Dissin’ Cargill With P.O.S. in Minneapolis

P.O.S.- Optimistic

On Sat. Oct. 24 after a huge 350.org Day of Action, RAN activists partnered with Substance, a Twin Cities-based activism and arts organization, to table at a POS show at 1st Ave. POS is a rockin progressive Twin Cities hip-hop artist from the Rhymesayers label. He’s got one of those incredible fan bases who knows all the words to every song.

It was great to meet both POS and his fans, as well as the other performers like St. Paul Slim and Prof. Hip-hop heads from Minnesota were really supportive and concerned about the issues we presented. Tons of folks signed our petitions, picked up stickers, and asked questions. As slides about Palm Oil, Cargill, and RAN’s campaign flashed on the big screen in-between sets, we talked with a bunch of fresh young folks who really give a damn! Many people were just happy to know that there are things happening, and that there are local ways to help rainforests that seem really far away. Some of these people will post on our RYSE blog in the future, so keep an eye out for people holdin’ it down in the Twin Cities.

St. Paul Slim

Substance co-founder Erick Boustead seeks to help connect music, arts, and activism, as well as to blur the lines between them. Last year for the RNC, Substance helped put together a cross-genre music festival to both alleviate the intense stress of the protests and demonstrations, but also to bring people out and create dialogue across groups. Substance has also put on festivals like RippleEffect and Manifestation,  featuring spoken word artist Sage Francis and several other hiphop performers.  RAN partnered with Substance for the Tar Sands Resistance tour earlier this year.

The folks at Substance have a great goal of connecting the inspiration of music to the practical day-to-day work of activism. Their motto is “building soapboxes since 2007″  Tabling at the POS show was a blast for the RAN activists, and helped spread the message of why we’re here. We will keep exposing Cargill until they adopt a global forest policy that stops expansion of oil palm plantations into rainforests. Check out our blog and YouTube of our recent protest at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange too! Holla back!

Substance co-founder Erick Boustead (center) with RAN Activists Hillary Lehr and Ashely Shaeffer

One Response to “Dissin’ Cargill With P.O.S. in Minneapolis”

1. Erick says:

   October 29, 2009 at 11:34 am

   It was awesome kicking it with you guys last week. Can’t wait for this campaign to explode! Keep on givin’er.