Far East movement

How's this for an example of the Internet shrinking the globe -- and maybe even boosting the survival of one people's culture?

According to local Hmong rap star Tou SaiKo Lee, there are Hmong breakdancers in Minnesota whose YouTube videos are making them famous in other Hmong population hubs in Australia and France. Things have become so wonderfully convoluted that Lee, 32, is even working on a Hmong-language album so he can tour France and other countries and still have his rhymes understood.

"The war tore apart our culture and separated our people all over the world, but the Internet is sort of bringing us all back together," Lee said.

Hip-hop is playing a key role in connecting Hmong youth worldwide, Lee believes. That's the main reason he is putting on Boom Bap Village, a Hmong celebration of hip-hop happening Friday at Hamline University in St. Paul, with a film component Saturday at Concordia University. It's timed to the 30th Hmong International Sports Tournament and Freedom Festival -- one of the Hmong community's biggest events of the year -- at nearby Como Park.

Lee remembers going to the sports tournament in years past and seeing kids breakdancing "on the tennis courts or wherever they could find." Often, they would be told to stop or go somewhere else, he said. That's how he got the idea to organize a separate event in 2009.

Although Lee and another rapper from California will perform, Boom Bap Village actually centers around breakdancing. A dance competition will take place Friday from 5 to 10 p.m. at Hamline's Student Center Ballroom. A movie about Hmong breakers in California and Oklahoma, "Among Boys," will also be screened at Hamline's student center Friday at 2 p.m. and again Saturday at 6 p.m. in Concordia University's Buetow Auditorium.

For reasons that cannot easily be explained, breaking is booming among Hmong Americans and other Southeast Asian youths. Probably about half of the competitors in the b-boy/b-girl breaking tent at last month's Soundset festival were Asian Americans.

Lee himself embodies a bridge between the old-world and modern Hmong culture. He spent the first two months of his life in a Hmong refugee camp in Thailand. His family then emigrated to Syracuse, N.Y., before relocating to St. Paul's east side, where Tou devoured hip-hop culture as a student at Johnson High School. He's known from the group Delicious Venom and the ICE open-mic nights.

In 2008, Lee returned to Thailand and got glimpses of hip-hop's vast reach in Hmong villages there. He chronicled his encounters in a short film, "Travel in Spirals," that will screen Saturday at Concordia. That movie is a precursor to Lee's participation in local filmmaker Justin Schell's documentary "We Rock Long Distance." After following multicultural rappers M.anifest and Maria Isa on trips to Ghana and Puerto Rico, respectively, Schell will travel with Lee back to Thailand in December.

To Lee, "We Rock Long Distance" is proof of hip-hop's connective powers.

"Just being a part of the Twin Cities hip-hop community -- where Maria Isa, M.anifest, Brother Ali, Toki Wright, you name it, are all part of one scene -- that's an inspiration for Boom Bap Village, and in everything I do."

'Crosstown' magic It's a good thing Dan Israel finished his latest album, "Crosstown Traveler," before summer road construction began, or else we might have gotten something much more Rage Against the Machine-like. Based on the St. Louis Park songwriting vet's daily commute to his day job in St. Paul -- and, more broadly, the crossroads of being a 40-year-old dad and musician -- "Traveler" sounds compellingly level-headed and contemplative as Israel finds optimism in the daily grind.

Israel's release party is Saturday at the Aster Cafe with Slim Dunlap and Terry Walsh opening (9 p.m., $8).

Random mix Paul Westerberg wrote a song and fellow Minneapolitan Brian Setzer played guitar for Glen Campbell's upcoming album, "Ghosts on a Canvas," which the "Rhinestone Cowboy" hitmaker announced would be his last record after being diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's. ... "More memorable onstage than Nirvana or the Rolling Stones." That's how Robert Christgau described Hüsker Dü in a New York Times review that was far less praising of the two new books related to the band. ...

A venue that used to be shuttered over the summer months, the Cedar Cultural Center will literally be open in July and August for its free patio concert series, which will include the Brass Kings Tuesday (7-9:30 p.m.) and Vermont-based all-female vocal trio Mountain Man July 10. The latter group opened for the Decemberists in February and includes St. Paul native Alex Sauser-Monnig. ... Operators of the Aster Cafe and 318 Cafe just earned city approval to start booking music at their third eatery, the craft-beer haven Republic in the former Sgt. Preston's space at Seven Corners in Minneapolis. ...

Leading up to a new album in August, madcap rocker Gretchen Seichrest and her excellent band Patches & Gretchen are hosting a weekly wack-job of an Internet variety show, "Headquarters and Dimes," streaming live Fridays at 6:30 p.m. and archived at www.Headquartersandimes.com. They also have a regular gig (relatively speaking) Saturday at Red Stag Supper Club. ... Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes (where We Fest is held every August) is being taken over this weekend for the High Plains Festival with Trampled by Turtles, the 4onthefloor, Caroline Smith, Boys n' the Barrels, Pert Near Sandstone and more. Details at HighPlainsFest.com. ... Trampled by Turtles is now billing their July 23 gig on the Cabooze outdoor stage as their "final Twin Cities gig of the year," before the members splinter off into their other projects. Their last gig on the books anywhere is Aug. 6, opening for Willie Nelson at Duluth's Bayfront Festival Park. Yeah, how would you follow that?