We have to apologize for leaving this blog idle for longer than two weeks. We're in the middle of a move and have had to place blogging on the back burner for the present moment. No worries; we will return before the whirlwind; unless, of course, the whirlwind comes within the month, in which case we'll be delighted to be proven wrong.
Over the last couple of weeks, Alex Billet from Rebel Frequencies has written a series of posts on the late Michael Jackson. These writings attempt to embrace the totality of an artist and a human being that is beyond the scope of mainstream discussion. His narrative of not only Jackson's musical contributions but their social and political significance is sorely missed and warrants broader discussion.
Alex Billet on Michael Jackson
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Alex Billet on Michael Jackson
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Real Live "The Turnaround" 1996
“The Turnaround,” Real Live’s (K-Def and Larry-O) one and only album, is a brilliant slice of mid-90s New York Boom Bapism. It would easily be dismissed with the generic “gangsta rap” label by liberal white racists and even those who walk the uneven line between classic rap and “conscious” rap, uncomfortable with its violent disposition.
It probably had little to do with promotion and more about Boom Bap’s descent into obscurity that Real Live’s album never garnered significant attention. Of course, we’re talking about a very short period of two to three years; after all, Biggie’s “Ready To Die” has to have been the most sought after and notable Boom Bap album ever–and it was released in 1994. But we should remember that by late 1996, when “The Turnaround” debuted, the East Coast was losing it’s homogeneity both due to the rise of producer Swizz Beatz who broke with every convention of traditional New York hip-hop, and the ascendency of New Orleans rap which, while taking some influence from West Coast G-Funk, eventually absorbed it.
Real Live unfortunately caught it on the down slide.
“The Turnaround” plays like a noir film; the beats are dark and congruous with the lyrics which revolve around gun play and substance distribution. Larry-O hurls visceral and articulate lyrics that are as cold as a Charles Dickens novel in winter and would make any Carlton urinate himself. “I’ve seen dice games turn into Helter Skelter.” His voice is deep, but he has no need to yell. K-Def’s ominous but rich compositions makes ironic the typical musical simplicity of Boom Bap beats. So complete yet so consistent. One would think he was producing from a lectern–”cue the violins, cue the bass drums”–instead of a producer’s chair.
My introduction to them came the same way I was introduced to most artists of that era: Rap City. It was too bad that I never got to hear their entire album until last week, when my partner Luke mailed me a copy.
They will remain as obscure as they were when they surfaced, for reasons chiefly beyond their control, but this album is a must-listen. This isn’t post-Boom Bap Boom Bap that insists on calling itself Boom Bap and where, as K’Naan says, “underground rappers rap about rapping.” The stories are familiar, but they are told in a way that clearly makes the distinction between a story teller and one who tells stories. Larry-O is the former. K-Def proves that Boom Bap production is an art, not just a few audio tracks behind an MC. These two artists are complementary; they mutually nurture each other.
Hip-hop’s greatest strength is its democracy, but democracy isn’t antagonistic to talent. And talent is clearly the red thread through “The Turnaround.”
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
"Catch Dat Beat" Review
A few weeks back, we posted info about a play debuting in N.O. called Catch Dat Beat. Here is a review of the play recently written by Jordan Flaherty, local activist, journalist, and editor of Left Turn Magazine.
Catch Dat Beat
A New Play Celebrates Bounce Music and New Orleans’ Culture
Big Freedia, A Gay Rapper who is one of the City’s Rising Stars, Leaves Crowds Screaming for More
By Jordan Flaherty
Catch Dat Beat, a unique, only-in-New-Orleans theatrical event, played for one weekend last month at Ashe Cultural Arts Center. It sold out its several hundred seats every night and will re-open in June at a bigger venue, a 900-plus seat auditorium at Walter L. Cohen High School. The play, directed by music producer Lucky Johnson, features several local Hip-Hop performers and has left crowds screaming for more. An up-and-coming rapper named Big Freedia steals the show in the lead role.
Tall and self-assured, Freedia is a powerful performer and brings an undeniable energy to the play. During rehearsals, says Lucky, “when Freedia comes in, the cast lights up, and everyone does their best.” Freedia is best known as part of a community of gay rappers self-identified as sissy bounce artists. She rejects that label, saying, “I’m a gay rapper, don’t get me wrong. But there’s no such thing as separating it into straight bounce and sissy bounce. It’s all bounce music.”
Bounce is the name given to the style of New Orleans Hip-Hop recognized for a distinctive beat and call-and-response lyrical style that owes much to Mardi Gras Indians and other local cultural traditions. Although not widely listened to outside of the south, bounce dominates New Orleans clubs, and is so identified with the poor neighborhoods of the city, it’s sometimes called “project music.”
“When you hear bounce,” says Lucky, people in a club go wild. “They just forget about it. They throw their hands up in the air, they catch the wall.” However you label Freedia’s music, she is one of several gay rappers who have broken down barrier after barrier to become some of New Orleans’ most popular musicians.
Spreading New Orleans Culture
Catch Dat Beat attempts to spread the love of bounce, and it proves infectious. The play advertises that it has no profanity or “obscene body gestures,” (a challenge, when capturing the bounce experience, which often involves a lot of both). Lucky Johnson is a cousin of popular director/actor Tyler Perry, and like a Tyler Perry script, Catch Dat Beat has positive characters and an accessible story. The basic story follows a hair stylist (played by Freedia) who throws a block party to show a visiting cousin how New Orleans gets down. There are moments of conflicts (will Freedia’s grandfather, played by Lucky, accept her sexuality? Will police break up the block party?) but the show is really about celebrating local culture. Lucky also acts in the play, along with bounce trendsetter Tenth Ward Buck
The second act of the show recreates a block party on stage, and features short appearances by many of the biggest names in bounce. During the opening weekend, the crowd rose cheering to their feet as stars including Ms. Tee, Gotti Boy Chris and Katey Red took over the stage.
Lucky wants Catch Dat Beat to help popularize bounce and New Orleans. He structured the play around a block party to show that New Orleans celebrations are really about building community and supporting your neighbors.
“Growing up in less fortunate neighborhoods, your parents would have card games, or suppers,” explains Lucky. “Say Miss Carol across the street’s light bill was due. Miss Carol would have a supper. Everyone in the neighborhood would buy a plate to help her pay the light bill.” In other words, continued Lucky, the block party comes from this tradition, and is ultimately about “how a people are able to come together in a time of need.”
Lucky has produced many of New Orleans bounce hits, and sees producing as a way to support positive work. “I can’t sign a hip hop gangster rapper,” he says. “I don’t advocate killing and drugs or slap that bitch. I’m not into that. I’m not gonna put my money behind it. If you come to me with something that says ‘get on the dance floor and have a good time,’ then I can support it.”
He is excited about all of the play’s actors, heaping praise on the accomplishments of Tenth Ward Buck and Freedia. “Buck was the first in so many ways,” he says of his star, listing his accomplishments. “The first to speed up bounce, the first to take an R&B track and bounce it out.” Through more than ten years of albums, plus a film, an upcoming book, and his dedication to working with youth, Buck has earned the praise.
As for the star of the show, “Freedia is outstanding,” says Lucky. “Every time he’d get the mic, he’d just light up the room.” Buck also Is quick to praise Freedia. “As Freedia was coming up, a lot of people tried to drag him down,” Buck says. “And he didn’t care about what they said, he kept moving forward. I don’t care if you straight or what, everyone is bouncing to Freedia’s music.” In fact, the sissy bounce community that Katey Red birthed ten years ago with her album Melpomene Block Party has rejuvenated the form, and gay rappers like Freedia have gone from a novelty to a central part of bounce culture.
Conquering Obstacles
Bounce music faces many obstacles on the way to national popularity. It is in many ways so distinctly New Orleans, with most songs featuring neighborhood-specific references, that it’s hard to imagine a bounce party in any other city. However, elements of bounce have appeared in songs by national acts like David Banner, Mike Jones and Beyonce.
Here in New Orleans, bounce artists bring lines around the corner when they perform. Freedia believes bounce will keep growing, and isn’t worried about any potential obstacles. She has struggled in a sometimes-homophobic music scene and become one of the leading stars – gay or straight – in New Orleans. “We been working really hard all these years of getting people to accept us,” she says. “Maybe get throwed at and screamed at, but over time all that has changed. All the hard work has finally paid off.”
With a show at this year’s Jazz Fest by Big Freedia, Katey Red and Sissy Nobby, as well as a photo spread in hipster music magazine XLR8R, the music form is clearly reaching new audiences. “For me it was the determination to change the people and make them love what we do,” says Freedia. “And that’s what my job was. When I became a gay bounce rapper I said that I was going to change it and make people love me, and make them love gay people.”
“People say negative things,” about gay rap stars, acknowledges Lucky. “I don’t care, at the end of the day it’s about the message. People who are homophobic, it tells me about that person’s character, because god loves us all no matter what.”
Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans, and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting on post-Katrina New Orleans shared a journalism award from New America Media. His work has been published and broadcast in outlets including Die Zeit (in Germany), Clarin (in Argentina), Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and Democracy Now. He is also co-director of PATOIS: The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival. He can be reached at neworleans@leftturn.org.
More about Catch Dat Beat: http://www.myspace.com/catchdatbeat
Big Freedia: http://www.myspace.com/bigfreedia
10th Ward Buck: http://www.myspace.com/10wardbuck
Bounce Mix: http://www.xlr8r.com/podcast/2008/09/dre-skull-sissy-bounce-mix
Ya Heard Me, the definitive Bounce Film: http://www.yaheardmefilm.com
Sunday, May 24, 2009
John McWhorter and Where Hip-Hop Has Never Been
John McWhorter, author of Losing the Race fame and All About the Beat, responded recently to a roundtable happening at The Atlantic. The roundtable, which doesn't offer much aside from a few notable comments from Hua Hsu here and here, proposes to discuss the state of hip-hop today and the significance of hip-hop's entrance into state power (in the form of Obama, Jay Z and Russell Simmons).
McWhorter takes to task some of the main arguments raised in the roundtable. Among them, he disagrees with the Atlantic contributors who argue that hip-hop has been a "dispatch from the ghetto" showing white people in the suburbs the problems faced by black folks in the cities. Implicit in that "dispatch" argument is the idea that somehow hip-hop has really been about raising the awareness of "outsiders" to the realities faced by communities of color, as if hip-hop is some liberal re-education camp for middle and upper class suburbanites. That hip-hop is now global is less about "outsiders" opening their eyes to the dispatch and more about folks in other communities around the world being able to relate to, and build upon, the experiences and sentiments expressed in the music and culture.
McWhorter also argues against the idea of a "hip-hop revolution", or in other words the idea that hip-hop alone can be a political tool for oppressed communities if only it was injected with revolutionary politics. He's onto something with this point, because it will take work and organizing and activity to create any kind of movement, but the fact that he says hip-hop is just music is over-simplified and telling of his own narrow perspectives on what is politics, what is culture, and what is the ever-developing relationship between the two. Is culture only entertainment? Is it only a repository of non-political expressions? Is politics only expressed when people go to the voter booth, write a letter to their senator, or attend a protest?
While I don't agree with McWhorter's conclusions, he raises some important questions for consideration.
****
Where Hiphop is "Going" and Where It Never Was
by John McWhorter
The roundtable on hiphop over at the Atlantic is interesting. A discussion on what's new on the hiphop scene? That'd make perfect sense to me - but then that alone would fall somewhat outside of the Atlantic purview and be more like a piece by Sascha Frere-Jones at the New Yorker.
No, the roundtable participants are musing over hiphop as something Potentially Important. It is this treatment of the music that has confused and bemused me for years. When I wrote a book explaining why, a common response (to the extent that there were any!) was that the whole idea that anybody thinks hiphop is more than just good music was a figment of my imagination.
But bookshelves groan with work describing rap as "prophetic" and breathlessly exploring the possibility of a "hip hop revolution" and its potential to "motivate" young people. This Atlantic roundtable is cut from that cloth. Whence this idea that music, rather than effort, can change things politically?
For example, the participants look back fondly on the days when more of the music was "political," with Alyssa Rosenberg opining that it's unrealistic to decree that musicians follow our bidding and be "constructive." But this whole wing of the discussion presupposes a hypothetical possibility that hiphop could serve some kind of purpose beyond being just entertainment, that it is at least worth discussion whether rappers have some kind of "responsibility." Gautham Nagesh even thinks that way back, rap actually did play a crucial part in making people aware of ghetto life ("rap has played a key role in raising awareness of issues such as urban poverty").
The question here is: what is the purpose of this supposedly politically important rap supposed to be? Let's even say consciousness is raised: now that Scarsdale Chad knows what it's like growing up in the ‘hood, then what? What does Chad do besides walk down the street lurching and mouthing along to Tupac or whoever it was he learned this from in the early nineties? The consciousness was raised - and what legislation did it create? In a history book 100 years from now, we will see it written that "Because of hiphop raising consciousness of ghetto poverty starting in the late 1980s, _______." Fill in the blank. Note the difficulty.
My sense is that my even bringing up this issue of purpose is seen as somehow beside the point, but that very impatience, the grouchy feeling that my asking this means that there is something I don't "get," is revealing of a serious problem with what we have been taught to think of as politics. Namely, we assume that it is meaningfully political to strike poses and say things rather than do things.
Few are aware of it, but this traces back to the way smart people have for decades been misinterpeting Antonio Gramsci, the Italian political theorist. The key text would seem to be The Prison Notebooks, where he argued that the ruling class creates ideological structures, such as educational systems, that support their interests while obscuring the evil underpinnings of society. Subordinate ("subaltern") groups accept these ideas and end up oppressing themselves. Thus they must counteract the "hegemony" through attempts to revise cultural conceptions.
So, under this analysis, which starts with intellectuals and spreads outward to the general consciousness, rappers are presenting a new Cultural Paradigm, with their academic celebrants as conduits of that new "message" to the ruling class. Poor blacks are the subalterns; Washington, DC, William Bennett, and suburban whites who don't "see" blacks and preserve their "white privilege" are the Hegemony, and so on.
But Gramsci himself would be surprised to see how his ideas have been recruited for the subtle and complex race situation in America of the late twentieth century. He was a practicing Communist who wrote The Prison Notebooks from, well, prison, where he spent the last ten years of his life. He wrote in reference to working-class and peasant folk for whom the barriers to advancement were concrete and required no careful indoctrination to understand in the way that the black victim orthodoxy does today.
And the problem is that in black America and beyond, as historian David Steigerwald puts it, "the more the intellectuals have analyzed cultural hegemony, the less real political effect their radicalism has had." He notes that "Where the hard and gradual work of organizing revolution is dreamed away and the Left becomes willingly content with ‘cultural resistance,' the best radicals can hope for is directionless, feeble, and scattered opposition to the state of things."
Gramsci did not mean that striking anti-authoritarian poses on pop recordings, videos, and posters was meaningful sociopolitical activity. This is how modern academics have distorted his argumentation, and is the source of the idea that hiphop's "subalterns" have accomplished something sublime because their lyrics disrespect authority.
What these roundtable participants don't seem to quite understand is that this is all even political rap could ever do. It is the DNA of the form to be confrontational - whether about politics, women, social pecking order (i.e. the in-your-face bling, etc.) or anything else. Rap that was about solutions, as Rosenberg calls for, would be about as plausible as opera about physical fitness.
Take Cam'ron's "I Hate My Job," which I have commended for even broaching the very real problem of getting a job as an ex-con. There are solutions a-plenty, as I have also blogged here about: but how many of us can really imagine a rap about getting an apartment, waiting for a driver's license, or holding down a job? It's a meaningless issue. As Nagesh notes, when rappers have tried to just sit back and celebrate that Obama is in - i.e. nothing to be mad about - they don't quite know what to do.
I really like the new idea floating around that hiphop may have helped elect Barack Obama. Once more, that impulse to see hiphop as something other than fun. If one must speak of hiphop and Obama in the same breath -- beyond noting that he, rather unsurprisingly of a black man under 50, listens to some - then what Obama has shown us is what a real revolution is, as opposed to the kind written about with 20-dollar words in books.
To wit: after decades of people wondering when the Great Hiphop Revolution might be coming -- tell me no one was waiting for that since Public Enemy and explain stuff like Vote or Die and Russell Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit Action Network well into this current decade - Obama strode in and galvanized exactly the demographic in question with real political organizing, with inspiration that was about something other than having your middle finger stuck up, with, in a word, work.
It is unclear to me that hiphop played a significant part in making Obama president. Certainly it brought some people to some concerts where people registered to vote, but that very thing made no difference in the 2004 election and I am unaware of evidence that it tipped the scales to Obama this time. A thought experiment: if hiphop didn't exist and Obama had come along anyway, I see no reason to suppose that Obama would not now be President.
Nagesh seems to think that hiphop moguls like Jay-Z helped get white people used to the idea of black authority figures - but that revolution in thought started long before. There has been a general "browning" of our culture that has accustomed all of us to blackness as mainstream that Leon Wynter, in a book that never got enough attention partly because it was published around the first anniversary of 9/11, dates to 1980, in the commercial where Mean Joe Greene tossed an admiring white boy his jersey.
Politics is work. Hiphop is music. Hua Hsu seems to get this, although it's less that it's "unfair" to expect rap to be "constructive" - implying that it could be -- than that it is purely illogical. The idea that hiphop, because it makes the body feel good to move to it and it makes the soul feel good to hear out angry young black men, can be transmuted into changing the world is narcotic but nonsensical. Wherever hiphop is ever "going," we can be sure it will not be in a constructive direction, anymore than fashions in the color of cars. And it shouldn't "concern" us in the least.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
How Hip-Hop Was Viewed in 1981
Shout out to Oliver Wang at Poplicks.com who linked to this 20/20 special from 1981 covering hip-hop music. If y'all are like me you will get a lot out of it.
I think what struck me most is the way they portrayed hip-hop; as a valid and democratic street music that spoke to the social conflicts of its time. In fact, the show is quite visionary in its predictions and historical lens. "Hip-hop will be around for years to come." That's pretty gutsy for a mainstream news show that many white Americans watched who would have said that rap was a fad. Of course, there is also the claim that rap was "an overnight phenomenon." You might could say this at a certain point, but not by '81.
Today, you can't see anything in the press or blogs that isn't either making hip-hop responsible for social conflict or perpetuating it. Hip-hop, apparently a thing above people, divorced from them, and that they have no say in, makes them violent (violent in the abstract, of course; as if direct conflict with the police is a bad thing), makes them patriarchal (because the State is anti-patriarchal; after all it is liberating Middle Eastern women, right?), and makes them materialistic (ah, because otherwise we live in a socialist society!).
What's clear here is that even in 1981 hip-hop had a very broad reach and was already being capitalized on by business outside of the recording industry. Not only that, but hip-hop was "rocking the vote" as we see from the Boston rap commercial. "They say your vote doesn't count, but that's a bunch of jive!" Damn that sounds familiar. Hip-hop was being used to teach history; which it does organically, but already then the State was using it to teach the "right" history.
For historicity, the linkages to black oral tradition is on point. One claim I tire from hearing is hip-hop's supposed African origins when there's about a 500 year disconnect; a claim not present here. But mostly, in saying that, it's the assumption that folks can't create anything new. I will say, however, there's definitely a prior experience that hip-hop developed in that this special broadly captures.
I think we should be happy to say that hip-hop, through all its changes, has grown to be ever more democratic and universal and that whatever we don't like about hip-hop, it's the reality we shouldn't like, not its aesthetic expressions.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Sabreena da Witch on Israeli Apartheid and Fighting a "Personal Occupation"
Sabreena da Witch recently wrote this poignant post on her blog that I'm reposting below. For those who don't know, Sabreena da Witch, aka Abeer Alzinaty, is a Palestinian hip-hop artist and was featured in the documentary Slingshot Hip-Hop. I won't say much about the post as it speaks for itself. It definitely resonated with me based on some of my own experiences as a black woman with patriarchy and racism. It's a reminder of the need for young women to stay defiant, to persevere despite the odds and break out of the confines that our families and society try to impose on us. For many of us, hip-hop has been an important source of community for such "personal" struggles which should never be fought alone. Yet, as Abeer's experience shows us, we still have a long way to go even in hip-hop.
Men from the west GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR LANDS, men from the east GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR MINDS!
Israel celebrates today 61 years of Independence. It's sad how so many people can celebrate the independence they built on the bodies of freedom fighters they have murdered.
As if there is a universal permit for some specific people in this tragic world, to occupy others and call it a fight for independence.
you would think that as a Palestinian I would be out there, demonstrating against Israel's brutal, bloody independence. But I'm after all just a WOMAN! Occupation is suppose to be all I know!
So many people will fight for Palestine and never mention it's women. So many people will fight for Iraq and never mention it's women. So many people will fight for Africa and never mention it's women.
So many people will fight for freedom; become famous and rich for their fight; become heroes; icons on t shirts all over the world and never mention the women they oppressed on the way to stardom. Just like a million and a half Israelis will celebrate freedom right next to a huge concrete wall separating them from other people.
Here is a timeline of my personal occupation from the years I can remember ;
When I was 12 I went to the mall alone for the first time with my friend. She said we should speak in Hebrew so people wouldn't know we were arabs. When I asked: what about everything else like our names and accents?
She said : salesmen don't care about names!
When I was 13 my mom told me I cannot be in love unless I'm engaged. Since I was too young to get engaged, I automatically lost my right to have any emotions for boys until I was older. When I asked -what do I do with the butterflies in my belly?
My mom said : society doesn't care about teenagers' stupid feelings!
When I was 14 I was expelled from school because I refused to stand respectfully on memorial day for Israeli soldiers who died in wars against the arab world. I had no idea what it meant to be a Palestinian yet, but to stand silently for a whole minute for a man who died in a war after he was trained to go to war did not make sense to me. When I asked -what about the people those soldiers went to kill?
my teacher said: Israel doesn't care about other people and that's the way it is. We have rules to follow!
When I was 15 I had my first boyfriend. He said I shouldn't tell other people we were together and that he loved me, but he didn't care if I said I loved him.
When I was 16 my father said that I couldn't go to demonstrations against Israeli soldiers who shot 13 Palestinian men inside of Israel and so many more in the West Bank and Gaza. He said he knew that I was going to meet boys.
I tried to explain that I did not plan to meet anyone there, and I was going only to express my feelings about violence and injustice.
He said : I know YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT THAT!
When I was 17, one of my classmates said: Palestinian "Muslim terrorists" should stop using Christians churches to hide from the Israeli army.
I said : but the Palestinian christian priest cares for his Palestinian land too, and is helping Palestinian freedom fighters to survive.
He said : We christians do not care about lands; we want peace, you should learn something from us and stop being a greedy muslim!
When I was 18, a girl I knew from school was killed for honor. I collected all the newspapers with articles which included the conclusion of investigations into the murder; that the killer was one of the girl's brothers. I took the articles to school to talk about the incident with other people. Sadly the sister of the victim was in my class. She saw the papers,and began to cry and curse me. I apologized to her for bringing the paper with me and she said she didn't care about the newspaper. It was me who should have just shut up and stayed out of it.
When I was 19, after years of fighting with my parents to be able to do Hip-Hop music, I was scheduled to go on a local tour. My participation was canceled because my relatives said they would shoot me if I stepped on stage. When I asked the male artists involved: what about my part of the song?
They said : who cares about that, the important thing for you is to stay alive.
They all went on that tour, and another tour in Europe a week later. They had pre-recorded playback for my part and I did not sing publicly for 4 years.
When I was 20 I was fired from MacDonald's after 3 years of work. My supervisor said I spoke Arabic way too much during my shift and that it was bothering other employees and customers. According to their policy, Arabic was not even allowed, so I had gone way past the line. When I said: what about Russian being spoken all the time?
He said : The company doesn't care about the Russian language, it's just Arabic.
When I was 21, in my third year of Film school at Tel Aviv university, I had my first cigarette. one of my classmates told me it was not attractive for women to smoke. I said: I thought it would be health issues to cause people not to smoke. He said he had been smoking for 15 years and he was fine, so he didn't care much about that anymore, but when he kissed a woman who smoked he felt like he was kissing an ashtray.
When I was 22 I went to Bethlehem to do some creative workshops at a refugee camp. Just before leaving Jerusalem we were stopped by what is called a "Flying Check point". Two Israeli soldiers boarded the mini bus and checked everyones IDs, Passports and permits. Four people were asked to get off, two of them women. They started crying right away to the soldier (probably their eleventh attempt to go to Bethlehem that day alone). They cried that their mother was very sick and might be dying and that they just wanted to say goodbye. They had not seen her since getting married 10 years ago. They also said that they had tried countless times to get permits but they were never approved because their names on the birth certificates do not match the names on the IDs! The soldier said he didn't care about reasons, all he cared about was doing his job. we continued on without them!
When I was 23, in my second year in Photography school at Bezalel art Academy in Jerusalem, I hung on the wall photos I had taken during my first visit to Baltimore. The teacher asked for a "new experience" project. All my photos showed black kids I had met at a block party.
The teacher said he could not accept this project since it was not produced specifically for the assignment, and the photos were taken on a summer vacation.
I insisted on getting feedback since I had gone through a new experience and met new people from a completely different community. My classmates said the project wasn't relevant and that they didn't care if it was my first visit to Baltimore or to the Americas. They said i had dark enough skin to walk in that hood, and because I am an arab I probably wasn't scared to be in what they decided was the ghetto; and therefore there was no new experience. Nothing was said about the photos themselves.
When I was 24 I had my first public performance after 4 years of not being on stage. People said I was good but not professional. That I didn't have enough energy, the songs were not mixed, and the quality of the sound was bad. I responded: I'm very aware of that. I never had the chance to work on my music professionally. I was told: NOBODY CARES, you just need to get better now that you can; stop complaining and start working!!
I am 25 now, and I'm fucking sick and tired of being the victim; but what else am I. What else can you fucking be when you are all the time OPPRESSED! If it's not an Israeli soldier in my way, it's my neighbor who is worried for my good name!
It seems like Israelis and other zionists want me to never complain about my experience as a Palestinian!
and It seems like men and other chauvinists want me to never complain for my experience as a woman!!
It is as if I'm supposed to naturally shut up every time somebody tells me I can't do something because I am a Palestinian and I am a WOMAN!!!
61 years under occupation and Israelis still do not understand what we Palestinians are fighting for. Zionists act totally surprised when they hear criticism of Israel and lash back with responses like: what's your problem?
BITCHES! You are our problem. You took over our lands, our homes, our streets , our history, our dignity, our passion, and you even took over our culture too, adding insult to injury. You call it all your own when you never worked hard for it. WE DID!!
From me personally, on top of everything listed above, you occupiers took my right to complain as an oppressed woman. Every fucking bastard who is comfortable enough in this man's world, thinks I should shut up about women's rights, so the West won't jump on the scoop! and so the East can fight the western evil occupation without being disturbed by another fight!
Women are not less important!! Equality is Equality everywhere !!
and
OCCUPATION IS OCCUPATION no matter how pretty you try to make it look!
Although you do not care about my anger and my frustration, and although you wait for me to make a mistake, so you can criticize me , I fight for freedom, I always will, inshalla for another 61 years to come and forever more!
FUCK YOU!!!
[Original post here]
Riot Music, for Austin
On Monday, East Austin nearly rose up in a rebellion after police there shot two young Black men who were sleeping in a car in an apartment parking lot, killing one Nathaniel Sanders who was 18 years old. The police of course claim that Sanders reached for a gun, and the media has made it a point to bring up his past arrests, because arrests = criminal and a criminal is supposedly deserving of police violence because, after all, he must've been up to no good sitting in that car with his friends. Black folks in the surrounding community responded angrily and crowded the nearby streets yelling at the cops and throwing rocks and other things at them. It got bad enough that the police department called out SWAT and additional officers in riot gear.
Some of the news reports on what happened in East Austin remind me of responses to the Adolph Grimes murder here. In New Orleans a few months back, some acted surprised that there were expressions of outrage after the murder of Grimes. Not long after that, a white woman was shot and killed by two black teenagers in the French Quarter, and white folks living there went crazy, demanding increased police patrols and complaining about the wild "thugs" and uncontrollable Negroes that are threatening the civility and sanctity of French Quarter (elite) life. Police at the time were quoted as saying that they didn't understand why "those" black folks were upset every time the police did their job in the community. The officers wondered why black folks didn't respond like those respectable white folks who welcomed the police with open arms. The implication was of course that black folks are not only naturally violent but also resent any attempts by the state to civilize them.
This makes it all the more reason to point out that growing anger in response to continued police violence and murder of men and women of color is not only to be expected, but necessary and legitimate. The rebellion in January in Oakland was likely a preview of what we may see more of, especially if the economic and political crisis deepens. What is yet to be seen on a wider scale are effective strategies and political perspectives that can shape such rebellions into more sustained organizing and direct action. Folks in Oakland faced their own obstacles to doing just that, like an older community leadership that attempted to draw the anger into "safer" forms of protest, but such leadership is increasingly becoming irrelevant as police violence and racism in the judicial system continue unabated (Sean Bell, Adolph Grimes, the countless women who are beaten and sexually violated while in custody but don't make the evening news...).
We'll stay tuned to what develops in Austin. In the meantime, here's some music for Austin, or any other city, to riot to.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Eminem Will Fly Laid Off Workers to Jimmy Kimmel Show
Just saw on Davey D that Eminem is planning on flying out 200 laid off autoworkers to the Jimmy Kimmel show on May 19. I guess the point is to publicize the layoffs (and his new album) which is cool, after all Em was a factory worker himself for a brief period (which was dramatized in the film 8 Mile), but can we get these folks who gave us proof that workers can be self-governing a little more than that? Damn.
Detroit and other rust belt cities have been the frontlines for restructuring which will put the finishing touches on the ruling class's attack on the concessions wrested from them by working folks. The next generation of Big Three (or is it the Big Two now?) autoworkers can expect to make $12 to $14 an hour which puts them on par with workers in Southern auto plants like Toyota. And while that might seem a lot for those of us making minimum wage, it comes with a larger cost with little to no healthcare and a racist union that won't do shit. Back in 1970, General Baker of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers said, "UAW means 'U Ain't White.'" But today it might as well stand for U Are Worthless (they're still racist cracker motherfuckers, of course).
Some folks are hating hard on UAW workers, calling them spoiled and all that. A lot of that is because they confound the UAW leadership with the rank and file when the union is essentially an extension of plant management and State bureaucracy. The average folks and the ones who came before them are partially responsible for not only improving living standards among the working class, standards now in sharp decline, but for creating some of the most revolutionary forms of working class organization, like the sit-down strike, but also other informal types of struggle that bucked the UAW and the company-instituted work speed-up. This self-organization reveals the workers' capacity to run the plants (and hence society) independent of management. We can't hate on them because we are them. And we're going to share in their fate.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
White Rappers vs. Rappers Who Are White
So this Asher Roth thing has been debated for a minute and I wasn't really planning on taking it up, simply because the "white rapper" debate has seemed stale for the better part of the last 15 years now. But Roth's interview with The Wall St. Journal last month is telling for what hasn't been said in this most recent round of debates about white rappers. That is, that there’s a difference between a white rapper and a rapper who’s white. 
Roth comes out in the interview saying, “Unlike Eminem, I'm classic white. I'm talking about yoga and yogurt covered in fruit. I represent more of a suburban middle-class lifestyle.” Roth is contrasted with an artist like Eminem for good reason, but could also be compared to someone like Bubba Sparxxx. Eminem may have a largely white fan base, but he can make songs like “White America” precisely because his image represents in many ways a threat to traditional white identity under white supremacy in this country. It’s partly the street element he has to his persona, it’s partly the working class experience that fills out his lyrics, it’s partly his own association with people of color in hip-hop, that had so many media hacks, politicians and middle class parents scurrying to keep their white children from Eminem’s mischievous influence. While Eminem could potentially encourage white youth to identify with people of color, Asher Roth hardly presents that same threat if what he raps about only speaks to the experiences of white middle class suburban youth.
Bubba Sparxxx or Paul Wall is the type of artist that even go beyond Eminem. There was hardly any debate about them being “white rappers” precisely because nobody mistook them for white, in the political or social sense of the label. In fact, most white people didn’t even pay them any mind nor make up the majority of their fan base.
Some of the blog posts I’ve seen criticizing Asher Roth (see an assortment here) don't take up this dynamic, focusing instead on connecting him to all the other “white rappers” that appropriate and exploit black music. That’s too simplistic an explanation. Whether we like it or not, hip-hop is broad enough and has generalized across society (and the globe) in such a way that there will inevitably continue to be people like Roth or Slug or others who are white rappers doing the college kid, suburban hip-hop thing. But what’s relevant and more compelling is looking at how some artists take hip-hop a step further toward breaking down conventional racial identities and open the door for white folks who don't identify as white to instead identify with the social and political struggles and experiences of people of color, on terms defined by the latter.
Here is the WSJ interview from last month.
Just Asking… Asher Roth
By JOHN JURGENSEN
By rhyming about his suburban roots, Asher Roth has carved out a niche for himself in rap music and scored a hit with the song "I Love College." We spoke to the 23-year-old rapper about rejected stage names, why he left college and his strategy for answering questions about another white rapper, Eminem.
The Wall Street Journal: At a recent listening party for "Asleep in the Bread Aisle," you introduced your album saying it was bringing together people from all walks of life. Is that something that's missing from rap music?
Asher Roth: Especially now. Originally, the whole thing was about uplifting and enlightening people and having a party. When it became all about selling records, it really got tainted.
Asher Roth performs at the 2008 mtvU Woodie Awards in New York City.
WSJ: How exactly are you bringing people together?
Mr. Roth: It's hip-hop music, so it's not like we're out there holding hands. But it's forcing people to talk and get a lot of things off their chest. Unlike Eminem, I'm classic white. I'm talking about yoga and yogurt covered in fruit. I represent more of a suburban middle-class lifestyle. If we can start in hip hop and accept people for who they are and what they're talking about, rather than the color of their skin, we can turn it into a global thing. Hip hop is a beautiful place for asking more questions.
WSJ: For years people have been saying that the majority of rap fans are people like you -- white kids from the suburbs. If that's the case, why have there been so few to break out?
Mr. Roth: Besides the white guys who sell it and push it, hip hop is black music. But it got to the point where they were targeting us, the white people in the 'burbs. We got brought up on it, but suddenly when a 23-year-old white kid who's been inspired by Jay-Z starts rapping, it's a bad thing? C'mon, those [rappers] were talking to us the whole time. It's interesting to see what this is turning into. I was just this punk kid rapping to the laptop in my sophomore year in college. That's what hip-hop has turned into.
WSJ: At what point did you feel like you had become a professional rapper? What was the first major test of your skills?
Mr. Roth: The first time that I feel like I really passed a test was when I was on [influential DJ] Drama's radio show freestyling. People put a lot of stock in freestyling -- they've all seen the movie "8 Mile" -- but it's really hit or miss. Sometimes your brain isn't working, and I can be a pretty anxious kid. I don't like to have a verse ready in the back of my head, but on the show people were laughing and enjoying themselves, and I was like, damn, freestyling is easy when you're not too worried about it. I had another obstacle on [BBC DJ] Tim Westwood's show when he was playing a bunch of Eminem beats for me to rap over.
WSJ: On your album, you address comparisons to Eminem with the song "As I Em." Why did you write that song?
Mr. Roth: It's a bummer that that's the song everyone's going to be talking about. But I was never going to be able to ignore it. I can't comment on someone I've never met in my life, but in every interview I get asked about him. It came to a point where my album was done, but it felt like something was missing.
I'd been given that beat. It's one of the only songs on the album with a sample. It's a Joe Jackson sample [from the song "Geraldine and John"]. I was with my boy, hanging out in the Honda Civic, and I'm going through the CD cases and that one was right next to an Eminem CD. There's stuff like that that goes down in life, and you know it has to happen. So the song is the story of my relationship with Em. Now, when I get asked, I can say, "Refer to song 8. Conversation over."
WSJ: After you signed your recording contract in 2007, you spent a few months in Atlanta, writing and honing your skills. Can you set the scene?
Mr. Roth: We darted down there -- to a neighborhood with a bunch of newlyweds with their dogs -- and there was our ratty house with me and three of my homies from school. In the basement we put up a wall and a microphone and we hung out there and drank Trader Joe's wine and Miller Lite, and that's how we honed the craft. I wasn't making music with Big Daddy Kane and KRS One. I was just hanging out with my friends, kicking around ideas.
WSJ: Did you ever experiment with stage names other than your own?
Mr. Roth: When I was 16 and 17, it was like, what are you going to put on a CD? For a while it was Renaissance. Or AKA, like "also known as," because I couldn't come up with anything else. Or Grade A, like the eggs. Or Young Ash -- throw a "young" in your name and you're good.
WSJ: You perform with a band. Why did you go from rapping over tracks to working with a live sound?
Mr. Roth: I knew I wanted to have a live element. I was never interested in just watching a guy on stage rap about how great he is. I'm not the first -- the Roots really inspired me for that very reason. I've played with a full band a few times, but for the most part I perform with a live drummer and a DJ -- that's what I come from. I used to play drums until my dad made me practice with the practice pads on; then I was done.
WSJ: Did anyone encourage you to keep rapping when you were in high school or college?
Mr. Roth: My parents weren't like, "Pursue a rap career! Drop out of school!" But at the same time they didn't discourage me. It was more like, "Are you coming home for dinner?" Nobody is going to push me more than I will myself.
WSJ: How did your parents feel when you told them you were dropping out of college?
Mr. Roth: It came at a good time. I was in school just to be in school. My grades were dropping and it was so obvious that I really didn't care. My dad was helping with tuition, and he told me he wasn't going to waste his money. But it definitely wasn't success over night. I had moved to Atlanta after I signed the deal, and I was living on my advance, which disappeared quickly. I delivered pizzas. This wasn't the second coming of anything, but that whole process was very important for me
WSJ: What other kinds of music are you listening to?
Mr. Roth: Right now, and every day for the most part, I listen to a lot of [Bob] Marley. Especially in the morning, the vibe sets my day. On the planes, some James Brown. Today I was listening to Lykke Li and Pac Division. Some of their stuff is really dope.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Obama's Swagga and CNN's House Negro
Hip-hop may have popularized "swagga", but that don't mean it's for everybody.
Does anybody else feel like this dude is one reason why white liberal racists believe themselves when they say, "I can't be racist, I have a black friend"? CNN must be so proud they found a spokesperson to translate "black culture" for them...
On a more serious note, this reference to Obama having swagga has to be added to the archive on the rise of new layers of leadership in communities of color that claim a sort of hip-hop legitimacy (see here and here for starters on Obama's hip-hop legitimacy). Whether we agree or disagree that Obama has swagga, the fact that he gets discussed on those terms has real significance for the legitimacy he gives to the white supremacist institutions he now manages.
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