Bronx Native Makes Award-Winning Hip-Hop Film

(From Graffiti Nation by Handal Abdelrahim)

By Genesis Stanley

Bronx, New York, 1983. Sixteen-year-old Handal Gomez Abdelrahim was walking up the block in his neighborhood on 231st St, playing hip-hop music on his small radio to meet up with his friends, when a grown man confronted him, cursed him and his music with a racial slur, and broke his radio. While another adult stepped in to defend Abdelrahim verbally, Abdelrahim decided to outsmart his assailant. He went back to his house, brought out his bigger radio, and walked past the man with a smile, playing his music even louder.

Now an Audiovisual Technician and IT Specialist in the Multimedia Center at Lehman College, Abdelrahim said he learned that day that he could’ve easily gone to jail if he used violence, but instead he chose peace. “Hip-hop won,” Abdelrahim said. “We won by not using violence.” As an adult, his love for hip-hop culture led him to make the film Graffiti Nation about the evolution of hip-hop, which screened at Lehman College on Feb. 20.

Born and raised in the Bronx to a Colombian mother and Palestinian father, Abdelrahim grew up along with hip-hop. But he didn’t have an easy childhood. “[It] was rough being both Hispanic and Palestinian in NYC,” said Abdelrahim. He said his mixed heritage put a target on his back because some people viewed and treated him differently. Despite these struggles, his mother always took him to the movie theater to watch movies together. These visits were how his love for filming started to blossom.

“Film was like my therapy, my escape zone. I used to pack packages when I was a child at a supermarket by Dyckman, and whatever I made, I just went over [and spent it at] the movie theaters two or three blocks away called the Alpine Theater. I sat there all day watching films,” Abdelrahim reflected.

Growing up, he idolized icons such as Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee, known for their strength, heart, and skill that they showed through their artistic form of boxing, martial arts, and acting. Movies like Jaws, Star Wars, Rocky, and The Warriors are what gave him his light bulb moment about the power of film. “The Warriors movie showed the streets and I saw the art in the streets.”

His life also changed when he went from a Catholic elementary school that was “all about homework and religion” to a public school where the doors of hip-hop were opened to him. “Graffiti, breakdancing, hip-hop was a norm. You were cool if you were doing it”, said Abdelrahim. He started to cut class and make beats and mixtapes with his friends. From there, Handal and his peers became part of the hip-hop movement.

“My boy Howie, who was also a graffiti writer and DJ, we grew up together in the Bronx. We used to make beats, we would take any record and try to combine it”, Abdelrahim recalled.

Mixtapes and DJing were popular back in the 80s when hip-hop took off and became so popular that it spread to other boroughs.

“Graffiti, rapping, DJing, breaking—these quickly became and remain powerful modes of expression for youth around the world. But it all started here in the Boogie Down.” - Dr. Steven Payne, director of the Bronx County Historical Society.

As an adult, Abdelrahim became a filmmaker himself, and created Graffiti Nation, a film that traces how hip-hop has changed over the years and influenced many artistic styles. The movie shows images of graffiti murals from back then and now, movie clips of all kinds of dance styles, from movies like You Got Served, Honey, The Wiz, House Party, Beatstreet, and many more, along with breakdancing videos, set to an old-school hip-hop soundtrack. It won two New York City Film Festival awards in 2010 for editing. On Thursday, Feb. 20, the movie was screened at Lehman in the Music Building.

“I wanted to show the background and how it started. How you can have Fred Astaire do the footwork and kids today and break dances today are doing the same type of footwork that Fred Astaire did", said Abdelrahim. He explained that his loved ones played a big part in his drive to make the film. After two of his cousins passed away, he continued making the movie so that everyone could learn what life was like back then.

“I didn’t want to include me and Howie in the film because it wasn’t about us,” Abdelrahim said. “It was about the people and how [hip-hop] transcended through time.”