I hereby present the audiovisual output of my two-part Thesis. This film is about a young-adult upcoming Hip-Hop artist named Benjamen, living in Blue Downs, Cape Town. The film presents an insight in his life as an artist from an unforgiving place with little opportunity, but with a warmth and generosity in people that I had the pleasure to experience. While focussing on one artist, this representation also gives a sense of place, time, religion, history and art that flow through this land and its people.
This portrayal is therefore meant to show the ‘behind the scenes’ of an artist like Benjamen, to humanize and see the people behind the artist. Seeing Benjamen and the people around him gives context to these themes, but for more context specifically on Capetonian Hip-Hop and its history, please refer to the written part of my Thesis which is available in the Student Repository of Leiden University.
Bio
Sam de Boer is a multi-disciplined academic, starting with a Propedeuse in Applied Psychology, followed by a Bachelors in Humanistics and has now finished Cultural Anthropology and Developmental Sociology, which has made this movie possible. In his most recent audiovisual projects, he has researched the meaning of art in different communities, thereby mostly focussing on music. The upcoming film has been the most challenging and rewarding project of his so far.
