ili cypher:
Revolutionary media club
Do you have a club, organization, or homies that want to learn more about Revolutionary leaders, artists, & movements? Bring Ili Cypher to your community!
We collaborate with clubs, organizations, families, and friend groups to curate their own Revolutionary Media Club. It’s like a Book Club but we focus on critical analysis and strategic praxis of ALL forms of revolutionary media such as books, music, movies, art, podcasts, zines, etc. which focuses on social movements for liberation from oppression (addresses any of the 4 forms of oppression: ideological, interpersonal, institutional, and internalized). We work with your group to identify your context-specific needs, strategically implement the offering to your community, and support you in growing the program.
Ili Cypher aims to foster solidarity across communities through intergenerational knowledge transfer and community building by sharing liberatory cultural and political education in all forms of media. So if your club, organization, or homies have been wanting to learn and unlearn together but need support on where to start, set up a consultation call with us to launch your own Ili Cypher!
What is Ili? (pronounced ee-lee)
“Ili is an Igorot word for ‘home’ or ‘the land of one’s birth’, considered to be the Igorots’ source of identity, belonging and life direction. The ili-based concept uses traditional knowledge, values and practices to facilitate the formation of People Organisations (POs)” (Adonis & Couch, 2018). Igorot is a pan-ethnic colloquial term to refer to the Indigenous communities who live in the Cordillera Region of Northern Luzon, Philippines. For the Igorot, the Ili connotes your home, home village, or where you come from or belong to. Ka-ilian refers to people who also come from the same ili as you, or in other words, those from your home community.
The image on the left shows the chanting of the hudhud during harvest in Brgy. Haliap, Municipality of Asipulo, Ifugao (Cordillera Region, Northern Luzon, Philippines) - an example of how those from the same ili work together, use traditional knowledge and practice harvesting rice together (Uñalivia, 2008).
What is Cypher?
“A cypher is a gathering of rappers, beatboxers, and/or breakers in a circle, extemporaneously making music together. In recent years, the cypher has also grown to include the crowd and spectators who are integral to maintaining the energy of a given cypher. In a cypher, one emcee will rap about a certain topic, which is quickly taken up or flipped by another emcee who plays off the prior words and themes. Each artist takes his or her respective turn, much like in a jazz solo. Cyphers flow freely between diverse performers who improvise their words, sounds, or movements to create a complex matrix of sharing. The circle can go on continuously, as long as emcees, beatboxers, dancers, and the crowd keep the fluidity of the cypher going. The cypher is welcoming and thus models a pedagogy that is inclusive and improvisational in nature” (Watkins and Caines, 2014).
The image on the left showcases, “Legendary Cyphers, a group of MCs that come together every Friday night to spit bars…[and] emulates earlier practices of impromptu rap performances in public spaces” (Ozelkan and Noori, 2016).
Why did we call this offering Ili Cypher?
We hope you can bring the Vision and Mission of the Unlearning Community School in your own communities by combining the elements of Ili + Cypher. Your Revolutionary Media Club would be a home where people felt they belonged, learned, and practiced unlearning together (Ili); and also be a gathering space that would allow you and your community to share how you honestly express yourself, learn from one another’s creative expression, and improvise your own expression based on what you learned from others in your gathering circle.
Ili Cypher is the model in which we co-create our own kind of learning spaces, rooted in our collective knowledge, values, and practices, which draw from our ancestral and cultural heritage. Ili Cypher fuses Indigenous and Neo-Indigenous pedagogies or learning styles, which is rooted in Hip Hop and Indigenous Sovereignty movements. We are learning and expressing ourselves through self-determination and self-governance to achieve healing, peace, love, unity, and joy!