Notes about the soundtrack song, "Who's The Enemy?" and it's creators,
Ithaka Darin Pappas &
Gabriel O Pensador:
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Ithaka , who had been an early photographer of late 80's west coast hip hop for the likes of Eazy E, NWA, Ice Cube, Low Profile, etc. for Priority Records had moved to Lisbon Portugal in 1992. There he often worked with the music magazine, Super Som (Editora Abril). In those years, there was little or no hip hop in Portugal, but Gabriel O Pensador already had a monster hit in Brazil with "Tô Feliz (Matei o Presidente)".
A national concert tour of Portugal was arranged (to introduce hip hop to the motherland) and when Ithaka heard about it, he asked the magazine to assign him to cover the Gabriel O Pensador concert in Lisbon as a photojournalist. The magazine's editor refused, proclaiming that hip hop was merely, 'a fad and was of no value to the magazine'.
But not discouraged, Ithaka arrived at the artist's hotel a few hours before the concert, and identifying himself as a Los Angeles 'gangsta rap photographer' was able to suggest a photo session with the young hip hop star. There in an empty banquet room, Ithaka photographed nineteen year old Gabriel O Pensador in a wheel chair (he had broken his leg a few days before playing soccer). The unusual images of a rapper in a full leg cast in a rolling chair, that he would later perform the concert in, ended up being a major pull-out poster in the same magazine that had refused to book a photo session with the artist just a few week before.
Gabriel O Pensador and Ithaka had not exchanged contact numbers at the photo session or concert, but coincidentally crossed paths just a few days later while they were both surfing at Guincho Beach, just outside of Lisbon. It was very uncommon at the time for people associated with hip hop to also be involved with surfing. The two became friends.
It was years later, after Ithaka had visited Gabriel o Pensador and his family in Brazil, that Gabriel suggested to Ithaka the idea of recording an album there. A couple of years later, after an introduction to producer Berna Ceppas was made, a new fifteen-track record finally began to materialize including the song, Who's The Enemy?
Both having surfed considerably on the island of Madeira (Ithaka proclaims he rode the wave of his life there in 1995) and both being advocates of ocean environment awareness, it was fitting that these two surfing hip hop artists provided a meaningful song to help promote the cause of preserving the waves on the island of Madeira, Portugal.