Great article by Irmengard Gnau in the Utrecht School of Journalism. An excerpt below and the full article is here.

Belgium has been divided into French- and Flemish-speaking parts for centuries, providing its capital, Brussels, with a history of clash and conflict. Now, there is a positive trend visible in this never-ending story: hip hop seems to represent a first step to bridge the gap of prejudices and distrust to help change those attitudes that have been cemented for generations.

I’m entirely looking forward to finding out more about the lady djs of the Supafly Collective in Brussels. They have an ill compilation of Walloon (French) and Flemish (Dutch) Belgian rappers on Mixcloud that I’ve been playing nonstop for the past couple of months. Their work in bridging the gap between the two ethnicities has done wonders for relations, especially within the Brussels hip hop community.

They’ve already turned me on to Melissa Czarnik, a Wisconsin MC, oddly enough.