Hip Hop Duo Create Lively and Enlightening Mayhem

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Long-time friends Mohammed Bilal and Josh “BOAC” Goldstein formed the hip hop duo Orange Flash to actively challenge American notions of black and white, Jew and Muslim, urban and suburban. Through their performance piece The Color Orange, they combine hip-hop, theater and sheer mayhem as they illuminate new possibilities for communicating across cultures.

They will bring their energetic performance to Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas campus on March 28-29. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, they will appear at the Fayetteville Public Library. At 3:30 p.m. Thursday, March 29, they will perform in the Arkansas Union Alltel Ballroom, with a pizza reception afterward. From 10 a.m. until noon on March 29, Bilal will offer a diversity workshop in the Union. To register, contact Dana Collins, danac@uark.edu or 479-575-6103.

The duo’s visit is being sponsored by the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with the Fayetteville Public Library and with funding from the Ford Foundation.

Rapper and poet Bilal is best known for his role on MTV’s The Real World. He has a master’s in diversity studies and is currently writing a book on diversity. Hip hop musician Goldstein has been rapping for more than 15 years and has toured with such artists as the Souls of Mischief and Del the Funkee Homosapien. Together, Bilal and Goldstein have created a vibrant new look at race, racism and the way people get along in The Color Orange.

Their visit is part of the “Difficult Dialogues” initiative at the University of Arkansas, created to foster discussions about diverse religions and cultures and to promote religious and academic freedom.