We had the splendid luck to arrive in Caracas immediately before the Second Annual Hip-Hop Summit, featuring a number of Venezuelan rap acts as well as international sonic revolutionaries from dead prez’s M1 to Intifada from Puerto Rico (check their videos on youtube: spectactular stuff). We got to see the closing performance in Plaza Venezuela, which was excellent. Slightly disturbing—but not surprising—was the heavy police presence (mostly from the Metropolitan Police: look for a forthcoming post on the different police forces in Caracas, of which the PM is easily the worst).

A concert the previous day, also in Plaza Venezuela, billed as a “For Peace, Against War” show, had little to no police, presumably since its demographic was considerably whiter and more hippie-ish. Highlights of the earlier performance include the Hezbollah supporters on motorcycles (a good sign that “for peace” isn’t meant too reductively, at the expense of armed self-defense) and an excellent female rap performance by Caracas trio Only3.