This Friday and Saturday

Check it out!

New Orleans hosts two very exciting Palestine Solidarity related performances at 5:00pm by Nizar Wattad, Omar Chakaki and Mark Gonzales.

These performers are legendary founders of Palestinian hip-hop in the US, and their performances have captivated crowds around the world.Friday's performance is a short set, where they will be part of a series of many performers, and Saturday is a complete show.

Omar Chakaki is an architect/Hip-Hop artist born in the Middle East, and the founding member of N.O.M.A.D.S., a Syrian-Sudanese-American hip-hop group.

Mark Gonzales is a poet, educator, and organizer. He has traveled from the refugee camps of Palestine to the streets of Havana to Def Poetry Jam on HBO. He was awarded a fellowship at UCLA to bring hip-hop into the university curriculum.

Nizar Wattad is a screenwriter and hip-hop artist born in the Middle East. He is a producer of Free the P, first nationally distributed Arab hip-hop project.

See more information about the performers at at http://humanwritesproject.org/.

State of the Nation Performance Festivalhttp://www.sonfestival.org/

1) Spoken Word Friday, March 20, 5:00pmSt. Roch Market Neutral Ground of St. Roch Ave. at Marais St.

2) Performance Saturday, March 21, 5:00pmThe Studio at Colton 2300 St. Claude Ave. "Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets" by Human Writes Project Los Angeles, CA Spoken WordSaturday, March 215-6 pm

An energetic, informative and often startling presentation in spoken-word and rhyme, 'Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets' traces the artists' development alongside the birth and growth of Hip-Hop, in a reading of the world through their words. This poetic performance is an intersection of cultures sharing space on a stage that gives voice to marginalized histories, challenges the audience to re-examine worldviews, and indicts individuals and institutions for historical atrocities committed in the name of democracy.