[T]he breakdancers — known collectively as the Pockemon Crew — have become world champions, and that first dangerous act of trust has spawned one of Edinburgh International Festival’s most invigorating cocktails, a show entitled The Seven Deadly Sins infused with a heady dose of hip-hop. The 1933 sung ballet, the last of many collaborations between composer Kurt Weill and writer Bertolt Brecht, dramatises a journey through the seamier side of seven American cities by two twin sisters — often interpreted as facets of the same personality — struggling to pay for their family home.

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Fifty years after the Cuban revolution, which prompted a U.S. embargo against Cuba, both Americans and Cubans remain far removed from each other’s realities. The documentary “Cuban Hip Hop: Desde el Principio (From the Beginning)” shows that one cultural link between the Cuba and the U.S. is Hip Hop. The bilingual film features intimate interviews and performances by such legendary Cuban Hip Hop artists as Doble Filo, Obsesion, and Anónimo Consejo, who have all toured internationally. There is also never-before-seen footage of Common, M1 of Dead Prez, and political exile Nehanda Abiudun.

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At this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, companies such as ZooNation are using hip hop as a dramatic narrative force, capable of putting a modern spin on classic storylines. And kicking off the dance element in Brian McMaster’s last Edinburgh International Festival programme is - guess what? A series of short pieces by young Brazilian choreographer Bruno Beltrao that conspire to take street dance in radical new directions. Beltrao is boldly dissecting the movement vocabulary and re-configuring it, all without losing any of the bravura oomph or knife-edge precision that audiences worldwide delight in.

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Senegal’s rappers pride themselves on having helped change their world six years ago by urging people to vote in elections that ended four decades of rule by one party. It was rap’s coming of age in the country. But today, some of those same artists feel the price they now pay for criticizing the very authorities they helped bring to power is rising.

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ARP Productions, AIDS Responsibility Project (ARP) and XL Productionz will launch its “Start the Conversation” initiative at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto. A private listening party/celebrity VIP lounge hosted by Iconic hip hop pioneer, “MC Lyte,” will celebrate the 12-track CD release entitled “What Are We Living For.”[…] The purpose of “What Are We Living For” is to “Start the Conversation” about HIV — how to avoid it, how to live with it, how not to spread it, and the importance of being honest about one’s own risk of becoming infected. ARP has partnered with record producer Donald “XL” Robertson to use music, film, and the Internet to develop new and more effective ways to communicate prevention messages to those most at risk for becoming infected with HIV.

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“The number one single in the country is a song that speaks out against police profiling,” [Boots Riley] countered. At the time, it was Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’.” “People don’t get that,” he continued. “There’s a lot of songs by artists that are not considered to be conscious or political that break down the way the system oppresses people.” He cited songs by T.I., David Banner, Trick Daddy and Juvenile, among others. And he blamed MTV and mainstream radio for encouraging shallow stereotypes in rap.

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Ana Garcia remembers when a new form of dancing began to appear in the community centers and block parties of Spanish Harlem. As a 10-year-old in 1981, sent out to pick up some milk, she would stop, amazed, and watch the neighborhood boys as they crowded in a circle around a lone dancer accompanied by a boom box, trying flamboyant, acrobatic, aggressive moves on the pavement. Their ‘’breaking'’ was the physical expression of hip-hop, the vibrant culture born on the streets of the South Bronx in the 1970’s.

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