"Conscious" Hip-Hop that I Actually Like

You'll know if it ain't your first time here that we have a huge distaste for the term "conscious" hip-hop as well as for many of the artists and groups who are tagged with this label. At the same time, we understand the reason why conscious hip-hop exists and why people see it as a valid alternative to more mass forms of hip-hop. And because we understand hip-hop as an ever-changing and complex thing, we accept all of it.

Below I've included a couple videos from two West Coast Asian-American hip-hop artists that have been considered by many as conscious hip-hop. The first is Seattle-based Blue Scholars with their song "Loyalty" from the album, Bayani (they've disabled the embed code, so you'll have to click the link above). It's a track that gets heavy rotation on the iPod when I'm driving through New Orleans streets. Not something you'll hear a lot down here.

A line from the song worth mentioning, "No call for the blue collar gettin' low ball, It’s a long climb just to get to petty bourgeois."

I don't have time to make a political critique, but even though I dig the above quote, I can't say I dig the Blue Scholars' affinity for Maoism. The interesting thing about them is that they aren't the Maoist dogmatists that someone of the likes of Immortal Technique appears to be (whether officially or not), but instead have an interesting blend of Baha'i faith that you wouldn't normally think would fit. But it works. But as I've told my Seattle friends, this would fly in the Pacific Northwest; it wouldn't jive at all in the South. This is precisely why hip-hop is so universal, though.

The second vid, Bambu's "Crooks and Rooks," is a live version of the song. He's part of a group called Native Guns which have been doing their thing for a hot minute now. The video is a little annoying because it's got interview clips in between the verses of the song. And the clips don't really do him justice the way his longer interview does. He has a good critique of conscious hip-hop that you should check out. Unlike some, he doesn't collapse into dissin gang bangin, but actually sees it as a legitimate form of survival organization. If any of y'all are interested in a longer political appreciation for gang organization, check out this piece from libcom.org.

The beat for this song is sick, and he's got a nice flow, but I ain't no critic. I like what I like.

Is Busta's "Arab Money" racist?

These notes are from our Seattle friend Khalil that he posted on his Facebook page last Sunday. We think that they introduce some critical dynamics not immediately apparent from the song's lyrics; lyrics that has got some folks calling the song "racist". We're not going to weigh it down with our own intro because it stands on its own as a fresh perspective.

--

I've been seeing some folks bothered by the latest Busta Rhymes song, "A-Rab Money". A lot of Arab folks are getting upset, and I've been trying to figure out exactly why. I have a hunch but it's not crystal clear yet.

This is what I've come up with:

One of the big things people are saying is, "Don't call us A-Rab! We're a3rab! That's like droppin' the N-bomb." I'm with you; I feel that. Someone wrote that a3rab blood runs thicker than the oil fields. True.

I've been thinking about it and I think a3rab folks are upset for at least two reasons. First, we don't want to be associated with the Saudi regime or the Emiratees. F those bourgie Uncle Toms. They collaborate with US imperialism and thug on a3rab and South Asian working folks who have to go [to] those countries, because their own lands are being looted by capitalism.

It's a question of identity. A3rab folks are asking themselves who they want to be identified with: the a3rabs of the intifadas, or the Mubaraks and Saudi princes. This is a beautiful democratic impulse.

But there's more to it than that. Why is Busta, a Black man, talking about this aspect of a3rab society? Because, straight up, we can't deny that these folks exist. But why isn't Busta singing about the Iraqi or Lebanese resistance?

I think a lot of a3rabs feel betrayed by Busta. We see ourselves suffering under white supremacy and those munaafiqun regimes propped up by the US. As a3rab Americans we identify with the Black experience in this country, but in an international context.

I think it's great that a3rab folks are right to feel this sense of solidarity with Black folks, but Busta has some reasons for seeing the world this way. Granted, it's not entirely accurate, but he has his own experience. Busta sees the petty bourgeois a3rabs come into his neighborhood and set up liquor stores, or the rest of us who go on to become doctors or lawyers or whatever. Black folks don't really have either of those options available to them. They can't own stores in their own neighborhoods, and most don't have an education system that allows them upward mobility. This is what it means to be the model minority: people of color being a step above Black people.

This tension is only going to be solved when thousands of a3rab youth reject the professional careers our parents pressure us into and start marching in the streets against white supremacy. This middle class life is a part of American racism. We need to start prioritizing multi-racial solidarity over upward mobility.

Now I agree that Busta is wrong for not seeing the fractures in our community: the democracy movements that fight against US imperialism and a3rab regimes, the a3rab workers who struggle everyday against the a3rab bosses. Busta, you F'ed up, so let's try to get this right, because, me? I don't have any A-Rab money.

There'll never be another MC Breed

I just learned seconds ago that Flint, MI rapper MC Breed died Saturday due to kidney failure. He was only 36 years old.

Before Proof, before Jay Dee, before Boss, there was MC Breed. Being from the Detroit area, Breed had the flexibility to straddle the coastal front. Some of his songs had boom bap sounding beats, while others were more G-Funk in influence.

I think my favorite joint of his though was "Job Corps". It sampled Johnny Guitar Watson's "Superman Lover" used subsequently by Lady of Rage in "Afro Puffs" and a host of others. There was no YouTube clip of "Job Corps" so I threw up a joint he did w/ Pac called "I Gotta Get Mine". This was, of course, emblematic of the good ole days in rap when it wasn't all materialistic and individualistic. That's a joke, by the way.

Rest in peace, Breed.

http://newsroom.mtv.com/2008/11/22/remembering-mc-breed-a-true-hip-hop-pioneer/

Interview with D&HHP

This week we've had the pleasure of rapping with Alex Billet of SleptOn.com and Rebel Frequencies about what we've been doing here for the past three years. We're thankful for the opportunity to offer a different perspective from the prevailing views on what hip-hop represents as well as increase some participation, traffic, and bring new life to this blog. We appreciate all of you who read us, link to us, and take time to offer us your slice on things. We'd like to think this interview will stir the pot some more and get folks to chime in.

-R.E.B.E.L.

http://www.slepton.com/slepton/viewcontent.pl?id=2280

Hip-hop is on top of its game right now. After years of abuse, derision, and one attempt after another to push it to the margins, hip-hop's role in the Obama victory has rekindled the debate about music, politics, and the role they play in our everyday lives.

The Democracy and Hip-Hop Project is a blog founded in 2006 by two New Orleans based activists: [KOOL DJ R.E.B.E.L.] and LBoogie. Their mission is to promote the idea of hip-hop as bottom up culture. They have been unapologetic in defending hip-hop against its detractors in the mainstream media, while maintaining an analysis that at its root, hip-hop is an expression of what it means to struggle in modern America. [R.E.B.E.L.] and LBoogie recently talked with SleptOn's Alexander Billet about hip-hop's past and present, its politics and future, and the struggles that face the hip-hop generation today.

Alexander Billet: How did the Democracy and Hip-Hop Project come about and what were the reasons for it? What is it that you think Hip-Hop can tell us about the world?

R.E.B.E.L.: Back in the late 90s when I was still a bedroom DJ and producing for a variety of local Kansas City hip-hop artists, I started a website as a place to upload my music and share updates about what I was working on, etc. Because I was always political and music was many times an avenue by which I would inveigh my politics, I would also add a bit of political commentary on the site. I eventually quit making music and spinning records, but I kept the site going and used it instead to publish my perspectives about hip-hop as a whole, not just what I was doing.

At the time, my outlook on hip-hop was very conservative--not conservative strictly in the political sense, because I always considered myself Left, but in the sense that I had a very antiquated set of ideas about what hip-hop was supposed to be and look like, and when much of it didn't look that way anymore, I concluded that hip-hop had been hijacked by white art students. When I was young I listened to a lot of gangsta rap (and I still do), but by the mid 90s I was swept up into the b-boy revivalism that was taking place and so by the time it began to decline and many of the folks who identified by that form of hip-hop were increasingly white college kids, the only solution was to "bring it back" to the hood, to people of color and working class whites. This was, of course, as crazy as it sounds and the problem with this is that people of color and working class whites had already redefined hip-hop and were at the forefront of innovating completely new forms that had bypassed the so-called four elements categories that I was still stuck in.

Nonetheless I continued working out my ideas on the site which I had renamed the Economic Foundations of Hip-Hop which was informed by a sort of deterministic Marxism. A very close comrade of mine, [C.L.R. Odell], an MC who went by the name "Treason", was a central part of this working out of ideas because we recorded and performed together and had similar problems with the local "underground hip-hop" milieu that we ran in. By late 2004, I had one of those intellectual breakthroughs, a leap, where I began to see hip-hop as something not limited to the artists who made hip-hop music, but as something that emanated from below, an ethos of sorts, that informed the general direction of hip-hop. I began to see how ordinary people, not just the MCs and DJs, were the ones who provided the context for hip-hop and they did this through their daily struggles at work, at home, and elsewhere.

Throughout the next year, Rob and I began to discuss and think about hip-hop on completely new terms. I wrote a piece about hip-hop and the workplace, about the transformation hip-hop went though during the decline of gangsta rap and the ascendancy of bling-bling. On the latter, Rob wrote a critique (The Dialectics of Hip-Hop) which sent me for another critical leap. At that point, hip-hop was no longer just the product of artists, as I said, it was the activity of common people, right? But I still continued to look at hip-hop as a repository for objective events. So hip-hop was a response to poverty, a response to capitalism, Reaganomics, etc. Sure, hip-hop develops in the context of certain objective conditions, but it also moves by its own internal contradictions. Under my former assumptions, hip-hop had no independent life or dynamic of its own. Rob challenged that and it forever changed the direction my writing would take.

From there I established Democracy and Hip-Hop as a blog in early 2006. The blog format helped simplify and streamline publishing instead of maintaining and hosting a website myself. It also facilitated more consistent writing and reaching out to other writers and blogs that shared similar perspectives, far and few between these others were. Rob wrote rather sparsely, but his theoretical contributions to the blog were hardly sparse since most of my writing was usually off the back of a conversation we had recently had. The fruit of our work was published in late 2006, now called "Theses on Hip-Hop".

Alex: The blog is very open about the influence it takes from Marxist intellectuals and activists like CLR James and Grace Lee Boggs. At first glance this seems to be a weird connection to make to popular culture. What do you think socialist ideas bring to the table when talking about rap and hip-hop?

R.E.B.E.L.: Rob and I, in addition to being artists, were also once a part of a small, independent political organization. Growing dissatisfied with the direction this organization was heading, we started reading a book by C.L.R. James called "Marxism for Our Times" to try to hopefully get some perspective for how we might set ourselves on the right track. This was late 2005, so we had long been thinking and writing about hip-hop and were on the cusp of creating the D&HHP. But what our rigorous discussions gave to us in terms of an appreciation for hip-hop in a new way, James gave to us in politics, economics, and culture altogether. To put it mildly, we were blown away.

James wrote extensively on American popular culture and one of the best examples of this was a book released posthumously called "American Civilization". In many ways, what James did for us was confirm the ideas we were coming to while at the same time offer so much more content and vision. It inspired me to write a blog on American Civilization which I published in June of 2006. And it is through the blog on James that I came to know LBoogie.

I think the biggest influence James had on us was his writings on the drama of ancient Greece and the concept of "universality". The drama of ancient Greece was so important for James because it was a testament to the level of universality a society can reach. Ancient Greece was a society based on direct democracy which was premised on the idea that ordinary people were capable of governing themselves. Therefore, their art and culture was an extension of that form of social organization, an organization which made little distinction between the part of daily living involving production of human needs and artistic expression. There they were highly interwoven.

Our society is not based on direct democracy, so popular culture will necessarily be inhibited by the limits of state capitalism and bureaucratic rule. But ordinary people, specifically the working class and many times through the experience of people of color, through their daily activity and struggle, give us all kinds of inclinations about what kind of society it is possible for us to make. The self-organization of black people in their communities and schools in the 1960s, the wildcat strikes by workers over control of production which continue to this day, the distrust and cynicism towards traditional politics, all these are manifestations of a society trying to break free of the present one. One way we express this is in popular art. This is the import of James. Today, that popular art is hip-hop and we feel that if James were alive today, he like us would be seizing on this new, dynamic form of expression.

Alex: Hip-hop has always had this shadow looming over it; this negative perception of hip-hop as materialistic, bling-obsessed and misogynistic. Where do you think this perception comes from?

LBoogie: This can't be traced to any one source. It's a characterization used by a variety of sources across the political spectrum, so it doesn't always mean exactly the same thing coming from different critics. But it tends to have some common bases.

On the one hand, this argument is a response to very real changes that have occurred within hip-hop over the past 15 years or so, specifically the decline of Gangsta Rap, the rise of "bling bling", and the more recent proliferation of Southern hip-hop. What typically gets said is that bling bling hip-hop and southern rap are no longer about lyricism, no longer have a social message, the music has been manipulated by the music industry and the newer artists have sold out to the pursuit of individual gain and wealth. In some ways, the music industry has had a hand in the shaping of hip-hop since the 90s, but to emphasize it as a deciding factor is to ignore other factors at one.

For one, in the early to mid-90s you had the transition from Reagan-era trickle down economics to the Clintonite "Good Years" of welfare "reform" (or welfare deform as [R.E.B.E.L.] likes to say), which really represented a new stage in the continued economic attack on inner-city neighborhoods and communities of color. In this context, gangsta rap (which was the prevailing form of hip-hop during that transition) was compelled to change or be overcome by its own contradictions. Gangsta rap wasn't a full negation of capitalist society and was being transcended by a generational and philosophical shift that eventually manifested in bling bling. While gangsta rap embraced working class life and maintained a stoic allegiance that, yeah the 'hood is fucked up but it's all we got; bling bling was like, fuck that, fuck the hood, fuck living hand to mouth, fuck wealth being a privilege, fuck the old simple clothes, the old cars, and all that, we takin' it all by storm.

That's not to say that bling bling was false to its roots; it never fronted and acted like it didn't come out of the hood. Nor was it completely new; elements of it had been expressed through earlier artists (c'mon now, "birthdays were the worst days, now we sip champagne when we thirst-ay"…). Yet a lot of hip-hop fans became critics after seeing this change in the culture, and over time developed a perspective that these newer forms of hip-hop were materialistic and bling-obsessed. Of course, there are problems with bling bling, but there were also problems in gangsta rap and in the so-called golden era before that (show me a rapper that has had a consistent feminist perspective in any era, and I'll be damn impressed). But hip-hop is no pure substance, never was and never will be, and without understanding its duality as both a rejection and an embrace of what is happening in wider society, then hip-hop will never make sense.

So that's one basis for this negative perception of hip-hop. On the other hand, it's an argument rooted in the racial and gender relations within American society. It's no coincidence that hip-hop gets typecast as being more misogynistic than any other music genre or cultural form; nor that it's associated with violence more than any other, and the "wrong" kind of violence at that; nor that it's actually blamed for causing much of the depravity of present-day society.

Such negative characterizations, in one form or another, have historically been the ideological backbone for political attacks against communities of color. Hip-hop by its very nature is associated with people of color's cultural and political traditions. When white supremacists want to justify their racism towards people of color, they attack hip-hop as evidence of the latter's supposed degeneracy. Don Imus is a recent prominent example of this, but there are others. The very same critics who couldn't care less that women still make lower pay than men in most jobs, or that one out of every four women will experience some type of sexual violence in their lifetime, or that the invasion of Afghanistan didn't "liberate" Afghani women (imperialism never does) – they are the ones now on a crusade against misogyny in hip-hop. It's reminds me of the old saying…with friends like these….

Alex: The other side of the coin seems to come from those on the left, who have an expectation that hip-hop should be a lot more "conscious." Is this a wooden view to take of the music?

LBoogie: Absolutely. It's also a reflection of how some tendencies among the left view culture, if we can momentarily define hip-hop narrowly as a cultural movement and expression. Since the early 20th century, if not before, the left has recognized that culture is a contested terrain among which the conflicts and contradictions of daily life play out. Some left tendencies have viewed culture as an important sphere for understanding and recording the self-activity and self-government of working folks. We see C.L.R. James as an example of such a tendency and at D&HHP we've tried to continue in this tradition. Other left tendencies view culture as a space to compete for the "hearts and minds" of working people. In other words, there are "reactionary" and "revolutionary" forms of culture, and it is the left's job to create those "revolutionary" forms which can bring a "conscious" and militant politics to working people. Often, those who critique hip-hop for not being more "conscious" are of this tendency.

It's precisely because of the logic that political consciousness is "brought" to people that makes many ignore the political character of hip-hop, even mainstream hip-hop. They're too busy looking for revolutionary keywords (just listen to any Immortal Technique song for the full litany), explicit critiques of imperialism or white supremacy, shout-outs to Che, Mao, Lumumba. Most hip-hop doesn't operate on those terms, so a lot of times what you see instead is the left identifies "conscious" rappers who become the "vanguard" for all hip-hop. The holy trinity of "conscious" mainstream hip-hop is Common, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli, and in underground hip-hop it can be anyone from Immortal Technique to Blue Scholars.

But what is conscious hip-hop really? What is its content? Lupe Fiasco participated in a hip-hop forum here in New Orleans about a year ago, and someone asked him how to get people to stop listening to rappers like Young Jeezy and listen to more "conscious" rappers. Lupe responded by saying that Jeezy is a conscious rapper because he interprets the world he interacts with. And people interpret their world in the language they speak.

George Lamming, famed Caribbean writer and a contemporary of C.L.R. James, once commented on the inability of the left to "communicate politics." He felt that the most radical and profound kind of politics can actually be communicated without any political talk taking place. That's often how political ideas are discussed within hip-hop. The fact that many left tendencies cannot do this, let alone understand it, points to how isolated the left is today from the working class and its cultural traditions.

Alex: A recent post on D&HHP revolved around "hipster rap," this crop of artists like the Cool Kids and Kidz in the Hall that reach back to pre-gangsta, late 80s aesthetic, yet their sound is thoroughly modern. Does this represent something new or is it simple nostalgia? What do you think it represents?

R.E.B.E.L.: I really believe that the youngest of the hip-hop generation is what gives hip-hop its vitality. They are the least conservative and nostalgic about anything. They haven't lived long enough to be nostalgic and are constantly creating a hip-hop that represents them and their world. They could give a fuck about Kool Herc and Bambaataa, or KRS-One and Chuck D, Tribe or De La. For us older generation folks (older is relative here, I'm only 28), that is a bad thing because we tend to place emphasis on "knowing your history" and "staying true" and all that other nonsense.

The Hipster Rap thing evades many older hip-hop heads. For some of us, it means hip-hop is "coming back" or redeeming itself. For others, it is a further indication that hip-hop and civilization as a whole is dead because it supposedly reveals that we cannot create anything new. We abhor both of those perspectives. This is not hipster rap; that is, if we're talking about the Cool Kids, Kidz in the Hall, Kid Sister, or other artists to emerge from within this aesthetic vein. There may be a hipster rap, but if there is, it is mainly white, New York art students who not only take the appearance of old school rap, but actually replicate its sound, delivery, and lyrical content. This is real hipsterism and it is depraved, but the reason for its depravity is because it is driven by an elitist view that these people are above society, that they look down from their ivory tower to mock what ordinary folks have done. It is not even counterculture, because counterculture folks at least have a sense of values; that popular culture is bankrupt and that we need a culture of opposition. This is a good instinct, but just like backpacker hip-hop today, they cannot find an independent basis for their existence. They exist only to oppose and cannot find in popular culture the tendency of common folks to resist. Pop culture ain't counterculture, but pop culture does counter, no doubt.

But I can see the reason why folks are calling this hipster rap. They see the immediate aspects; the hairstyles, the clothes, etc. and conclude that this is hipsterism. As you said, their sound is thoroughly modern. But they can't see that hip-hop is a continuum and not a pendulum. Hip-hop does not go back. 90s b-boy revivalism didn't go back, even if they thought that's what they were doing. What hip-hop does is save up its experience so that the new forms become a part of the whole. The 80s is done, but the experience is still with us and animates to some degree our hip-hop today, just as the 90s does.

Alex: This election season there have been an unprecedented amount of artists who have openly sided with the Obama campaign, and it seems that hip-hop has played a role in the election it never has on this level (everything between the Obama mixtape and Kanye playing the DNC). What do you make of this?

LBoogie: This is a great question. This is something we've followed closely for the better part of this long election season. To answer that properly (albeit briefly) we have to consider both why hip-hop is able to be a vibrant political participant in this election process, and also what wider currents are at hand in the U.S. that have made this such an historic election.

What does it say that the DNC invited Kanye? Or that the Obama campaign felt compelled to publicly distance itself from that Ludacris song, "Obama Is Here"? These are important indications of the ways in which official society is forced to recognize and respond to hip-hop as a legitimate social and political force it must contend with. It is competing for the attention of a restless and angry generation whose music is more than just a collection of hit songs or celebrity rappers, it reflects a philosophy of life that rejects much of what official society stands for.

It's a contradictory philosophy, no doubt, but in it you can see the recognition of the alienation of the current way of life ("All through the week, I've been at work, doing my job / Then somebody told me, the weekend's just for me", Kelis on "Weekend"); a rejection of that alienation ("To hell with just gettin by and economizing / It's kinda hard bein humble in the belly of struggle", Busta on "Been Through the Storm"); and a vision of change ("I'm from the school of the hard knocks, we must not / let outsiders violate our blocks, and my plot / let's stick up the world and split it fifty/fifty / Let's take the dough and stay real jiggy", Jay Z on "Hard Knock Life").

This election was much bigger than one man or one political party. In different ways, hip-hop's support for Obama was both a no-vote and a yes-vote. In 2000 and 2004, the failed electoral strategies that dominated social democratic-left politics was the "anybody but Bush" approach. That failed to win either mass support or mass energy, and not only because the opposing candidates were about as exciting as watching paint dry.

This time around, the mobilization and energy that was galvanized within hip-hop was not just a rejection of Bush, it was a rejection of three decades worth of failed neo-liberal ideology. The ongoing economic crisis only sharpened these existing sentiments. "They been sellin us a dream, tellin us we on the same team, now we all gotta deal with the lie" (Mary J. Blige on "Something's Gotta Give"). At the same time, it was an embrace of a larger vision of a fully multiracial U.S. – something hip-hop has instinctually cultivated from day one. There's been a push from Obama's campaign and segments of official society to also encourage a multiracial vision, but it's different. Multiculturalism from above is just another form of white supremacy. But multi-culturalism from below is a manifestation of hip-hop's desire to bring to all areas of social life the multiracial community and solidarity it has already cultivated in the cultural realm.

It was also an embrace of a desire for young people and working people to see themselves in the driver's seat of making history, on their own terms. Precisely because this mobilization is larger than Obama, it is likely that it won't be able to be contained within the channels of official society. We'll have to keep our eyes open to see where the hip-hop generation goes from here.

Davey D's review of the National Hip-Hop Political Convention 2008

This is an alright and interesting review. In it, we can get an idea for the problems of hip-hop organizations, their political form and content, as well as their class basis.

A few introductory comments first. The NHHPC is not a new political form. It is a high-profile, recycled political action committee for the Democratic Party and, as such, was bankrupt before it even began. Its organizational leadership is composed of intellectuals, professors, and business folks whose sole interest is to channel the unique political character of the hip-hop generation into voter mobilization, not to arouse in it a sense that it alone can manage society independent of managers, professionals, and politicians.

There may very well be organizations in the future (perhaps in formation now) that speak to the hip-hop generation on its own terms; and that's because it is or will be organized by genuine segments of the hip-hop generation itself. No telling what latent forces this could unleash upon the nation. But the NHHPC and others like it won't just lead us astray (we aren't even giving it the time of day to do that), but will continue to solidify as extensions of the established political magnates.

I'm not in any way dismissing the folks who attend the convention or the rank-and-file organizers of the NHHPC so much as saying that the form of the organization itself inhibits and restricts activity of an independent nature.

Some of you may have read a piece I wrote a year ago, The Hip-Hop Organization is Nothing New. It isn't necessary to recount all the points made there since y'all can just read that. However, there is a missing component in that piece that surfaces in Davey D's review below and this is the aspect of funding.

So much of political activism today has been funneled into non-profit public service work that is funded by rich foundations. Politicized young people who want to organize around legitimate ills are drawn into non-profit work and inadvertently wind up doing the bidding of America's wealthy.

I highly recommend a book that a few us read over the Summer called "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded" which not only gives a nice introductory to the history of foundations which began as schisms for corporations to do business tax free, but also how they helped to co-opt independent political movements in the 1960s. A chapter in the book has an abridged chapter from Robert L. Allen's "Black Awakening in Capitalist America" that speaks particularly to the Ford Foundation's intervention in the Black Power movement.

Anyhow, the rest of Davey D's review, pure entertainment. The terms of the discussion is such a joke.*

--

http://globalgrind.com/source/blog.myspace.com/42286/wake-up-are-hip-hop-organizations-truly-effective

During the recently held National Hip Hop Political Convention in Las Vegas we had an explosive panel that addressed the issue of Electoral Politics and how they intersect with Hip Hop music and culture. We wound talking specifically about the impact or lack of impact Hip Hop organizations have on the voting process.

Sitting on this panel were the following people;

Rev Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus
Professor Lamont Hill of Fox news and Temple University
Tony Cani- Young Democrats
Honorable George Martinez of H2Ed and former elected Official & emcee
Rosa Clemente-Vice presidential candidate of the Green Party

This panel started off tame enough but then erupted and got somewhat contentious as the panelists started addressing some very hard and oftentimes difficult questions. around the role Hip Hop organizations play in mobilizing people around electoral politics.

A spirited discussion emerged about how we go about getting people politically engaged. Do we follow the model of having a high profile celebrity standing before the people hawking a cause or do we push for people to empower themselves by organizing block by block. There was enlightening back and forth between George Martinez and Rev Yearwood.

Yearwood heads up the Hip Hop Caucus and recently enlisted the aid of rapper T.I. and singer Keyisha Coles to do a big register and Get Out the Vote Campaign. Yearwood was also behind the Vote or Die campaign with P-Diddy. Yearwood talked about those campaigns and admitted that he had been approached about why he had not included lesser known artists like NY Oil or Immortal Technique who do the community work day in and day out . he said ideally he would like to see everyone involved.

George Martinez challenged the practicality of Rev Yearwood's methods. He called it a sham and said it was misleading. He said people need to be empowering themselves and that such methods are good for getting funding but not necessarily good or even needed to get someone into office.

Martinez noted that he was elected before there were any of these organizations came into existence. he said it's all about going block to block and locking things down that way. He insisted that if you aren't known on your block then you essentially aren't putting in work. he warned the audience to be wary of self appointed leaders who claim to rep for us while not putting in the work.

Yearwood felt it was unfortunate he and his organization was mischaracterized and that he was tired of hearing revolutionary rhetoric with no follow up from the people espousing it. He went on to emphasize that people are still dying in the streets and we have to reach them. He said he was about trying to reach his people to politicized them by any means necessary even it included using T.I. He said it was important that a felon like T.I. speak to the issue of voting because there are so many of us in our community who can relate.

Questions were raised about the impact funding has in allowing people to move forward or whether it compromised people to the wishes and agenda of the Democratic Party. This question was specifically addressed around the members of the newly formed Gen Vote and money from the Tide Foundation and its ties to the Democratic Party.

This led to deeper discussions around why so many within Hip Hop activism still dependent upon funding from foundations and why haven't business plans been hatched that would lead to true independence.

Another touchy issue that popped up was the lack of support from Hip Hop organizations for the Rosa Clemente's Vice Presidential candidacy. She pointed out that after years of complaining about not having our agenda being addressed and how the two political parties have all but abandoned our communities except when it comes to siphoning off votes, she was said there has been lack of support from the leadership of some of these Hip Hop organizations. She noted that this is not about Rosa Clemente but about the vessel she represents. She felt money and resources needs to be directed toward highlighting the 10 point platform of the Greens which includes Social Justice. That's an issue the two parties dare not touch.

Rosa also brought home the point about the unwillingness for many including those in progressive circles to accept female leadership. She pointed out how disappointing it was for her to be apart of the NHHPC for over 5 years and show up at a panel as important as this that only had one female. That scenario has got to change quick.

Professor Lamont Hill talked about how easy it is to dismiss Obama if you are a progressive and permanently position him as a tool of larger political interests. He said its real easy to dismiss voting for the Greens as a throwaway vote for MCcain. he stated that for the first time we have millions of people excited about an election and looking at issues. He said we can't afford to throw that away and that we should find ways to engage those folks who have come to politics through the Obama campaign.

He talked about the challenges many of us are facing in terms of raising money and being completely independent.

Tony Canti talked about the disastisfaction his group had with the democratic Party and how they broke off specifically so they can address key issues. However, he talked about how the electoral political process is a numbers game and that the game has got to be played in such a way that you make those numbers if the desired goal is to get someone into office where they can make key decisions.

Audience members like NY rap star NY Oil noted that part of the challenge we have is getting people to do diligence. he said far too many people go home after hearing all this information and never ever do their part.

My Job is Driving Me Crazy

So this isn’t explicitly hip-hop, but what with us being such big fans of The Office here at D&HHP, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to repost this article, “My Job is Driving Me Crazy.” It’s a review of NBC’s Thursday night lineup – My Name is Earl (which I haven’t watched), The Office, and 30 Rock (another pretty funny show).


The review draws some worthwhile conclusions. The author’s main argument is that these NBC shows are popular because they convey mass sentiments of alienation on the job. They mainly show people who are stuck in dead-end situations, alienated in their jobs (and personal lives), who try to get out but because of objective (and some subjective) reasons cannot. She compares this set of shows with an earlier era of NBC hits – Friends, Seinfeld, Frazier – which rarely showed people at work, or when they were shown at work, they seemed pretty fulfilled by their job, had jobs that combined mental and manual labor, were upwardly mobile, etc. That TV genre of the yuppified/self-absorbed/white gentrifiers living the Sex In The City fun life is on the decline, apparently.

The review misses a key factor in that it oversimplifies the layers that exist within the working class, and how it experiences and responds to alienation differently from how other classes do. The author, for instance, equates the alienation felt by Jack Donaghy, the CEO of 30 Rock, with that of Pam Beesly, the receptionist of The Office, and with that of Earl, the regularly unemployed character of My Name is Earl. How someone thinks about their labor and how their labor shapes their thinking necessarily depend on the social relations they experience at work, the type of labor they actually do, and how much control they have over it.

It's a dynamic that comes up in discussions about hip-hop. Without recognizing that there are layers within the working class then it’s difficult to understand why Kanye often raps about the hip-hop generation’s disillusionment with “higher” education and working at the Gap, why Eminem raps about sweeping floors at a Detroit factory, and why The Game can talk about “hoppin fences with the crack in my drawers.”

An important point that the review raises is how TV will have to respond to the economic crisis. Right now NBC can make shows about people’s alienation at work, but if the crisis continues and leads to more and more layoffs, higher unemployment, etc., will there be new kinds of popular culture to speak to that reality? Hip-hop, as we’ve often said here at D&HHP, has succinctly and thoroughly captured not only young folks and people of color’s dissatisfaction with work, but actually projects a rejection of work altogether, at least how it’s currently constituted. Will TV go so far? Can it?

*Reposting articles from other sources does not imply an endorsement of all the views or analysis of the piece*

"My Job is Driving Me Crazy" by Alyssa Rosenberg

Earl Hickey, Pam Beesly, Liz Lemon, and Jack Donaghy have next to nothing in common. They are, respectively, a small-time crook obsessed with heavy metal and karma, a receptionist with a flair for practical jokes, a TV writer unable to resist carbs, and a General Electric executive taken with the power of the market. But as the central characters in the three comedies that form the core of NBC's Thursday-night lineup, they have one thing in common: Their jobs are driving them crazy.

Since 1981, NBC has built a ratings juggernaut by wooing viewers on Thursday nights with the moral dilemmas of the cops on Hill Street Blues, the romantic misadventures of Fraiser Crane on Cheers and Fraiser, and the evolving hairstyles of Rachel Green on Friends. Especially in the 1990s, those so-called "must-see TV" shows were fantasies about hip (or in the case of Seinfeld, winningly eccentric) neighbors in New York or affluent life in Seattle. The characters' jobs hummed away steadily and reliably but solidly in the background: This was the middle of an economic boom, after all, and the characters could afford to focus on other things. The inevitable end of those super-shows forced the network to relinquish its "must see TV" crown in the ratings. But since 2006, NBC has re-emerged with a lineup of smaller -- but in some ways smarter -- shows: My Name Is Earl, The Office, both of which piloted in 2005, and 30 Rock, which started running in 2006 and begins its third season on Oct. 30.

These shows present a hilarious, depressing, and timely portrait of job dissatisfaction up and down the economic ladder. On each show, these main characters are trying to move up in the world: Earl seeks a return to respectability and steady work, Pam hopes to move into the creative class, Liz searches for financial security, and Jack aspires to the chairmanship of GE but dreams on occasion of escaping back to the working class. The shows all hint that if these upward moves are successful, the characters will be happier, and all of them take as a central assumption that the key to happiness is what you do from 9 to 5. But taken together, no matter where you work, "My Name Is Earl," "The Office," and "30 Rock" show you the alternatives to your job. And none of them are pretty.

Americans' love-hate relationship with their job isn't exactly a new subject for film or television. In Buster Keaton's classic 1927 silent movie, The General, the main character's job as a railroad engineer prevents him from enlisting in the Confederate Army, costing him his honor and his girl. More recently, 1990s comedies like Reality Bites (1994) and Office Space (1999) examine blue-collar, television, and software jobs, and find them not just wanting but soul-sucking.

Most of the time, though, escape is possible. You can redeem yourself by stealing a locomotive and sabotaging a Union Army advance if you're Johnny Gray (Keaton). You can break up with the guy who misrepresents your documentary and find true love and artistic integrity if you're Lelaina Pierce (Winona Ryder, Reality Bites). And if worse comes to worse, you can skip out, trash your fax machine, execute an embezzlement scheme, and finally, burn your office to the ground like the guys in Office Space. Even if work sucks, you're still the captain of your soul.

Not so for Earl Hickey (Jason Lee), the titular anti-hero of My Name Is Earl. An all-around bad citizen, Earl decides to mend his ways after he hits it big with a lottery scratch ticket and immediately loses the ticket in a car accident. Concluding that karma has it in for him, Earl makes a list of his misdeeds and sets out to correct them.

While he does get his scratch ticket back, Earl's quest for redemption meets with setbacks both small -- failing as a salesman -- and large -- Earl winds up in prison, after which it's difficult for him to readjust to civilian life.

My Name Is Earl is kind of funny, if white trash and heavy metal humor are your thing. But just as often, it's awkward. There's not a lot that's comfortable or entertaining about watching a grown man bomb a G.E.D. exam or make a titanic effort to close an appliance sale only to have a conniving salesman with a college degree steal it away from him. Earl's stint in jail might not exactly be Oz, but his post-prison problems are deadly serious both literally and figuratively (they land him in a coma), and they're a nod to 60 percent of ex-offenders who remain unemployed a year after their release from prison, and the 15 percent to 27 percent who end up in homeless shelters.

And while Earl's karma may weigh on him more heavily than our pasts do on us, the show has a point: It's hard to move up the class ladder and to escape the past of our work lives. The current season, which began on Sept. 25, returns Earl to his usual routine of reparations, but there are signs that he's moved up in the world, or at least is no longer crooked enough to be covered by the criminal code of ethics. "Nowadays, you fall more in the civilian/victim column of the ledger," declares a fellow criminal who steals Earl's car. It's in the show's interests to keep Earl from making it back respectability -- without his struggle, there are no episodes -- but he's not alone. With employment down in every sector of the economy except education and health services and government work, this is a bad time to try to move into a new industry, much less to move up in the world with a slim work and educational history.

Under these circumstances, it's not hard to understand why Earl might want to escape his past. But if the employees of the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company are any example, criminality might kill you fast, but boredom will take its time.

The Office, which debuted in the U.S. in 2005 and is modeled on a highly successful and acerbic British original, is the Bermuda Triangle of workplaces. It is a slightly enlarged but less-well lit version of the hotel rooms that make up hell in Sartre's No Exit. Work is sometimes, but mostly not, done, office romances form and break up, people crack their pelvises, get pregnant, and get busted for cocaine addiction and fraud, and yet no one ever leaves. Well, that's not entirely true, but the HR representative who quits to start life over again in Costa Rica breaks his neck on a malfunctioning zip line just days after arriving, so he doesn't get far.

The humiliations at Dunder Mifflin, mostly inflicted by clueless assistant manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) are myriad, and they take their toll.

"Yes, I am super-cool," accountant Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nuñez) declares, resigned, when a co-worker tells him she has underestimated him by assuming he was heterosexual. "I am an accountant at a failing paper supply company. In Scranton. Much like Sir Ian McKellan."

Such is the pull of The Office's gravity that it was both surprising and immensely gratifying at the end of season four when put-upon receptionist Pam Beesley, who has taken tentative steps toward improving her talent as an illustrator throughout the series, achieved escape velocity and headed off to New York to enroll in graphic design classes at the Pratt Institute.

Whether Pam actually claws her way into the creative class remains an open question, and one of the subjects of season five, which began on Sept. 25. Higher education and life in New York aren't cheap, and Pam, like grads with heavy debt who tell themselves they're just going into consulting/corporate law/investment banking until that debt is paid off, is back in the Dunder Mifflin family, working at headquarters when she’s not in classes to pay for her studies -- and still on call to Michael Scott. Sure, it's risky. Pam's giving up a steady job, albeit one that boasted boredom and border-line sexual harassment as its main benefits, to try her luck in the most expensive and competitive open market in the world. It's a decision lots of young Americans, accustomed to moving from job to job in search of satisfaction, may find increasingly difficult as the economy sours. But if she does find work in the arts, Pam will have arrived in the same universe, if not on the same planet, as 30 Rock 's Elizabeth Lemon (Tina Fey).

Liz is the harried creator and head writer of an NBC comedy show and proof that even if you can escape the buffoonery of a Michael Scott, someone like Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) will still be calling the shots. Liz's world is disrupted when Jack, who sees the show-within-a-show's success as simply one more step toward his eventual goal of running General Electric, saddles her with a wildly erratic movie star, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and demands she start writing sketches about GE products and making the show more palatable to advertisers.

"This is my show, and once a week I rent it out to the good people of the erectile dysfunction companies," he informs her.

In some respects, Liz's writers' room looks a lot like the Scranton branch. Her employees are lazy and disrespectful, though at least they are creative about it, whether faking illiteracy to get out of rehearsal ("I can't read! I sign my name with an X! I once tried to make mashed potatoes with laundry detergent! I think I voted for Nader! NADER!") or "[calling] in sick with March Madness."

But Liz isn't even rewarded for her troubles with financial security. She is, viewers learn in the second season, one of the 40 percent of Americans who don't have a 401(k), and she has some of the $500 billion in student-loan debt Americans have accumulated. "It is outstanding!" she chirps nervously, when asked about her debt in a condo board interview.

"I have to do that thing that rich people do where they turn money into more money," Liz declares in a panic, after an encounter with her role model, 1970s comedy writer Rosemary Howard (Carrie Fisher), now living in a New York slum nicknamed Little Chechnya. It is that realization of her own insecurity, topped with a healthy dollop of resignation that drives Liz into an uneasy alliance and friendship with Jack, even temporarily accepting his offer to make her his successor.

But as Jack makes his way up the corporate ladder, it becomes clear that he envies Liz and the actors. "I'm not a creative type like you, with your work sneakers and left-handedness," he laments after an NBC special he designs goes disastrously wrong. The corporate struggle claims Jack's competitors ("The head of the stress ball division hanged himself!"), and he takes to meeting his girlfriend, a Democratic congresswoman (Edie Falco) in an off-track betting parlor in Pennsylvania coal country to fantasize about running a farm stand. When they break up, he commiserates over a beer with a preteen miner. And when his rival cheats him out of the GE chairmanship, Jack heads off for the grimmest workplace of them all: the Department of Homeland Security.

In the new season, Jack returns to GE to work his way back up from the mail room to the executive suite, and Liz's struggles with her job expand as she tries to prove she can balance work and parenting so she'll be approved as an adoptive parent. Despite all their jobs have put them through -- whether Liz is convincing Tracy to share the royalties from his porn video game, or Jack is slow-dancing with the CEO's unicorn-obsessed daughter to win a promotion -- they never give up on the belief that all roads to happiness run through 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

Individually, My Name Is Earl, The Office, and 30 Rock are entertaining, and sometimes transcendently funny. Taken together, they're often uproarious, even though their overall prognosis for future happiness at work is grim. But at a time when jobs at every level of the economy are at risk, and when leaving a secure job in search of greater fulfillment has the potential to be a fool's errand, it's good to know that whether crook or C.E.O., receptionist or writer, on Thursday nights on NBC, we all thank God it's Friday.

Alyssa Rosenberg is a staff correspondent at Government Executive where she covers the federal work force. She writes regularly for National Journal and The New Republic.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=my_job_is_driving_me_crazy

Is Russell Simmons Playing Politics With Hip-Hop?

The below article from Alexander Billet, appearing on Dissident Voice, is a refusal to collapse into the white supremacist discourse about hip-hop that is so pervasive today and that many hip-hop intellectuals themselves have fallen victim to. While some have attempted to defend against the deafening screams of hip-hop's so-called depravity by pointing to official, mainstream culture that is guilty of the same, Billet takes this defense to its conclusion by pointing to the opportunistic and class basis of hip-hop's attack instead of just hurling it back.

While we have a couple of nuanced differences, we echo many of the article's sentiments and are glad to find an important buoy of anti-racism in the ongoing discussion of what hip-hop means for our generation, a discussion that by and large does not include us. But we give him the benefit of the doubt in that the article is almost a couple of years old.

In the works is a piece on hip-hop and patriarchy that aims to deal with much of the points that emerge in the article below.

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It’s hard to know what to think about Russell Simmons’ recent announcement about checking the content of hip-hop. There is no denying that most of us would like the words “bitch,” “ho,” and “nigger” to disappear from the English lexicon entirely. But alas, the situation is much more complicated than that. On the one hand, it is true that sexism and homophobia abound in not just rap but popular culture as a whole. On the other, there is a need to defend the music against those who denounce it for political gain.

And on yet a third hand (or maybe a foot), we have the context of the announcement: in midst of a backlash against the glorious sacking of Don Imus.

Apples and Oranges

To be clear, Imus’ supposed defense that he was merely repeating the “language” in hip-hop is the biggest pile of crap since… well, his show. Hip-hop is a response to the long-term degradation of blacks and other oppressed peoples in the United States. Like all music it is flawed, but like no other genre it remains a mirror held up to the worst ills in American society. Imus, on the other hand, is a mouthpiece for maintaining those ills. A well-paid veteran broadcaster, he has spent the past twenty-plus years calling Arabs rag-heads, gay men faggots, and black women “cleaning ladies.” He brought his producer on board because he liked “nigger jokes.” And all the while he has interviewed the most high-profile politicians, media moguls and millionaires on his show. Imus and hip-hop are in completely different leagues.

Furthermore, to say that sexism is somehow unique to rap is laughable. Listen to anything by Merle Haggard or Ted Nugent, the Rolling Stones’ “Cat Scratch Fever,” or the hit from Fountains of Wayne “Stacy’s Mom” (whose video featured a stereotypical “MILF” parading around in stripper gear) and one might get a good idea of how rife so-called “white” music is with misogyny.

But the twisted logic of this defense seems to have soaked well past Imus himself. Barack Obama (whose own role in assuaging white liberal guilt becomes bigger and bigger every day) made it clear which side he stood on with his comments last week: “We’ve got to admit to ourselves that it was not the first time that we heard the word ‘ho.’ Turn on the radio station. There are a whole lot of songs that use the same language and we’ve been permitting it in our homes, in our schools, and on iPods.” So, Barack, how long until you revive the PMRC?

It is the same kind of bootstrap rhetoric we’ve been hearing from Obama since day one. It’s the kind of talk that bolsters the idea that racism doesn’t exist, and blacks are only poor because they’re lazy and self-loathing. When Obama spends more time talking about “getting Uncle Jethro off the couch” than he does about Hurricane Katrina, any criticism he may have of hip-hop should be put on mute.

Muddying the Message

Enter Russell Simmons. At times, his own defense of hip-hop has been eloquent and prescient. His response to Obama provided a glimpse into the nature of this debate: “People who are angry… and come from tremendous struggle; they have poetic license, and when they say things that offend you, you have to talk about the conditions that create those kinds of lyrics. When you are talking about a privileged man who has a mainstream vehicle and mainstream support and is on a radio station like that you have to deal with them differently.”

Yet less than a week later, Simmons and his Hip-hop Summit Action Network announces it is launching a campaign to better the content of Simmons’ own Def Jam recordings. In particular, he wants to crack down on the use of the words “ho,” “bitch,” and “nigger.” Though a dialogue about such a thing is welcome, it should be initiated by the artists themselves, not by a label owner. When it is initiated by someone in Simmons’ position, and at a time such as this, one wonders if this “discussion” is happening because of a genuine need, or rather because of pressure from the same people who are threatened by hip-hop’s very existence.

First of all, neither Obama, Oprah, or any of the more right wing figures diverting the issue seem to know anything about hip-hop. One wonders why there is no mention of the socially hard-hitting rhymes of The Roots, Common or Talib Kweli. Or even some of the more conscious (if still contradictory) mainstream joints coming from the likes of Nas or Kanye West.

Perhaps it’s because there are those who have made billions off marketing rap’s worst elements, while downplaying its long history of being a forum to speak out on inequality and poverty. Ever since Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” first hit the airwaves, the likes of MTV, BET and Clear Channel have sought ever more effective methods of making rap marketable by dumbing it down. That’s called exploitation.

Hip-hop historian Jeff Chang illustrated such marketing patterns with the example of Nas’ Stillmatic in a 2002 article. Though the album was full of protests against war and racism in the post-9/11 world, it also included songs with homophobic language chronicling his beef with Jay-Z. Needless to say, the latter got the airplay, but the former was ignored.

It’s All About the Cheddar

Given this, it is questionable how much Simmons himself will actually be able to change. He may have direct control over the content that his own label puts out, but Def Jam is still subject to the same market principles as any other major record label. With Clear Channel having a strangle-hold on radio airplay, and likewise with MTV on television, will Simmons’ efforts make a difference?

An MC friend of mine from Baltimore recently pointed out that Simmons lives in a very different world than most of the acts on his label. Despite his admirable record on civil rights issues, Simmons’ more recent behavior may indicate somewhat of a shift. Many progressive hip-hop fans were dismayed when he endorsed Maryland’s Republican Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele for Senate last election. When he received criticism for organizing a tour through Africa with DeBeers Jewelers, Simmons responded that there is too much focus on conflict diamonds.

Might his endorsement of Steele be just the beginning? Might this announcement be more than a publicity stunt, but a concession to Obama and the likes? Is it possible that beneath his progressive image, Simmons is attempting to buddy up to this country’s heavy-hitting politicos?

Only time will tell, but there is a bigger problem. In making this announcement about hip-hop’s content now, in the context of a backlash in response the Imus firing, Simmons’ concession seems to say that the two are linked. They aren’t. Worse still, Simmons’ action opens the door for those who want to do away with not just the “sexist” or “misogynistic” elements, but hip-hop altogether. John McWhorter of the conservative Manhattan Institute has stated he makes no distinction between “conscious” rap and “gangsta” rap. He sees both as violent and depraved. When it comes down to it he would also probably like to squash the art form altogether. Simmons’ has now opened the door to McWhorter’s arguments.

The Imus scandal should be an opportunity to talk about the very real racial and gender inequality in this country. It should be the chance to ask why women make 75 cents to men’s dollar. To ask why more black men are in prison than college, and why the NYPD thought it necessary to pump fifty rounds into Sean Bell’s car. Instead, the debate has shifted to all the flaws in black culture, and has merely reinforced the double standard that “white” culture simply isn’t held up to. Where will Russell Simmons taken the debate? Only time will tell, but it doesn’t look promising.

Some new posts from our friends

Alex at Rebel Frequencies put up a video from a young British rapper I like very much, Dizzee Rascal. Dizzee was interviewed on a British news show for his perspective on the recent Obama election. At one point, he is asked if he believes in British political parties; a silly ass question that got a silly ass reply, "Yeah, they exist. I believe in them." But for Dizzee, change is a force brought by common people, not traditional politics. And he insists upon the influence that hip-hop culture has in the world and how it manifested in Obama's victory.

I couldn't agree more with Alex for his criticism of the bourgie white journalist who has the audacity to ask Dizzee if he considers himself British. A nice way to make a racist jab through political correctness.



On the flip, Hip Hop On My Mind posted a blog this week about XXL's 1998 photo shoot by Gordon Parks recreating the Jazz Legends image of 1958, only with hip-hop artists. Additionally, there's several videos with interviews of the artists including that of a young Mos Def. It's funny watching it because some of the folks in attendance were obviously invited on the strength of a new single. So you got Chicago's Crucial Conflict (HEEEYYYYYYYY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARK!!), Queen Pen, and a few others that if I had to hedge my bets, would not be invited back since they've done nothing since.

1998 wasn't that long ago, but I don't think they could do this again. It isn't necessarily because there isn't enough "hip-hop unity", but because hip-hop has expanded by leaps and bounds in the last ten years and has become very diffuse. Not only that, but the generational gap has widened so that there is lots of animosity usually coming from the old school towards new artists, especially those in the South. I mean, can you imagine Lil Wayne, The Game, Kanye, T.I., and 50 lampin with Rakim and Slick Rick, let along Kid Creole or Kool Herc? Maybe this is a stretch, but there was a part in the clip where the interviewer asks Rakim if he likes the direction hip-hop was going then and he responded positively. I highly doubt his response would be positive today considering how new hip-hop is hated on so hard by the old school. The VH1 Hip-Hop Honors may contradict my point, but people gotta put on a nice face for these kind of things.

Let's not forget that this "unity" image took place after the decline of the old coastal hip-hop and the rise of the South, Puffy, and bling-bling.

Not as a way to enshrine the b-boy, but to demonstrate the possibilities of humankind...

This is one of me and LBoogie's favorite videos.

"Why Not?" Hip-Hop Moves Forward After Presidential Elections

It seems to hold pretty much across the board that hip-hop will never be the same after Obama's victory last Tuesday. While many (not all...the "no excuses" refrain is being sung out louder than ever now) agree that the fundamental social and political problems that inform hip-hop have not changed with Obama's election, the energy and activity that has broadly sprung up around the election are charting a new course that is as yet undecided.

The article below attempts to take up some preliminary questions raised in the aftermath of last week: in what new ways is hip-hop understanding race and class in the U.S.? What will be the relationship of the hip-hop generation to Obama's presidency? What do the ideas of different political tendencies, as represented by the likes of Al Sharpton or Chuck D, spell out for how hip-hop should relate to Obama? Will hip-hop organize all the energy it has accrued on a path independent from Obama or will these other forces attempt to make it an appendage of his presidency?

The article, "Barack Obama, First President to Come of Age in Hip-Hop Era", describes some of the debates around these issues:

Though many older activists didn't believe Obama could win the presidency, convinced that his race was too big of a barrier, the "hip-hop generation said, 'Why not?'" [Russell] Simmons said. "It's like when Run-DMC first appeared on MTV. There really hadn't been any black artists on MTV offering a real depiction of inner-city life, and hip-hop broke that barrier. Hip-hop's attitude has always been, 'Why not?'"

But activist Rev. Al Sharpton told the Tribune Obama's victory will force hip-hop to change its tune. "You can't be using the 'b' word, the 'n' word, the 'h' word when you have Barack Obama redefining overnight the image that black people want to have. Here's the greatest political victory in the history of black America, and the thug rappers can't come near it. They will have to change or become irrelevant."

Simmons says that's hogwash. "Young people will use their language the way they want," he said. "If it's in their heart, they will express it."

To read the entire article, go here.

In defense of hip-hop by Charles Stephens

I found an article this evening that I wanted to republish here. I emailed the author, but it came back undeliverable. This is what I wrote:

Mr. Stephens,

It seems we missed each other by nearly six years. I just had the pleasure to read an article you wrote for the Signal in 2003 on hip-hop and I must say I agree with most if not all of it. Had I read it when it was written, I would have diverged sharply from your perspective, but I have changed a lot since then.

I have been publishing a hip-hop blog, Democracy and Hip-Hop, since 2006 and much of our stance is parallel to yours as you present it in your article. Among hip-hop intellectuals (including writers), this is a view that is becoming more and more marginal, partially due to the fact that an older generation is losing its appreciation for the new forms that hip-hop manifests and so they fall into the role typical of intellectuals; serving as a mouthpiece for capitalism and white supremacy and officialdom in general.

Perhaps this email is no longer functional, but I wanted to try anyhow, because I'm going to post it on our blog today. The URL is www.democracyandhiphop.org. Feel welcome to leave a follow-up comment on where you may have changed or what you may have not included in the original. I also encourage you to participate further by commenting on other posts with our readership.

Thanks for your contributions. We need more of it.

Sincerely,

KOOL DJ R.E.B.E.L.

I get really offended when people attack hip-hop culture, specifically rap music. However, what they fail to recognize is that the very things they find undesirable in rap music are the same things existent everywhere else in society. Rap music just clarifies it.

For example, one common attack that is waged against rap music is its violence. There is too much talk about guns, killing, murders, and so on. Rap music has become synonymous with violence, in the same way young men of color have become associated with being perpetrators of violence.

My concern about rap music and hip-hop culture being exemplary of violence and crime is that it is unjust. There are plenty of television shows that visually produce what is merely narrated in some rap songs, yet the same association is not made. In fact, the "gangsta" genre, is merely one facet of a very convoluted cultural form.

One has to wonder why is it so easy to associate rap music, and not primetime television, with violence. Could it be that rappers look one way while the characters on "The Shield", "NYPD Blue", or "Law and Order" look another way? It's interesting how it's easy to generalize rap as violent, but primetime television -- in spite of its violence -- is not targeted the same way or with as much abhorrence.

I also want to deal with sexism in rap music. Rap has become the model of misogyny in many cases. That is not to say that rap music does not contain sexism. But how many action films are out there where women are not brutalized, beaten up, killed and raped (and if she is lucky a man will come along and rescue her)? Lets face it, Bruce Willis is not called to the carpet the same way Tupac was.

This may seem hard to believe but 50 Cent, though his name might be misleading, is not the one that keeps women making 75 cents for every dollar a man makes. It is not Eminem who has the power to strike down a woman's right to abortion, and the list can go on.

I am not saying that rappers do not influence their audience, but they don't any more than any other cultural form.

Another question that should be raised is: why is it that rap music is talked about and challenged aside from the misogyny and sexism that exists in the rest of society? My suspicion is racism. It is always easiest to blame those with the least power as being responsible for the conditions that are not their doing. Sure, rappers re-circulate sexist and homophobic ideals and beliefs, but they were not the ones who began it, nor are they the ones who maintain it.

That is not to say they should not be held accountable, but certainly no more than any other cultural form. Even if Eminem became a gay rights activist tomorrow, the mistreatment of gays would continue. Ending homophobia and sexism begins with the state, not its manifestations.

My perspective is this: rap music is a narrative; it tells a story. With any other story, some elements are autobiographical or completely made up, and some are spiced up to add excitement, but most of its fabricated to win over the audience. We are also looking for our cultural forms to do the job our educational institutions should be doing. Instead of worrying about Eminem using the word "f-ggot," you should be asking why your child goes to a school that teaches literature, history, and social science without mentioning the word gay or feminist. Rather than focusing exclusively on what is being said, one should be concerned as well with what is not being said.

http://media.www.gsusignal.com/media/storage/paper924/news/2003/04/29/Perspectives/In.Defense.Of.HipHop-1759830.shtml

Hip-Hop, Obama, and Black Power by Matt Hamilton

Matt Hamilton is a school teacher and activist in the Seattle area and a close friend. He wrote this piece for contribution to D&HHP after the victory of the Obama campaign and the hip-hop generation's immediate response. Additionally, it hits on some of the contradictions within this generation as he has witnessed it as well as how it manifests in the music.

This past week has been pretty emotional for me and it's definitely been a learning experience. I wasn't surprised by how people have reacted to Obama's victory, but at the same time I was overwhelmed by the electricity in the air as we sat with folks from our anti-war group Democracy Insurgent watching Barack's speech and youth from the neighborhood were out on a usually desolate street drinking and shouting "Obama!"

The campaign has been a learning experience for me as a young teacher. We're finishing up the quarter at school, and my students are writing essays comparing their own lives to the life of the Black Power insurgent George Jackson, who we learned about through the film Black August and one of his prison letters from Soledad Brother. It is inspiring to see how universal the experience of Black Power really is, not only for the Black students but also for others. One Persian student just wrote a touching essay comparing Jackson's struggle to her own family's struggle growing up as Baha'i in Iran. Most of the students of color have responded positively to the themes of Black Power, people of color unity, and Jackson's transformation and self-education, what he calls the "transformation of the Black criminal mindset into a Black revolutionary mindset." For youth who have robbed and dealt to get by, who have been beaten by cops, and who have spent time in prison, this meant a lot.

At the same time, I had some trouble making links between this history and the struggle today. At one point, I was trying to set the desktop background of one of the computers to a picture of George Jackson. One Black student was like, "that guy is OLD, he's been dead a long time. Let's put up someone from our generation." Some people wanted to put up Lil' Wayne, and others wanted to put up Obama. To some degree, that in and of itself captures where we're at as a generation.

I tried to wrap up the unit by talking about what we can do now to fight back against the attacks the students had been venting about all quarter: police brutality, rich white people displacing their families from the part of the neighborhood that used to be the projects, and attacks on immigrants. Some of them came up with inspiring responses, talking about organizing, bringing different communities together, etc. Others were like "we're too young, there's nothing we can do about it, the cops want to kill us, our parents blame us for being out in the streets in the first place, and Asian kids, Black kids, and Latinos aren't gonna suddenly unite, we're each doing our own thing." I tried to emphasize that the people who lead the civil rights movement weren't much older than them and that unity takes struggles to build. One student responded by saying that all of that was a different generation and it can't be repeated. I was like, "yeah, we gotta do our own thing now, not repeat the past. All I'm saying though is if they could do what they did, think about what we can do." His response was "what our generation can do is smoke dro!" I can't stand it when conservative people chalk up comments like this to the supposed apathy and selfishness of the Hip Hop Generation. But I was still disappointed. People struggled hard so we'd even be able to study Black history and this dude's just flippant about it.

But it's more complicated than that. The same student who made that comment has been bumping Young Jeezy's "My President is Black" every morning and he'll shout out "Obama!" and make the Black Power salute at random times during the school day. Young Jeezy's chorus is: "My president is Black, my lambo's blue, and I'll be goddamned if my rims ain't too." He cites Jackie Robinson, Booker T Washington, and Obama and then says "but I'm important too, I'm the first person to drive through my hood in a Lamborghini."

Is Young Jeezy saying the same shit we've heard over and over again, that anyone can make it in America if you just work hard or exploit someone else? Does this play into the hands of the white racists who are already covering the internet with bullshit about how Obama's victory last night was the last nail in racism's coffin because it proves Black people can live the American Dream? Or, is it (also?) something deeper.... a rejection of poverty and sacrifice, and a sense that the wealth all around us that OUR people have sweated through history to make, should be in OUR hands too? That we should be able to celebrate and enjoy life without having to slave away in some factory for four generations before we can take a breath and say "I made it."

If it is this latter point, like the folks at D&HHP have been saying, then it could eventually evolve into an insurgent refusal to accept the discipline of the workplace and traditional classroom, and a desire to directly seize and share the wealth, to make a revolution that could be a celebration of life. Maybe this is what Obama represents right now for the Hip Hop Generation. When folks see him standing in front of a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people accepting the nomination after rising from obscurity only a few years ago, they identify with him just like they identify with rappers who shout variations on the theme of "Birthdays were the worst days… now we sip champagne when we're thirsty." Youth who are proud of Obama don't necessarily have any pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps illusions about America, they just want that kind of respect and recognition and are willing to live vicariously through Barack for a little while before they return to the drudgery and the danger of everyday life.

Sure, Obama and Young Jeezy might encourage some folks to overestimate what people of color can actually get through the American system. But does this mean that people shouldn't dream? Does this mean that when a black kid in the ghetto says to his mom "I want to be president someday" that she should say "son that will never happen because we're broke, the cops want to kill you, and white people hate you"? For sure, folks are going to get disillusioned when they find out that Obama might sell them out, that he won't intervene when the cops go wild on the next Black youth they kill, he won't intervene when white supremacists attack day labor centers, he won't intervene as New Orleans and Detroit continue to crumble. A lot of working class youth of color who are supporting Obama already know this. They're not stupid and they can see more clearly than some of the middle class folks who are more giddy than realistically hopeful about this moment.

I had my students do a free write responding to the question: "how will having a Black president change YOUR life? " Almost all of them said that Obama is inspiring and he could help them fight racism. But some said that Klan and Nazi attacks could increase with him in office and we need to be on guard to defend our communities. Someone else said Obama never had to go through what they've had to go through and he may not understand their struggles. And someone else said that Obama could change if the power goes to his head. Nas's bridge in "My President is Black" says the same thing : "Gotta stay true to who you are and where you came from, 'cuz at the top will be the same place you hang from." But at the same time, this realistic assessment of Obama's limitations doesn't prevent folks from celebrating Obama's victory, this moment in history, and this moment in our own lives. If this desire for recognition and celebration runs deep, it will find other channels, focused less on Obama and more on our own activity, our own power, our own culture, and the political organizations we can build.

There are realistic grounds for hope, not so much in Obama but in the people who elected him. Some of my students were out in the crowd celebrating the victory in downtown Seattle last night. They were excited by the fact that it was Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and whites partying all together. You saw the same thing on TV at Grant Park in Chicago. It is immediately obvious that the crowd at McCain's concession speech was a bunch of old white people and the crowd at Obama's victory rally was larger, younger, and more multiracial than just about any crowd gathered at any political event in the US during these past 35 years of reactionary political winter in America.

This multiracial sensibility is contradictory. On the one hand, the new ruling class coalition that is forming with Obama at the lead will use it to reinforce white supremacy. They'll say, look, racism is dead and America is perfect, so next time youth of color rise up and express their grievances don't listen to them, they're just whining. If people respond to the economic crisis with increased rebelliousness, Obama might even come out and say "I am Black, I feel your pain, I know what struggle is like, but work with me and let me help you". He could say this to buy time while he gets more cops on the streets to crack people's heads open if they step out of line.

Even more dangerous, you already hear in the media how having a Black president will really help the US's foreign policy. The US Empire is facing growing challenges across the world, from Latin America to the Middle East. For one, people of color abroad are reasonably asking why they should let themselves be subordinated to a country that treats its own citizens of color like animals. But Barack can try to present the US as a multicultural utopia where everyone is equal; THIS vision of democracy might be easier to sell in order to justify occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, invading Pakistan, and propping up Israeli apartheid.

Multiculturalism from above is just another form of white supremacy. But multiculturalism from below is everyday people's real desires to live with each other as neighbors and to help each other deal with the problems we all face. The fact that so many Asian, Latino, and Arab folks identify with Obama shows that it's not just a Black and white thing; Obama's Blackness to some degree represents the possibility of a more complex America. This is the America that has always existed at revolutionary moments like the abolitionist movement or the grassroots "Rainbow Coalition" that began to unite Black, Asian, American Indian, and Chicano movements in the late 60s. This is an America that has always existed in our popular language and our popular culture, which has never been really "white" and has always been, as Albert Murray put it, "incontestably mulatto." And today, this is an America that is thriving in Hip Hop.

Right now the white working class is at a major historical crossroads, where it has to decide whether it wants to be part of this America. The old deal was the nation would remain a white country and white workers would receive certain material benefits for being part of the ruling caste as long as they in turn gave up any hopes of class struggle. Being white meant they'd be LESS poor than Black people, not rich. For a long time they were told they have more in common with the white boss who was screwing them over than their Black or Latino coworker. But this social contract is breaking down as millions of white workers in places like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are laid off and thrown into poverty. Their kids are facing many of the same issues that my students are facing, from drugs to gangs to prison to suicide. Will they keep trying to solve their problems on their own as alienated white individuals or will they link up with people of color who are trying to fight back?

Meanwhile, the Neo-Nazis and other white populists want to swoop into their towns to rebuild the white race and blame their economic woes on people of color. Palin and McCain tapped this sentiment too by rallying up fear against Obama , calling him a terrorist, and suggesting he's a Black chauvinist who will never understand people like Joe the Plumber.

It didn't work. The election showed that the majority of white workers are not swinging to the right in a last ditch effort to save their relative privileges. Instead, they're looking for something new, even if this means working with people of color. Now this doesn't mean that all of the sudden the majority of white workers became anti-racist. For sure, many are still clinging to white supremacist ideas, and might be looking at Obama as the "exception to his race." And a dangerous minority might pull to the radical far right, throw McCain's relative caution to the wind, and start a program of violent attacks against people of color. We need to be more on guard about this than ever now that there is no longer a Bush or McCain around to co-opt these populist forces into "legal" white supremacist channels. But Obama's victory shows that we can look for allies among some layers of the white working class. Obama simply could not have won Pennsylvania or Ohio if the majority of white workers were in the process of becoming fascists.

Some white workers may have voted for Obama despite the fact that he is Black but a potentially powerful layer of them, especially youth, voted for him BECAUSE he is Black. This is a major historical change, and it has a lot to do with the shifting identities of the Hip Hop generation. The key now is to encourage these youth to identify with anti-racist struggles that communities of color are waging at a level that goes beyond symbolism and culture and involves real political commitment.

In any case, it is becoming clear to millions that the Hip Hop Generation has built an unprecedented multiracial culture that has the power to remake America. Like Young Jeezy, many of us are "Stuntin' on Martin Luther, feelin' just like a king. Guess this is what he meant when he said that he had a dream." But we've only inherited and amplified the contradictions of a multi-racial America. Will the culture of the millions of youth who are claiming Obama become a new justification for white supremacy and US Empire? Or will it evolve into a devastating new challenge to these decrepit institutions, a challenge that could sweep aside Barack Obama and give us hundreds of thousands of new "firsts" and "historical moments" that we ourselves will make?

-Matt H.

When philosophy leaves the realm of intellectuals...

and expresses the subjectivity of ordinary people, it sounds like this:

from the character "DJay", Hustle & Flow, 2005.

"See...

...man ain't like a dog.

And when I say "man,"

I'm talking about man
as in mankind, not man as in men.

Because men,

well, we a lot like a dog.

You know, we like to piss on things.

Sniff a bitch when we can.

Even get a little pink hard-on
the way they do.

We territorial as shit, you know,
we gonna protect our own.

But man...

...he know about death.

Got him a sense of history.

Got religion.

See...

...a dog...

Man, a dog don't know shit
about no birthdays or Christmas

or Easter bunny, none of that shit.

And one day
god gonna come calling,

so, you know,
they going through life carefree.

But people like you and me, man,
we always guessing.

Wondering, "What if?"
You know what I mean?

So when you say to me,

"Hey, I don't think
we should be doing this,"

I gotta say, baby, I don't think
we need to be doing this neither,

but we ain't gonna get no move on
in this world, lying around in the sun,

licking our ass all day.

I mean, we man.

I mean, you a woman and all,
but we man.

So with this said...

...you tell me what it is
you wanna do with your life."

*************

"Dig this right here, man.

One day, this whole motherfucking
place is gonna be gone.

This club, this city, man.

This whole U.S. Of A., man,
is just gonna turn to dust, right?

And a whole new civilization
is gonna rise from this one.

And they gonna start digging,
you know.

They gonna dig up
the pyramids over in Egypt.

They gonna dig up the Eiffel Tower,

Statue of Liberty and the Empire State.

But if a nigga
wanna know about me?

Wanna know about Memphis?

All they gotta do is find your
first underground tape, nigga.

North Third Thugs. Motherfuck it,
man. That was the shit."

"You know, I cut that shit in my
own mama's laundry room, man.

Boy, it was raw as hell,

but I put everything I had
into that shit, man."

"Yeah, but see, to me that was a sign
of your genius, you know?

See, because it's not enough
for a man to climb Mount Everest.

You know, he gotta do that shit
with the least amount of tools.

- It's about the man. One man.
- One man and his skiIIs.

Like the samurai say, "The sword is
only as powerful as its master."

And it ain't the size
of the dog in the fight, it's the size

- of the fight in the dog, nigga.
- Of the fight in the dog."