entry »

We had to leave at 5:30am to catch a flight to Cochabamba, Bolivia. Everyone’s excited because this place should only be 4,000 feet above sea level. I’m telling you, never in my life did that number mean so much to me!

It never fails that we seem to meet the nicest, most appreciative people in the smaller cities and they love the fact that there are contemporary hip hop artists willing to share with them. The bigger cities always have an opportunity to see performances but in the smaller cities, most artists never go there or the people can’t afford to get where the entertainment is. So thanks once again JALC on behalf of the many faces you’ll never get to meet first hand! It also never fails that everyone wants to hang out when the show is over. In most situations we can, but there are many situations where an early flight will prevent us from doing so.

Cochabamba is a really nice, quiet city. There are many sidewalk restaurants and a café can be found on any corner. The food choices range from native Bolivian food to American style chicken fingers to some of the best milkshakes and ice cream desserts you’ll ever have! (That last line was referring specifically to a restaurant called Dumbo’s!!!)

Read the rest of this entry »

If you guys checked out the previous post, then you know that we had a very long last day in Quito! We had a concert, a workshop and two planes to catch to get us to La Paz Bolivia. This is the place that I was most nervous about because of all of the “horror” stories I’ve heard concerning altitude sickness. You know, it’s funny that whenever you speak about something you haven’t experienced before, most people feel obligated to tell you the worst case scenario first. I guess it just goes to show how people gravitate towards negative before they do positive. I’m going to try and be more conscious of how I speak from now on. Maybe it’ll catch on!

We arrived at the airport a little after midnight and were greeted by law enforcement officials in riot gear. Everyone wondered what was going on, but it turns out that the transportation industry was on the eve of a 24 hour strike for better working conditions and service. The law enforcement had been sent to protect the city in case the people retaliated. It turned out that this act of solidarity crippled most of the immediate surrounding areas of our hotel, but not the city center where our hotel was located. Our one and only workshop was canceled because of safety concerns and because the students would have no way to get to the school. I was very saddened because the workshops are were we get to interact most with the people of the country, but I am understanding of the situation.

Here are some pictures of the city center from my hotel room:

This “day off” in the hotel was much needed because we all were still trying to adjust to the altitude. Small tasks like taking a few stairs or walking down the street take your breath away. Even at nights it’s hard to sleep because you keep waking up with the feeling that you can’t breathe. The thin air also causes food to take more time to digest and it causes your body to dehydrate really easily. We had to eat light meals and drink water very frequently. Another interesting thing is that we felt trembles from the earthquake in Chile. That was my first time experiencing something like that so it was a weird feeling for me.

Read the rest of this entry »

I just wanted to share some pictures from the last day we spent in Quito. This was a long day because we had a TV performance, a concert, a workshop and we had to catch two planes from Quito to Lima, Peru and from Lima to La Paz, Bolivia. Pics from the TV performance:

So, I think I’ve finally figured it out… Springfield is in Ecuador!

Read the rest of this entry »

In keeping with all of the birthday events, we were on our day off and wanted to take some pictures of the city. Our driver suggest that we go to the Teleferiqo. All we knew was that it was highly elevated so that we could get a nice panoramic view of Quito. When we arrived, we noticed that there was a ski lift that takes you much higher than any car could drive. Now, Quito is about 9,500 feet above sea level and it turns out that this ski lift would have us over 13,000 feet above sea level, which is higher than La Paz, which is the highest capital in the world! The altitude was one thing, but the altitude sickness was another. I was really interested in trying it, but also a little scared. I think Marc was the only one that wasn’t a little afraid (or maybe he was just acting like he wasn’t).

I ended up facing the incline, so the whole time I’m just thinking about how slow the ski lift is moving and how high we are from the ground. At one point we were so high that we could see the tops of other mountains. We looked to our left and saw the airport… then we saw that we were higher than the planes as they were taking off and landing. This is really when I realized that what I was doing was extremely crazy!

Read the rest of this entry »