I wanna do my part to fuel the fire

Tag : trigger jeans
July 2, 2008

By Helen Herimbi

There are five elements of hip-hop: Emceeing, DJ-ing, B-Boying,Graffiti and Knowledge Of Self.

In Spitfire, Ian "Ewok" Robinson brilliantly epitomises them all.The 26-year-old is a familiar face and name in South Africanhip-hop and in his thought-provoking one-man show he shiftssociety's perception of hip-hop from being about baggy jeans andbig chains to big ideas.

Impressively playing - among a plethora of others - the role of astreet vendor selling ideas, a boondocks-inspired old man whorepresents the old school as well as the graf writer who educatesthe community through his art, Ewok encourages the audience tosearch their souls and begin to question everything we see.

"I see Spitfire as a well-spoken truth," Ewok tells me after theshow.

"Spitfire is also a metaphor for how mo'fire from the audiencefeeds the performer and then everyone in the room is ablaze," hecontinues.

This fire is meant to challenge everyone to take off the veil thatis cast over our eyes by our governments, the media and even thestatus quo.

"When you gonna learn, man, that Hollywood's burning . I wanna domy part to fuel the fire," he chants as each scene fades intoanother.

Then he strikes the match of fury against all the misconceptionspeople have against the hip-hop culture, but also against theculture of accepting being hoodwinked. Being fake is in vogue itseems, he says.

How we teach our children that plastic surgery is better than beingauthentic, that toy-gun-toting boys should aspire to becometrigger-happy men, about the webs of propaganda weaved by "leaders"like Bush, Mugabe, Zuma - it's all in Spitfire.

Within this play Ewok (who is also a graf artist) "marries the oldwith the new school" and gets resounding praise from the audience.The point of the play can be found in one of his lines: "You mightnot be happy being human, just be happy to be you, man."