We are the Black People of the Middle East

I was forwarded this video some time ago. Like other previews available on YouTube, I have yet to see this film. But I wanted to post it because I think it epitomizes the reason I do this blog: it highlights the ever-present reality of the movement towards direct democracy as it surfaces in the culture and aesthetics of the hip-hop generation.

The film is called Sling Shot Hip-Hop: The Palestinian Lyrical Front. You just can't have a Palestinian hip-hop that isn't chocked full of anti-colonial thematics and this film proves as much. While this anti-colonialism runs consistently throughout the clip, there is a remark made by one of the MCs that, "We are the black people of the Middle East." This says volumes about the universality of hip-hop and of the erosion of old identities. Palestinian youth are connecting and seeing their own struggles through the lens of the black struggle. While the national struggle of Palestine retains all the validity that it has before, there is an international character to hip-hop that transcends this nationality.

In believing in the self-governing capacities of the Palestinian people, I am a supporter of their resistance and emancipation as an exploited nation and as a laboring class. And if you are of the hip-hop generation, you should too.

From Maroons to Toasters

DJSuraj over at Blak Orchid dropped a blog today on hip-hop's humble beginnings in Jamaica. Discussed in Can't Stop Won't Stop, Jeff Chang writes about Kool Herc's notoriety as hip-hop's first DJ.

I haven't read CSWS yet so I'm not sure if he makes the above claim, but to my knowledge, the earliest known mobile DJ came from Brooklyn by the name of DJ Flowers. Herc made a much more profound contribution as he developed "needledropping" and the repeating of the "break" segment of records by using two turntables.

A year and a half ago I wrote a post (that would subsequently change my life forever) about C.L.R. James and his connection to hip-hop and in it I specifically recalled the mobile DJ movement that began in Jamaica and which gave way to the subsequent development of hip-hop in the United States. DJs, known as "toasters", would drive around mobile sound systems booming new Ska and Rock Steady joints. This was a highly innovative way for people to come in contact with music they had never heard and the popularity of this music was due largely to these toasters.

From Mento, to Ska, to Rock Steady, to Dub, to Reggae, to Dancehall, to Hip-Hop, the people of Jamaica and its diaspora have made an essential addition to the universality of music today.

Check out Blak Orchid for a cutting edge view of things from an Asian working class perspective. Its bigger than hip...hop...hip...hop...hip...hop.

Pimp C 1973-2007

Today, rapper Pimp C of the Houston rap duo UGK, was found dead in his hotel room in Los Angeles. He would have been 34 on the 29th of December. Rest in peace.