New KRS-One Video

A new video picked up from Can't Stop Won't Stop features KRS-One in a new song with producer Marley Marl, rivals since 1987 when BDP and the Juice Crew had a dispute over whether hip-hop began in the Bronx or in the Faragut housing projects in Queens.

The two of them have just released an album together called Hip-Hop Lives. I'm sure its a worthwhile album if you are a connoisseur like me.

I've always had a certain amount of admiration for KRS-One, even though I question his mental stability. This video is fantastic and fun to watch, regardless of his antiquated views on hip-hop. Check out the lyrics below as they are curious rhymes for a man with failed logic.

"Hip means to know, its a form of intelligence
To be hip is to be update and relevant
Hop is form of movement
You can't just observe a hop, you gotta hop up and do it
Hip and hop is more than music
Hip is the knowledge, hop is the movement
Hip and hop is intelligent movement
All relevant movement, we sellin the music"

Pretty god damned dialectical if you ask me.

The Hip-Hop Project Hints at Revisionism

While basing my judgments off a two-minute clip, my critiques will necessarily be limited, but no less relevant. Here are my theses:

One. It is filmed in New York. What was once the "hip-hop Mecca" and which honestly reflected the leading impulse of hip-hop now takes its prompts from the South and the rest of the country. New York is not the vanguard of hip-hop, nor does everything in this country revolve around that city. There have been quite enough films about New York hip-hop and I think it is time to begin directing our attention elsewhere.

Two. It pits two hip-hops against each other. There's negative hip-hop and positive. There's violent hip-hop and peaceful hip-hop. These are synthetic categories created at will. Hip-hop is a totality of all these things, just as people are a totality of all their relations, needs, desires, and struggles. Breaking up hip-hop into phony categories is exactly why you come to phony conclusions. The result is that we need more Dead Prez, imbued with the correct consciousness, to show us the way. In the end, the argument is totalitarian: people are simply blank slates and can be molded at will. Let's flood the airwaves with "uplifting" hip-hop and people will make a 180 degree turn in their activities. Who comes up with this shit?

Three. All throughout the clip is this clamoring about the need to express, but violence IS expression! This violent preoccupation within hip-hop is not conspiratorially injected by the white man, despite what the authoritarian, sectarian 5% Nation of Islam says. Violence is a fundamental reality of black life in America and is a socialized relation of a people who are and have been for centuries subjugated both economically and politically.

Unlike what the black ruling class and intellectuals think, black people do not need some makeover in values and culture before they can be elevated socially. It is precisely those values that liberals, conservatives, and progressives alike are trying to imbue that no longer work in the world in which we live. Revolutions are not cultural. Any change in culture came promptly after a revolution in social relations. I'm no advocate of violence, but that is neither here nor there.

The black peoples of San Domingo, also entrenched deep in violent social relations as they were slaves, didn't change their culture and values before overthrowing the Mulatto Third Estate and French colonialists. They overthrew them, as a matter of fact they massacred their rulers (should anyone be surprised?), and once establishing themselves as an independent republic, a culture of resistance, of liberation, ensued by which to give expression to an emancipatory spirit.

This obsession with violence can be traced back as far the Great Depression. Up til then, there was an unshakable faith among people in the stability of this nation. But at the commencement of the war and during the crisis of overproduction (which means a lot of shit made with no one to buy it and the consequence is mass unemployment) a violent turn appeared in culture. Prior to this, no one could get Dick Tracy to print a comic strip showing a person getting shot, but after the Depression, and the confidence of American people shaken, we could not get enough of it. Dick Tracy finally prints a comic strip where you see the bullets ripping through the flesh of individuals. Gangster films began to proliferate and the revenge of the private detective to act on his own accord against the law, the thirst for violence made its way upon the historical scene.

In the late seventies, industry began its steady decline in America. Where does any economic shift hit first and hardest? Always the black community. Though relegated to the most dangerous, dirtiest, low paying jobs in industry, it provided some sort of stability for black folks who, prior to emancipation and just after, were entrenched in field work. Again, mass unemployment, crime, imprisonment. The material basis makes itself felt. Its aesthetic appearance? Hip-hop. Run-DMC, Grandmaster Flash. "Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge/ I'm tryin not to lose my head."

Violence has a material basis, just as any hope for a non-violent world must have the same. Oprah values are not a material basis, but vain arbitration.

End employer rule, racism, et. al, you end violence (at least the violence of the type that plagues us today).

Enough.

Four. This film has an obvious political agenda behind it. As such, it is not an organic expression of working people, even though the subjects of the film are probably quite authentic. This is a film by Queen Latifah and Bruce Willis, quite obviously a part of the entertainment industry elite and who are consequently divorced from what is happening among common people. Queen Latifah is an old school rapper from the anti-Apartheid era of hip-hop, and probably has numerous flawed critiques of hip-hop today as violent, misogynistic, and untalented. When old school artists make films or shape their direction, all they do is employ their old categories to explain hip-hop today and why it doesn't fit with their own (see Five Sides of a Coin, Letter to the President, et. al).

And Bruce Willis? A man who personally contacted President George W. Bush prior to the entry into Iraq and asked if he could offer support in an occupational invasion. Need I say more?

I don't think it is a stretch to take an educated guess that these celebrities are going to treat "these children" as if they "need help", whether it means they need the proverbial conservative (or even Leftist) reform in morals, or the liberal proper training and education to get them jobs so they can be decent, law-abiding wage slaves.

Fuck these people, y'all. Seriously. They and their revisionism are the problem, not us. We are hip-hop. We make it what it is. We reflect the state of the world into it and shape it accordingly. We don't need to create some arbitrary bullshit political/moral hip-hop that corresponds to their agendas. When we get fed up enough with their shit and with our condition, we will change it. And when we do, the hip-hop we make will necessarily represent such a transfer of class power.

Keep doing what you doing.

[Chorus 2x]
I'll whip yo head boy!!
You know I will....
I'll whip yo head boy!!
Wit tha back of the steel....
I'll whip yo head boy!!
Yo cap could get peeled....
I'll whip yo head boy!!
Yo ass could get killed....

[50 Cent]
Two niggaz in the front, two niggaz in the back
That's four niggaz ridin strapped in grandpa's cadillac
The voice in my head say "Fuck all these niggaz"
Then I start thinkin.... "I should rob all these niggaz"
Man my homies, they wan' do whatever I wan' do
I say I wanna eat, they say "Shit we wan' eat too"
Let's ride around, find a nigga stuntin' on front street
Wit the shines on, niggaz be lookin like lunch meat
I run up on a nigga, pop one on the floor
Tell em' come up off that shit fore' we start poppin some more
Fuck a ski-mask, man niggaz know who I is
I got a full clip and, niggaz know I gets biz

[Chorus 2x]

[50 Cent]
I'm up early in the morning, tryna make a move
You comin in when ya shorty take ya lil one to school
Even though she caused the drama, you love ya baby mama
I hit her wit the lama, to get this cake
Give us the coke, the cash, the combo to the safe
If she don't know it...Damn! ok we'll wait
I'll play wit yo kid on the couch while ya bitch on the phone
Wit the gun to her head sayin "Daddy come home"
You was rollin poppin bubbly, didn't think it get ugly
Had the whole shit is lovely until it go bad
Now you can pray for a miracle, and God might be hearing you
And the nine'll jam, right in my hand

[Chorus 2x]

[Young Buck]
Ooooh!
I got his homies screamin "Buck you need to calm down"
Niggaz be gettin killed everytime you come around (Yeah!)
We ran up in his crib, made his momma kiss the ground
She askin God "What my baby done did now?"
I'm taking everything, jewelry, I want it all
Duck tape him up, rip the phone cords out the wall (Give me that nigga!)
Fuck waitin, we gon' start waitin on tomorrow (Huh!)
So ask satan if he got a car that I can borrow
I'm impatient like a money hungry rap star
Jack him for his chain and I can get a new jaguar (Whoa!)
The mac'll have his brains all over the fuckin sidewalk
And I'mma be on CNN again, it ain't my fault
March nigga step! (Step!)
Right nigga left! (Left!)
G-Unit soldier, I'm thuggin to my death motherfucker!

[Chorus 2x]

Life and Death and New Orleans Rap

The following is a review from Publishers Weekly of Triksta: Life and Death and New Orleans Rap by Nik Cohn. I'm on way to the store to pick up a copy.*

A British rock journalist based in New York, Cohn artfully chronicles his recent infatuation with New Orleans's rap scene. His obsession with the city sparked when he first visited, on tour with the Who in 1972; over the years he regarded New Orleans "as the lover [he] could never be free of." By the late '90s, stricken with hepatitis and flirting with death, the nearly elderly author hears "bounce," a type of New Orleans rap dictated by a formula of shout outs and street chants, and marketed successfully by the local Take Fo' Records. He immerses himself in this Southern gangsta hybrid, epitomized by Soulja Slim—a "real nigga" who hailed from the tough Magnolia projects, soured on drugs, guns and jail, and was shot dead by his mid-20s in 2003—and 19-year-old, gold-toothed Choppa. Nicknamed, thrillingly, Nik da Trik, or Triksta by Choppa, Cohn gains a mark of authenticity from the musicians and even works as a well-meaning talent scout for DreamWorks (the rappers call it DreamShit) before he is defeated by the city's deeply inbred sense of futility and "cycle of slaughter." This heart-heavy patchwork (pieces of which appeared in magazines) proves especially elegiac in Katrina's catastrophic wake.

FEMA Rap

While hip-hop bloggers continue to rail against "mainstream" hip-hop for its lack of values, politics, and substance and while others go so far as to call it minstrelism, FEMA rap (my arbitrary term, not a new phrase) proliferates at a steady pace under the noses of such naysayers.

One might infer when reading the following Fox news article about hip-hop that relates the events of Hurriance Katrina and its aftermath, that it is experiencing an apparent return to its militancy that characterized it during the late 80s and early 90s. I don't think that this is the point, either. The point is that hip-hop is the vehicle by which people today are translating their stifled individuality, their degradation on the job, and their hope for a different society in a particular fashion shaped by the tragedy that was Katrina.

It is needless to recall the irony in those who cling to the antiquated forms that hip-hop assumed yesterday, all the while they could be appreciating a form that accurately expresses a very real politics today.

F--- Katrina: New Orleans Hip-Hop Remembers the Hurricane

Mutual Aid and International Solidarity Conference Postponed Until Fall

Originally slated for today, May 24, 2007 at Dillard University in New Orleans, LA, the Mutual Aid and International Solidarity Conference has been delayed until the Fall due to key Venezuelan speakers, i.e. Venezuelan bureaucrats, denied entry into the United States.

While I think it is of pressing importance to tie the effects of Hurricane Katrina to capitalism and to the institution of white supremacy, and of greater importance that it serve as a basis for international, working class cooperation, I am highly critical of the unquestioned support of the Chavez government by the Left.

Furthermore, the organizations which are involved in much of the relief efforts and that have endorsed this conference are not state-based, nor should they be. They are the self-active and independent expression and vision of a new community and of the need for the exclusive political sway of working people. This stands in direct contradiction to those representatives who will appear in support of a so-called progressive rule from above.

Since his election, there has been the ever increasing tightening of Chavez' grip on the Venezuelan state, much at the cost of the self-management and self-administration of working people on the ground. No amount of "progressive" reforms and socialist rhetoric on behalf of the Chavez administration can obscure the reality of Venezuela's growing tendency towards state capitalism.

It is irrefutable that since the Chavez administration has been elected to office, there have been modifications and reforms which greatly benefit the working class and poor, but it is of vital, historical significance that the state power be challenged in light of the historical tendency of working people towards self-government.

To criticize the Venezuelan state is not to concede to U.S. business interests who have their own ideas of how the state should be administered--which would be just as independent of working class control. It is also important to note that whether the Venezuelan economy becomes free enterprise or state-based, working people's capacities towards self-governance will be suborindate.

It is a fundamental need that our vision for another world be placed squarely on the shoulders of working people and the autonomous organizations which spring off the backs of their struggles towards a more democratic, harmonious society, not on more ruling parties, trade unions, and state officials who decide "in our interests".

Our cooperation and support should not be towards the Venezuelan government, but towards the workers and their independent organizations such as the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund, the very basis of workers' autonomy and a society where they decide, plan, and administer.

For a look at the Mutual Aid and International Solidarity Conference website, click here.

Master P: Street Hustler to Ruling Liberal

During the mid 1990s, Master P seized upon the irreconcilability of the West Coast/East Coast conflict and forged a hip-hop that came to express the sentiments and creativity, not just of New Orleans, but of the American people for the last five years of that decade. Later backed by producers Mo B. Dick, Craig B., and KLC, which together comprised Beats by the Pound, No Limit inspired a generation of black and white youth, short-lived though it was.

Releasing a plethora of independent, street-based rappers, Master P defined American hip-hop before going into relative decline a few years later, and taking New Orleans hip-hop with him. Although the roster of Cash Money Records temporarily filled the void of No Limit's dissolution, and although Lil' Wayne continues to crank out genuine N.O. Gangsta Gumbo, New Orleans has not seen since such prolific artists. While at one point in history occupying the important position of the hip-hop Mecca, New Orleans eventually conceded to Atlanta, the unequivocal epicenter of hip-hop today.

Percy Miller aka Master P got his start with a $10,000 inheritance left by his Grandfather. Writes Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide, "Originally, No Limit was a store, not a label. While working at No Limit, Master P learned that there was a rap audience who loved funky, street-level beats that the major labels weren't providing. Using this knowledge, he decided to turn No Limit into a record label in 1990."

It is clear that Master P was not some entertainment clown created from above, but rather an intuitive and brilliant individual from below who tapped in to the waning creativity of the coasts and fused in hip-hop the spirit of New Orleans and subsequently all the South.

Since retiring, Master P has authored a book and been involved in philanthropic work and, just recently, in an open letter picked up at allhiphop.com, took verbal shots at rapper Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, for occupying the same position that he once held as the most diabolical, yet admired individual in America. "I’m reaching out to corporate America to form an alliance for the sake of putting the value back into our communities by rebuilding and developing schools and businesses," says P. Now the formerly vilified "gangsta rapper" is aligning himself with the liberal black ruling class and their organizations such as the NAACP and the entertainment industry elite to "take a stand" against "negativity" in the hip-hop "industry". It is quite clear that Master P has not simply sold out, but has increasingly found his interests bound with those whom he is now colluding with.

Ironic isn't it, that at one time being part of the generation of hip-hop assailed by the criticism of the Parents' Music Resource Center (PMRC), a white, middle-class, anti-communist lobbying group, and C. Delores Tucker, the formidable opportunist who attacked hip-hop as well in the mid 90s, P is now beholden to this same cabal of racist (yes, the NAACP exists in maintenance of the racist structures and attitudes that socially hamstring black people) and opportunistic elite?

In addition to the attacks by official society, many folks of the hip-hop conservative persuasion considered No Limit as a "a dry point in mainstream hip-hop". Responding to this, L.A.-area rapper "Murs", who has the sway of a considerable portion of the conservative genre, wrote in the song, "Zonin'", "Now all you conscious rappers need to really check yourselves, disrespecting other artists just to gain respect yourselves/ when Master P probably done more for the community than your ass will ever do, a lot of them thugs is better than you/"

Master P is no longer regarded as a thug and is now within the good graces of the multi-racial ruling class, but it is still important to remember, however, that the sound and style of No Limit was a profound homegrown expression of the creative needs of a city rife with segregation, poverty, and rich in history and struggle against racism and employer rule. As Du Bois notes in Black Reconstruction in America, "The Spanish government while in possession of Louisiana had raised among them two companies of militia, 'composed of all the mechanics in which this city possessed.' This group of Negroes took part in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, and was extravagantly praised by Andrew Jackson. They were the cause of an extraordinary blossoming of artistic life, which made New Orleans in the early part of the nineteenth century the most picturesque city of America."

From the Battle of New Orleans to the Deacons for Defense, this is the lineage of which Master P and No Limit are a part. An organic development that grew directly out of the antagonism of the coasts and their inability to reflect the themes and struggles of the Midwest and South, No Limit found its critical entry upon the historical stage. Contrary to conservative and liberal opinion, it did not fall out of the void and any cursory listen to early New Orleans hip-hop will reveal its West Coast lean and inspiration.

Master P's capitulation to liberalism, to the idea of hip-hop being the cause of the economic and moral condition of black people, to the view that communities of working people are incapable of organizing and planning on their own accord, etc., is less a case of selling out and is more a reflection of his changing economic interests, his disconnection with the organic desires of regular people, and hence, just like Booker T. Washington in his infamous proclamation in concession to white supremacy that, "In all things purely social we can be as separate as the five fingers, and yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress," his personal search for a way out of hip-hop.

So long, P. Miller. Tell Nas I said, "What's up."*

IT’S TIME FOR CHANGE

Curtis Jackson’s comment motivated me. There are a lot of immature people in the world. Oprah Winfrey is absolutely right, we need to grow up and be responsible for our own actions. I paid for Curtis’s first rap tour through the south. He was such a humble guy at the time. Most artists’ mission is to sell records. My mission is to help save and change lives. There’s a lack of knowledge and false information out there. I could actually say Little Jay and Rap-A-Lot Records inspired my successful career and I will always respect them no matter what. I wrote the blueprint for this generation. The only difference is there’s no more honor and respect in the game.

Think about it: people in jail are not writing letters proclaiming to come out and do the same thing that landed them there in the first place. People in the hood don’t want to stay poor for the rest of their lives. They want to change. Parents that really love their kids would rather sacrifice their own lives so that their kids could make a change to have a better life and a better education. I’m glad that there are people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and organizations like the NAACP that are out there fighting for our rights and dignity. I have finally realized that EVERY person is either a part of the problem or part of the solution and that is why I have decided to take a stand! I’m reaching out to corporate America to form an alliance for the sake of putting the value back into our communities by rebuilding and developing schools and businesses.

First of all, it’s simply disappointing to see people that are in a position to help make a change just sit back and entertain the negativity. It’s sad to see Steven Hill set all of these programming standards at BET, just to contradict himself for the sake of marketing dollars or artist performances in order to create the appearance of a successful award show. The record company with the biggest marketing check controls the music video stations so we need to go after the people who actually control these programming networks if we want real CHANGE.

I guess by taking a stand, my son and I will probably not be invited back to the BET Awards. But it’s O.K. I got love for BET; there are a lot of good people there. Hopefully, this will help people to see the real changes that need to be made. My son and I will sacrifice our airtime because this is bigger than us, this issue desperately needed to be addressed a long time ago.

There are four things that differentiate me from artists like Curtis Jackson.

One, I can honestly admit that I was once part of the problem.

Two, I don’t want my son to grow up and be like me. I want him to be better and do better - and that is why he is taking the time to pursue a college degree.

Three, money don’t make me, I make money. My goal is to educate our people in building generational wealth and knowing how important it is to own real estate.

Four, I’m a TRUE entrepreneur; my boss is God not Jimmy Iovine. From one brother to another, if you misunderstand my purpose you could always pick up the phone or talk to me in person. I’m trying to be part of the solution not the problem. The media thrives on entertaining, especially the negativity no matter what the cost. I’m praying for the brothers that are lost out there.

Throughout the years, I have lost so many relatives and friends. This year, I’d like to focus on the comedy movies because we need to laugh more. The first movie that I’m producing is “Black Supaman” and thereafter will be “The Mail Man” starring Tony Cox and myself. I’m setting up a book tour for “Guaranteed Success” and a Hip Hop Business class with financial expert Curtis Oakes for those seeking knowledge. I understand that I can’t change the whole Hip Hop industry; I’m only trying to do my part. If you’re real, be a part of the positive movement with Take A Stand Records.com Look for the first single “I Wanna Be Like You” from the album “Hip Hop History.” I’m in negotiations with Wal-Mart and Target for direct distribution. Those are all examples of the positive difference I am trying to make in this industry.

I’m reaching out to my friends Shaquille O’Neal, Will Smith, Russell Simmons, Queen Latifah, Derek Anderson, Charles Barkley, Emmitt Smith, Beyonce, and Reverend Run to help contribute to this positive movement. I will also be holding a press conference with the president NAACP and will be able to answer any questions at that time. I am not asking any other hip-hop or gangsta rap artist change what they do; that’s how they make their money. Furthermore, I am not a preacher; I’m just telling the world what I’m doing and the changes that I am making because it’s something I want to do. If that’s sending mixed signals to people then they need to deal with their own conscience first.

P. Miller

Georgia...Bush by Lil Wayne

These lyrics are from the most prolific MC/rapper in the U.S. today; none other than New Orleans own Lil' Wayne. This is his most important song to date as it expresses sentiments about the political realities of Hurricane Katrina and those of our age. These sentiments are akin to Ice Cube's "We Had to Tear This Mothafucker Up" written during the '92 L.A. riots.

I don't buy the levee explosion conspiracy that Wayne speaks to in the song, but it's certainly no conspiracy that capitalism and white supremacy left thousands of mainly black folks to die, both due to the response of the State and its white citizenry.

We all are aware of the contradictions that Kanye so bluntly drew out in how commodities were being appropriated (white folks were "looking for food" and black folks were "looting"). But there is no difference between bread and television sets. They are both commodities created by labor for the enrichment of those who own the wealth. So to accuse poor folks of stealing is the pot calling the kettle black. No pun. They are already stolen and can only be re-appropriated as folks will always do (white folks included) in times of social crisis.

Black people were shot in their backs over television sets; profit over people.

Where I presently work in Jefferson Parish, I've heard talk of firefighters being deputized during Katrina to prevent "criminals" from "spilling over" (we all know what that kind of coded language means). Armed white mobs did the same on the other side at the GNO bridge. There were definitely aspects of interracial solidarity as white folks in many cases shared the same fate as blacks. But this kind of racism is a testament to the continued vitality of white supremacy from below that blacks and whites must continue to fight together against.

--

This song right here, is dedicated to the president of the United States of America
Y'all might know him as George Bush
But where I'm from, lost city of New Orleans... we call him this

Georgia... Georgia... Bush. x8

Noooowww
This song is dedicated to the one with the suit
Pale white skin and his eyes bright blue
So called beef with you know who
Fuck it, he just let him kill all of our troops
Look at all the bullshit we been through
Had the niggas sittin on top of they roofs
Hurricane Katrina, we shoulda called it Hurricane (Geeoorrggiaa) Bush
Then they tellin y'all lies on the news
The white people smiling like everything cool
But I know people that died in that pool
I know people that died in them schools
Now what is the survivor to do?
Got no trailer, you gotta move
Now it's on to Texas and to (Geeoorrggiiaa)
They tell you what they want, show you what they want you to see
But they don't let you know what's really goin on
Make it look like a lotta stealin goin on
Boy them cops is killas in my home
Nigga shot dead in the middle of the street
I ain't no thief, I'm just tryin to eat
Man fuck the police and president (Geeoorrrggiiaa) Bush
So what happened to the levees, why wasn't they steady
Why wasn't they able to control this
I know some folk that live by the levee
that keep on tellin me they heard the explosions
Same shit happened back in Hurricane Betsy
1965, I ain't too young to know this
That was President Johnson now
but it's president (Geeoorrggiiaa) Bush

[Chorus - 2X]
We from a town where (Georgia)
Everybody drowned, and
Everybody died, but baby I'm still prayin wit cha
Everybody cried but (Georgia)
Aint nobody tried, there's no doubt on my mind it was (Georgia) Bush

Noooowwww
I was born in the boot at the bottom of the map
New Orleans baby, now the white house hatin, tryin to wash away like we not on the map
Wait, have you heard the latest, they sayin you gotta have paper if you tryin to come back
Niggas thinkin it's a wrap, see we can't hustle in they trap, we ain't from (Geeoorrggiaa)
Noooww it's them dead bodies, them lost houses, the mayor say dont worry bout it
And the children have been scarred, no ones here to care bout em
And shout out, to all the rappers that helped out
Yea we like it they callin y'all, but fuck president (Geeoorrggiaa) Bush
When you see them Confederate flags, you know what it is
A white cracker muthafucka that probably voted for him
And no he ain't gonna drop no dollas, but he do drop bombs
R.I.P. Tay cuz he died in the storm, fuck president (Geeoorrggiiaa) Bush
See us in ya city man, give us a pound
Cuz if a nigga still movin then he holdin it down
I had two Jags, but I lost both them bit-ches
I'm from N.O. the N.O. Yea!

[Chorus - 2X]
We from a town where (Georgia)
Everybody drowned, and
Everybody died, but baby I'm still prayin wit cha
Everybody cried but (Georgia)
Aint nobody tried, there's no doubt on my mind it was (Georgia) Bush