Resistance Art

Intersections (A Poem)

By Suzanne Adely

As global NGO regimes strengthen, movement spaces become increasingly de-politicized. In the U.S. one of the most striking examples of de-politicized 'activism' is the almost complete lack of acknowledgment of US Empire and its' political, social and economic manifestations around the globe. To organize today one must regard identity and intersectionality above all else, yet the most valuable elements of those ideas have been distorted. This poem is a response to self identified 'radical' colleagues who use the language of intersectionality to control political discussion, while refusing to see the intersections of Empire. This poem is also inspired by the memories of all that has passed in the Arab world in my lifetime.



I


his name
a relic
its letters tracing
brilliant memories
of time passing
in squares

her name was a thought
a recognition
every pronouncement
a dream
of bright courtyards
and green almonds

All of we,
All of us,
find ourselves
in the outline
hear ourselves
in the echoes

names and their memories
kept alive
in the margins
kept alive
deeper than our core
farther than our borders



II


his forsaken evening
my solitary morning
on the burning screen
he asks, tudkari?
yes habibi I do
la habibi, I don't

the sweetest sour
the brightest dark
her name was a relic
his name a thought
a knowledge
a dream

Haidar
Maryam
Omar & Nerdeen
Ali, Muhannad & Ayoub

treasured names
thrown
shattered
muted syllables
unrecognized
in this brooklyn room

Haidar
Maryam
Omar & Nerdeen
Ali, Muhannad & Ayoub

did you know they pictured their lives in color?
like the deep red earth around them

that they dreamt of their futures in song?
beats, melody and verse

that they held their cousins
with the tenderness of a mother?
as soon as their arms could unfold

​vanished

from our arms
over and over and over again
in darkness, at dawn
in spring ,winter and the autumn
in summer

'I never dreamed you'd leave in summer.'

names are hostile memories


III


a brooklyn room
an invitation
forced,
distorted intersections
a token to your well-funded identity

we pronounce their names
and tell the stories
of their well-funded death
the vicious intersections
of their well-funded death

pronounced
without knowledge,
thought or recognition
in hostile silence

names
are muted
shattered
unrecognized
fading to whiteness
in this brooklyn room



Suzanne Adely is a long time Arab-American community organizer from southwest Yonkers. I became a middle school teacher for several years before working for the Arab American Action Network in Chicago. By mid-life, I became a lawyer and global labor organizer. I have been blessed to live and work and witness movements and struggles in NY, Chi-town, MENA region and India. Some of my organizational affiliations are: Al-Awda-NY, US Palestine Community Network , Labor4Palestine, Global Workers Solidarity Network.

The Speech Heard Around the World: Jesse Williams, Hollywood, and Race

By L. Eljeer Hawkins

"This award, this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country. The activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students, that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do."

- Jesse Williams, Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards, humanitarian award acceptance speech, June 26, 2016.




Black Hollywood and BLM (Black Lives Matter)

The annual BET Awards is a star-studded affair as African-American movers and shakers congratulate one another for a successful year in music, filmmaking, sports, and other genres related to Hollywood.

This year's awards were punctuated by a resounding tribute to the iconic musician and artist, Prince, throughout the night, highlighted by an earthshaking tribute by Shiela E. and former Prince collaborators over the course of his legendary career.

The night witnessed the premiere of a new collaboration by two of the most famous artists in this current moment, Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. The song 'Freedom,' an assertive anthem during this current phase of the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), which has heightened attention to racial oppression, right-wing populism, and law enforcement terror. Quite surprisingly, 'Freedom' opened with an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King's, August 28, 1963, March on Washington speech, "I Have A Dream," which added to its message and sense of urgency.

This years' recipient of the BET Humanitarian Award was "Grey's Anatomy" star actor, BLM activist, and former history teacher in Philadelphia, Jesse Williams. In a speech that lasted 5 minutes, and 500 words, Williams not only stole the show but provided a much needed historical reframing of the birth of the nation and its history. What is remarkable is that Jesse's speech takes place on a television station (BET) with a grotesque history and record of depicting black folks and culture at the lowest common denominator throughout the ownership of black billionaire, Robert Johnson. Today, BET is owned by multi-media conglomerate, Viacom.


The Political Climate That Produced The Speech

This year's political climate, around the world and the US, is rooted in a deep global crisis of capitalism; although, individual capitalists are doing quite well -- mainly the sixty-two billionaires that can fit on one London, England bus. The working class, poor, and most oppressed from France, South Africa, Brazil, and Britain are rising. Through the methods of strikes, mass demonstrations, and protest, a total mistrust and rejection of the agenda of global capitalism and its parties of poverty, war, and violence have been the dominant features of this combustible period. In the US, this has been expressed following the Occupy Wall Street moment in 2011, the mass workers' battle in Wisconsin, the struggle for a 15 dollar minimum wage, BLM, and various student and youth protests against student debt, environmental destruction, and rape culture. The presidential elections have showcased the rise of both left-wing and right-wing populism, as both parties (Democrats and Republicans) find themselves in a crisis of legitimacy and support for workers, youth, and the most oppressed. The left-wing resurgence has been based in a search for an alternative to budget cuts, xenophobia, racism, and environmental extinction.

The rebellions in 2014 following the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray (in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland, ten months apart during the second term of President Obama) provided clear evidence that the post-racial paradigm was nothing more than a corporate market-driven brand for international consumption. Poverty, mass prison incarceration, mass unemployment, crumbling schools, dilapidated infrastructure, and black unarmed civilian deaths at the hands of law enforcement have all increased at an alarming rate. It is within this context that black workers and youth across the country and world raised the banner, Black Lives Matter.


Staying Woke In America

The anatomy of the speech on June 26 encompasses the long and vital history of the black freedom movement in the US. Williams is a graduate of Temple University, a campus located in black North Philadelphia within an impoverished community and ground zero of the gentrifying force invading the city. Jesse double majored in African American Studies and Film and Media Arts, earning degrees in both fields. For many, this is not his first rodeo in the public sphere raising deeper questions about race in America and state of black America, particularly following Ferguson, as he has graced various talk and radio programs. Jesse invoked the memory of those killed by law enforcement, like Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice on what would have been his fourteenth birthday. He heightened the role and sacrifice of black women in what would quickly become the ultimate "Say her name" moment. Jesse proclaimed with surgical-like precision, "So what's going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours."

He also focused on the well-healed and successful black artists and their social and political responsibility to the movement and moment. Entertainers with a platform can play an ancillary role in our struggle for freedom; but it is ultimately the potential power of a united working-class movement that is vitally needed to overturn the system and create something unique in our interest in the U S and globally. It is clear that, without a doubt, Williams understands that from his opening words to the speech. However, he is correct in his critical examination and challenge to Black Hollywood: "Now the thing is though, all of us in here getting money, that alone isn't going to stop this. Alright? Now dedicating our lives to get money just to give right back for someone's brand on our body, when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies."

Jesse pointedly admonished the critics of BLM: "The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That's not our job, alright, stop with all that. If you have critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down."

As he closed out the speech, he raised the question of whiteness and the appropriation of black culture that has caused a fury on social media and the public sphere. As he correctly exclaims, " We've been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we're done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind, while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil, black gold. Ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is, though, the thing is that just because we're magic, doesn't mean we're not real."


The Black Artist: Robeson, Belafonte, and Simone

Willams' activism, profile, and platform stand in the rich tradition of Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, Nina Simone, Lena Horne, and countless others. Historically, black artists have used their talent and energy moved by the historic moment; the struggle to end American southern apartheid, speaking out against fascism, organizing in the grassroots, and advocating for revolutionary change. Jesse's voice is amplified because of the power and influence of BLM, increases in social struggle, and the turn to the left and toward anti-corporate moods by workers, youth, and the most oppressed in our society. He has produced a documentary about BLM on BET that chronicles the rise of the banner and its activists. Since the speech, he has received scorn, attacks, and doubts of his blackness.


The Backlash: Postive and Negative

Since June 26th, the speech is the most trended topic on social media, television, newspapers, magazines, in households, and on the street. It has both inspired and infuriated many. The right-wing pundits and commentators have called the speech an anti-white speech, and an online petition is calling for Williams to be fired from "Grey's Anatomy" as he continues to receive death threats on Twitter. In response, literary giant and activist, Alice Walker, penned a beautiful poem to honor his voice and courage to speak out against racism and law enforcement terror.

Even pop star, Justin Timberlake, tweeted to his over fifty million followers how "inspired" he was by the speech, which led to an interesting query by black writer and social critic, Ernest Owens, on Twitter to Timberlake, "So does this mean you're going to stop appropriating our music and culture? And apologize to Janet too." The Janet Jackson reference stems from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance and wardrobe malfunction which caused a major controversy and debate. It resulted in Jackson being vilified in the press and Timberlake being unscathed by the event, even reaching new heights of celebrity after the incident. In subsequent Tweets, this led to a firestorm from the black Twitter world, posing the question to Timberlake on why he does not speak out on social issues, ans well as demands for him to stop appropriating black music and style. Timberlake would apologize and state he was being misunderstood.

In one of the most troubling aspects of the backlash against Williams are questions of his skin color, privilege, and platform. He is one of three sons; his mother is white Swedish, while his father is black with a history of activism. Both are former public school teachers. They both were at the BET Awards as he gave them a shout out for teaching him comprehension over career, while also thanking his black wife who is the mother of his two children.

Colorism (dark skin and light skin) has plagued black folks from the very beginning in this nation, dating back to chattel slavery. Many enslaved children were the byproducts of sexual violence against black women by the slave master or white authority figures on the plantation. It led to a schism and an instrument for the master class to divide and conquer the slaves along color lines, giving slaves with a lighter complexion certain tasks off the cotton fields and often in the master's home. The development of "privilege" under the plantation slave system was a valuable tool to maintain power and influence over all the slaves, regardless of skin color. This paradigm has been socialized and inscribed for the past four hundred years in all of the institutions like media, film, and sports under capitalism, with institutionalized racism affecting the cultural and social consciousness of black workers and youth actively. It has even led to many light-skin black people attempting to pass as white in order to lessen the blow, or run away from, the sting of racism in America.

Jesse has expressed and acknowledged that his status and bi-racial lineage affords him the opportunity to hear and speak to a multitude of people from family, friends, and movement people - both white and black.

To color shame Williams is to attempt to de-legitimize the power of his speech at the BET Awards, his activism, and his profile. It calls into question, who is "black enough" to speak about our struggle and plight under capitalism and racism? If a lighter skin shade automatically minimizes one's words, should we discount the political and cultural work of Dr. W.E.B. Dubois, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, George Jackson and many others who were of lighter skin complexion in the black freedom movement? The question should not be focused on the color of the person that is speaking truth to our movement and masses, but rather the measuring stick should be the content, character, and genuine activism of the person standing before us and raising their voice for liberation.


We Must Build Our Movement and Defend Jesse Williams!

As the BLM banner continues to mature and grow as a social movement we must broaden the struggle to push back against big busineess and law enforcement attacks on activists and organizers like Jasmine Richards. The vitriol and right-wing attack against Williams and BLM organizations should not be taken lightly by our movement and supporters.

In the 1940s and 50s, under Senator Joe McCarthy's "Red Scare" campaign coordinated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the FBI unleasshed a covert war against communist and socialist organizations. Within this war, one of the most famous international stars of the stage and screen of the 20th century and a political beacon against racism, colonialism, and capitalism, Paul Robeson, became public enemy number one.

Robeson was hounded and attacked for his stance and support for the Soviet Union, international workers' rights, anti-colonial struggle in the third world, and democracy at home and abroad. Robesons' passport was even confiscated, denying him the right to perform and make a living. This took an unconsciousable toll on Robeson's health, career, and political work. Robeson would pass away in 1976, and his name and history have been erased from mainstream history books.

To defend our movement and its most fearless advocates like Williams and Jasmine Richards, we must strengthen our solidarity with ideas, program, demands, and historical memory to truly stay politically woke and break free from capitalism and racism.

Pain and Expression: An Interview with Panic Volkuskha

By Devon Bowers

Below is the transcript of an email interview with artist Panic Volkuskha, where we discuss art and how it can relate to reality, specifically focusing on a rather recent piece entitled Couples Therapy.



What made you interested in art? Why are you so passionate about art?

I enjoyed drawing from a very early age. Comic books, specifically Japanese manga, are actually what got me into art in the first place.

I'm a transgender man, I spent the first 24 years of my life being viewed and treated as a woman. So being raised as a little girl in the 90s, I didn't find many American comics and tv shows that interested me. The stuff aimed at girls didn't click for me -- I didn't like the art style, I didn't like the plot lines. Japanese comics and cartoons, like "Sailor Moon," "Cardcaptor Sakura," and "Revolutionary Girl Utena," did click for me. Many of those were created by women, and the main characters were young girls, who got to have magical powers and fight villains. And they got to wear super cool costumes while doing it!

My dad often says that he knew I was serious about art when I was seven. I had gotten in trouble for drawing during class, so I started setting my alarm clock early to draw before I went to school. My dad said nothing would have gotten him out of bed early at that age.

I have my parents to thank, too. Both of them work in the arts, so I grew up going to plays and art museums on a regular basis. For a long time, I didn't realize that was not the norm for most kids. My parents may not always like the content of my art, some of my paintings and comics deal with disturbing subjects, but they have always been supportive.

By middle school, I was really using art as an escape and as a form of therapy. I was bullied at school before there was much public discourse about how damaging bullying is -- it's emotional abuse -- so the school didn't really know how to handle it. The teachers and administrators didn't seem to understand how horrible it was for me. I felt dismissed and unheard. My art was where I could make myself heard.


You said in a recent Tumblr post that you live with "depression, anxiety, obsessive skin-picking, and some lingering trauma." Do you use art as a way of dealing with that?

Oh, absolutely. Since I started studying art therapy, I've begun to see that a lot of the art I was making/continue to make has been an instinctive method of therapy for myself, particularly comics. There's a form of therapy called "narrative therapy," which is based around the idea that everyone tells stories, to themselves and about themselves. These stories influence self-perception, emotions, and behaviors. Narrative therapy also holds that the "true" story doesn't really matter because all stories are subjectively true; you experience it, therefore it is real. This is particularly helpful with PTSD, because trauma can distort and conceal "true" memory.

Before I ever heard of narrative therapy, I was making comics about the stories that I told about myself and the stories others told about me -- what it was like to be seen as an intelligent, high-achieving student when inside I was incredibly anxious and self-loathing. I was sexually abused at a fairly young age, by a kid my own age, and those memories are pretty fragmented. For awhile, I was plagued by the fact that I couldn't fully remember what happened. So I made a comic about what I did remember, how it made me feel, and how I accepted it as a part of myself, but not as what defined me. It really helped to lessen some of the anxiety and intense emotion surrounding the event; even if I didn't have the full "real" memory, I had my true experience of it.


Why is it that you chose drawing/painting as your particular art style? What other artists do you admire or have influenced you?

Drawing is usually the easiest thing to do! There's almost always something to draw with, no matter where you are. I draw when I want to complete something relatively quickly, as my paintings take a longer time and tend to be more detailed.

I like acrylic and oil paints the best. I've worked with them the most, so I have a sense of mastery, I know how to do what I want with them.

My favorite art movement is the German Neue Sachlichkeit or "New Objectivity" movement. It developed after WWI, before WWII, and focused on the social and economic desperation of the times. The general style involves realistic depictions that are distorted and bizarre, a reflection of the climate in Germany at the time. A lot of the Neue Sachlichkeit artists were outspoken about the rise of the Nazi regime and had to flee Germany.

One of my favorite comic book artists is Lynda Barry. She has an incredible ability to tell funny and serious stories through the view point of children; she really captures how it felt to be a kid, to know more than the adults around you think you know, but to still not fully know what's going on.

Another big influence for me is Dave McKean. His work, particularly "Cages," expanded my idea of what can be done with comics. He uses photography, digital manipulation, painting, collage, and he blends it all together so well -- it never feels chaotic, like too much, it's all considered and composed.

To just list some influences -- Otto Dix, Jenny Saville, Odd Nerdrum, Dino Valls, Henry Darger, David B's "Epileptic," Charles Burns' "Black Hole," "7 Miles a Second" by David Wojnarowicz and David Romberger, "Dorohedoro" by Q. Hayashida, Kate Beaton's comics make me laugh myself sick, "Vampire Loves" by Joann Sfar and all of my friends who are artists.


Regarding the "Couples Therapy" piece that has gained a lot of attention as of late. I wanted to know, what inspired you to make that piece? What made you chose those specific characters and television shows?

I was taking a class on systems therapy, which refers to a number of theories of therapy that believe, even when working with one person, you have to consider the entire system, the family system the person grew up in, systems of economics, race, gender, and sexuality, and the broader sociocultural system that we all live within. All of these tie into the individual and how they experience the world. For instance, the anxiety and/or depression experienced by a transgender Latina woman is informed by different factors than the anxiety and/or depression experienced by a cisgender white man.

Our class used different families as examples in our class discussions, as case examples, fictional or nonfictional families that were relatively well-known so that everyone had some base knowledge for the discussion. I started thinking about families in pop culture, the ones that I had grown up with, and was suddenly struck by the fact that Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin are both abusive fathers. I mean, I kind of knew that, but I had never thought about it very seriously before. Hank Hill sometimes borders on emotionally abusive, but he's the most understanding and adaptive of all three characters.

I started wondering, if I considered the behavior of Homer, Peter, and Hank seriously -- then what would Bart, Chris, and Bobby be like as adults? Looking at the behavior of their fathers, the behavior of the entire family, and how the family is viewed in the context of the show, how would these kids turn out? The idea snowballed from there and I began sketching out the comic.


What do you think are some of the long-term effects that shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons have on normalizing violence and abuse, while masking it under comedy?

I don't think the shows themselves are responsible for child abuse, which is what some people seem to think this sort of criticism -- my criticism -- is claiming. I think the shows normalize abuse. All three shows are semi-realistic family sitcoms, with "King of the Hill" being the most grounded in reality. The Simpsons, the Griffins, and the Hills are pretty much all put forward as the "average American family." And the Simpsons and the Griffins are abusive families.

If the shows were consistently cartooinshly violent, like "Coyote and Roadrunner," I wouldn't have so much of a problem. But the shows are relatively grounded in reality and present these families as "average sitcom families."

If the abusive behavior is meant to be satire of actual abusive families, then it is not good satire. It falls into the trap of simply repeating/displaying the thing that it's trying to satirize, with no criticism or deeper message.

Part of this is a cultural shift, I think. The creator of The Simpsons is my parents' age; they grew up in a time when physical punishment of children was the norm. Sure, there was some sort of line that you weren't supposed to cross, or else it would be abuse, but getting hit with a belt or chased around the house with a switch was a part of their childhood. And my parents joke about it with their siblings because it's part of their shared experience, and part of why they chose to never ever physically punish me.

There are so many studies coming out now that show how extreme and long-lasting the effect of physical punishment can be; not just extreme physical punishment, any physical punishment, even spanking. Maybe physical punishment was normal enough when my parents were kids, and even when I was a kid, so that it could be a joke, but not anymore.

Lastly, I've been getting a lot of messages from people about the comic that really drives home that these depictions are a problem. People writing me and saying "It took me a long time to realize my family was abusive because shows like this made it look normal," or "This is the kind of thing that happened to me and it was horrible and I don't understand why I'm expected to laugh at it." Those messages made me want to cry and I think they're very telling.


What every day things inspire you?

People! I love portraits and figure drawing. I honestly believe that everyone is beautiful; there is at least one facet of any person that would make a beautiful painting, the unique pattern of crooked teeth, the folds of flesh on a person's stomach, the hollows made by the eye socket.

My classes are really inspiring. As much work as grad school is, it's very exciting to be studying a subject that is so important to me.


How can people support your work?

The big one that I urge everyone to do with art online is to properly credit the artist. Always try to find the original source and link to it.

I do have a Society6 (https://society6.com/panicvolkushka) and an Etsy ( https://www.etsy.com/shop/panicvolkushka). There isn't as much on there as I would like, what with being a full time student and employed, but whenever I have a break from school, I try to add new stuff.

Art, Race, and Gender: An Interview with Son of Baldwin

By Devon Bowers

Below is a transcript interview I had with the founder and operator of the Facebook page, Son of Baldwin, where we discuss comic books as a political medium and also as it relates to and in many ways reflects the current racial and gender structures we see in society.



What made you interested in comics? For me, personally, comics were an extension of my interest and enjoyment of animation.

My father bought me my very first comic books when I was four years old and I was hooked instantaneously. At that point, I had already been introduced to super heroes via the 1973 Super Friends cartoon and then the 1975 Wonder Woman television series. I was fascinated with the idea of these larger-than-life characters with incredible powers who used those powers to protect defenseless people from the evil and corrupt. That resonated with me on a primal level. Forty years later, it still does.

Comic books are the reason I'm a writer today. My earliest writings were me attempting to create my own superhero stories. Additionally, two superheroes in particular played a major role in the shaping of the very unsophisticated political consciousness of my childhood:Wonder Woman and her black sister, Nubia. Wonder Woman comics were filled with stories that touched on very basic, elementary feminist principles. And with the introduction of Nubia, a very clumsy race awareness was brought to the fore. Both impacted me in ways that I can't fully articulate, but suffice to say, they were my first child-like understandings of identity.

The fact that these were female characters was quite important. I wasn't drawn to Superman orBatman, or even Black Lightning and Black Panther in the same way. I believe that I was rejecting, on some subconscious level, the narrowness and rigidness of a particular brand of masculinity and the increasing and needless violence that came along with it. Wonder Woman and Nubia-with their bold strength, unabashed femininity, and desire to teach first and punch only if they had no other choice-seemed more balanced and free. The escapist fantasies I had with them allowed me the room to safely explore other, queerer aspects of myself, aspects that I was only beginning to become aware of and understand. At four years old, I couldn't know that this is what was happening, but looking back, it makes a great deal of sense.


Given the fact that so many movies and shows are flourishing due to diversity, why don't you think that companies don't have more diverse characters, if for no other reason than to cash in?

There are a great number of experts, theorists, and thinkers who believe racism, sexism, and other forms of institutional bigotry are tied to economics. The prevailing wisdom goes something like: to rid ourselves of these evils, we must disconnect them from their economic incentive; we must make bigotry unprofitable. But what that class analysis fails to contend with are the psychological benefits of bigotry. Bigoted ideology helps oppressive groups feel good about their actions, beliefs, practices, and thoughts. It warps their perception of reality so that any evidence contrary to their false ideas of supremacy are discarded and discounted. They'll invent flimsy excuses to uphold the status quo in the face of utter ruin. This benefit is separate from economics. It lives in that mental and emotional realm that allows poor white people, for example, to say: "I may be poor, but at least I'm not black!" or straight black people to say, "I may be black, but at least I'm not queer."

So when the research shows that inclusive media is actually more profitable than exclusive media , they regard that data as suspect and reject it. Simultaneously, when the exclusive media they promote fails financially, they behave as though they're baffled in regard to why that might be and continue to make more of the same stuff in the face of utter failures. As a last resort, they might test the research by releasing inclusive media, but that's always a game of gotcha. If the media does well, they say it's a fluke. If it does poorly, then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It doesn't matter if what they thought was inclusive was actually tokenism dressed in offensive stereotypes. It doesn't matter how many inclusive forms of media do well or how many exclusive forms of media fail. The bigot isn't operating from a logical, rational, common-sense perspective. Even the capitalist bigot will choose losing money over allowing marginalized peoples and perspectives centralized locations in the production of media-especially marginalized peoples and perspectives they can't control.


Would you say that comics can be used effectively as a means of political engagement on some level?

Absolutely. I'd be loath to give my nieces and nephews a comic book without first reading it and then reading it with them, though. Many comic books contain really toxic messages about race, gender, gender identity, sexuality, disability, etc. I think comic books politically engage children in ways that I find abhorrent. Most comics teach kids that physical violence is the way to solve most problems; that women should always be subject to the gaze and whims of men; that queer people don't exist, or if they do, it's as the strange punchline or comic relief; that being disabled is the worst thing in the world to be and must be "corrected"; that all races should be subordinate to the white race, and so on. It's very, very rare that I come across comics that I would give to the children in my family (Princeless is a pretty good one). But I do find that my adult friends and family are politically engaged with the comic books they read. Mostly though, they, like me, find themselves in opposition to the overt and covert sociopolitical messages in them. Most mainstream comic books, I'm convinced, are created for white, heterosexual, cisgender, non-disabled men-which makes sense since that demographic, by and large, is the one creating them.


What are your thoughts on the fact that Scarlett Johansson is playing Major Motoko in an upcoming Ghost in the Shell movie ? Do you think that this is being used as a ploy of sorts to get people from criticizing Marvel for not creating a standalone Black Widow movie?

Scarlett Johansson to be playing an Asian character is blatant racism; it's yellowface. There's just no other way for me to view it. It's bold and proud racism masquerading as a necessary casting choice. Racists will always try to justify their racism and, in the justification, attempt to remove the racism label: "It was an economic decision! And Johansson is popular, so…!" They say that as though either of those plea cops shield them from the racist label. They don't. Racism is racism irrespective of the "justification."

There's just no way in the world I will see Ghost in the Shell without an Asian actor in the lead role. Period. The end. That goes for Doctor Strange, too. Ain't no way I'm supporting that film either. My response to Hollywood racism is to do everything in my power to ensure that their racist products fail. Not that they'd ever learn their lesson: How many Exodus' or Gods of Egypts have to flop before they get it? I learned that they don't want to get it. They dismiss my views by calling me a SJW (social justice warrior)-a term that they seem to think is a slur, which reveals much more about them than it does about me-and whining about how hard it is not to be a bigot.

So instead of trying to persuade bigots why it's wrong to be bigots, I give my money to those who already know why. That's why I make it my business to support ARRAY.

As far as a Black Widow stand-alone film , I don't think there's any way Marvel can protect itself from that criticism. There is no sleight-of-hand they can pull that could distract anyone from something so obviously and egregiously sexist.


Regarding the role of women in the comic book industry, would you say that there is some room for women in the industry in terms of women taking the lead in creating and producing comics?

I wish I could say yes. The industry is so incredibly hostile to women, though. Like openly hostile; so openly that it seems almost built into the industry's design.

For example, there's this situation at DC Entertainment where one of the senior editors has been repeatedly accused of sexual harassment-for years and years, by many women-and only now, after one woman spoke publicly and other survivors of this man's behavior spoke up and social media got a hold of their testimonies-is DC "investigating." And they made sure to use DC Entertainment Diane Nelson to make the public statement about the investigation in an oh-so-cynical Public Relations 101 stunt move. Like that wasn't absolutely transparent. It's almost like if the public never found out about the allegations, DC would have been content with allowing it to continue, like sexual harassment is a normal part of their professional culture.

And it's not just the publishers; it's the audience, too. Women have complained of harassment and worse at comic conventions and other comic-related spaces including comic book retail stores. And don't venture into the comment sections at every comic book news site or message board. Misogyny is a staple. If you were a woman, would you feel welcome in such a vicious environment?

And it's a shame that this is the state of the industry because there are so many talented female creators and eager female readers who could help boost the industry's lagging sales-especially DC's, whose market share continues to shrink.


I find it strange in some ways (though in some ways not), that in many cartoons such as Justice League Unlimited that have strong, well-liked female characters such as Vixen and Hawkgirl and yet people seem to think that movies or shows based on those characters wouldn't succeed. Why would you say that is?

The answer is bigotry. Bigots cannot understanding centering anything outside of their identity sphere. It doesn't matter how many times Batman, Spider-Man, or Superman fail, they will be given multiple chances to succeed. Because they are perceived as having inherent value due to merchandising, etc. But if Vixen was given as many chances to find her stride as Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman have over these many decades, maybe she would eventually find her popularity as well. Though I must say, Vixen comes out of a kind of stereotype about black women's sexuality and womanhood; a white, patriarchal gaze which regards it as animalistic, base, degenerate, evil, and wayward. Vixen needs a black woman writer to redeem and revitalize her, and remove her from the clutches of the white supremacist sensibility that imagined her. There's a dope character in there somewhere, but a black woman's vision is needed to realize it.


How are cartoons used to enforce gender roles? I say this as the show Young Justice was canceled by DC as they thought that women wouldn't purchase toys of the largely male cast. ( http://io9.gizmodo.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317 )

It's funny you should ask this. I just wrote an essay about a superhero cartoon called DC Super Hero Girls for The Middle Spaces that explores, in some ways, the function of cartoons.

What I've come to understand is that most American media aimed at children is propaganda designed to enforce very conservative and harmful ideas about class, disability, gender, gender identity, nationality, race, sexuality, and Otherness in general. There are some exceptions ( Steven Universe may be one, though I have some minor issues with that show as well that I hope someone can correct; but that's the topic of another conversation). But for the most part, this media is attempting to indoctrinate children into becoming a very specific kind of citizen, a very specific kind of laborer, a very specific kind of taxpayer, a very specific kind of soldier, to practice a very specific kind of religion, to form a very specific kind of family-and all of those things lean noticeably to the right.

That's why we have toy commercials where only boys play with racing cars and only girls play with dolls. Shit, we even call boys' dolls "action figures" to ensure that the line between genders is solidly drawn. Cartoons, which are little more than 15- and 30-minute commercials for toys and games, are design to reinforce these outdated and limiting notions. And, unfortunately, adults have been indoctrinated far longer than children. So most adults act as the police force ensuring their children absorb these restrictive, reductive ideas.


Why do you think that so many people who are into comics want to keep the entire medium to a small few, denigrating people who are just learning about the comics or who became interests in them via the movies as not being 'true fans?' Doesn't that hurt them in a sense as a major reason comic book movies were/are being made is because of those people who haven't yet/don't read the comics?

People, I've come to understand, are afraid of change. We become anxious when we perceive that something might change because we allowed some other group to be included. The comic book fanatic that denigrates new readers because they think the new readers might cause the industry to alter its priorities and storytelling to accommodate the new reader has much in common with the xenophobe who wants to build a wall at the southern border to keep Mexicans out of the United States because they think the Mexicans will "steal their jobs." Those fears are family. They live together. And they will, thankfully, die together. It's inevitable. They're scared of that, too.


What comics/graphic novels would you say had an impact on you on a personal level and why did they have such a major impact? [For me, I would say Solanin, Blankets, and Not Simple.]

I love this question. There are a few. I tend to like comic books/graphic novels that make me think, that make me question things, that encourage me to envision a better world and a better way of life, and invite me to be a better human being:

Erika Alexander and Tony Puryear's Concrete Park is the very first comic book/graphic novel that I've ever read about people of color that wasn't plagued by the white gaze. It's the very first comic book I've encountered in which people of color are centralized, are the default, belong in the landscape, are the norm. It's the very first comic book that I felt didn't ask permission to exist in this state. It avoids stereotypes. It allows its characters the full realm of humanity and is unapologetic in allowing its Blackness to begin with a capital B. And it's a Blackness that wasn't imagined by white folks who listen to rap music and had a black roommate in college so now they think they're experts on black people even though all they can manage to conjure is black pathology. With beautiful writing and beautiful art, this comic, more than any other, provides a way for me to envision fully realized black characters in my own stories.

Phil Jimenez 's Otherworld was such a smart examination of sociopolitical hierarchy. The backdrop was Celtic myth and science fiction, but the heart of the story was about the lovelessness that defines contemporary conservative ideology and how it can only lead to human extinction. Art wise, every page is a masterpiece. Every detail is rendered meticulously. And the colors were outrageous. The series only lasted seven issues when it was scheduled to go for 12. So I never got to read the conclusion, but what I did read impacted my personal politics in a very profound way.

Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's Young Avengers broke all of the rules in terms of narrative and visual storytelling, and did so with elegance, grace, and aplomb. They literally broke the boundaries of the panels in their stories-the art often allowed the characters to actually use the white space between panels as weapons! And then they broke one of the biggest boundaries of all: In their final issue, they revealed that every member of the team was queer. Basically, all the things the industry would have said couldn't be done because it would affect sales, they did. Their fearlessness bolstered my own.



Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer from Brooklyn, N.Y. He earned both his B.F.A. in creative writing and M.F.A. in fiction from Brooklyn College. His work has been featured in The New York Times Gawker The Grio , and the Feminist Wire . He is the creator of the social justice social media community, Son of Baldwin, which can be found on Facebook Google Plus Instagram Medium Tumblr , and Twitter . His first novel is in the revision stage and he's currently working on the second.

Reclaiming the Community: A People's Project for Self-Determination

By Mychal Odom

San Diego, California is home to a unique grassroots project called Reclaiming the Community (RTC). This project exemplifies what was once called operational unity, comprising community activists and artists in San Diego from a variety of political positions, races and ethnicities, religious orientations, and, importantly, gang affiliations. The underlying goal of all liberation movements has been what many people call "self-determination." Self-determination in the most fundamental sense is defined as the right of members of a group to govern themselves and choose their own destiny. In the long history of liberation movements for African Americans and other people of color in the United States, this notion of self-determination has been translated to another highly important term, "community control." People from San Diego to Selma, Alabama have long understood that global change mandates robust progressive action at the local level. The Reclaiming the Community movement was founded by local Barber/Activist, Tau Baraka and a coalition of local organizations, and community members in response to the murder of Courtney Graham in 2010. Since then, the movement has continued to adapt and grow and is now made up of a larger coalition of people from a variety of different, longstanding, and well-respected organizations. The activism of the RTC movement has embodied the notion of community control by mandating that local residents be the ones who regulate the administration of education, political representation, and, importantly, criminal justice.

The Reclaiming the Community members have adopted the following declaration: "As a member of the Reclaiming the Community movement I recognize that power abuse by law enforcement and fratricide are the two most immediate issues facing our community." Herein lays the radical importance of the RTC movement to local, national, and international struggles. RTC has not separated its struggles against structural racism and economic oppression from the conversations we ourselves need to have as a community. In recent years, deeply conservative segments of American society have cynically used the waves of drug and gang violence throughout the United States as a retort to the popular statement "Black Lives Matter." "If Black Lives Matter, then why haven't you said anything about the killings in [Insert Major City with Gang/Drug Violence here]." However, these critics clearly have little to no interest in actually engaging the scourge of gang and drug violence that has assaulted Black people and communities of color consistently for four decades. Comparatively, some progressive activists shy away from internal conversations about gang and drug violence for fear that it might damage or lessen the concerns for structural inequality. RTC does not believe that conversations about police abuse and mass incarceration need to be separate from concerns over intra-community violence. Its members strive to "end mass incarceration and the targeting of Black and Brown community members by law enforcement" and to "renounce fratricide and the murder of our children, family members, and friends." The cause of these economic and social problems in places like Southeast San Diego is structural inequality. However, RTC has shown that the solution is, first and foremost, a form of empowerment that looks towards everyday people as leaders and change makers. For this reason, RTC has mixed more traditional forms of community engagement with cultural and social methods to create a strong base of grassroots activists.

In the spring and summer of 2014, the RTC movement held public marches and gatherings in a variety of Southeast San Diego neighborhoods and parks. Since the 1970s, Skyline, Encanto, Mount Hope, and Mountain View/Lincoln Park have been central to the gang and drug activity within the San Diego area. Yet reversing the tradition of urban flight, RTC did not shun these places and people; instead, RTC saw an important opportunity to organize the people where they are, gathering hundreds of residents and members to hold public marches throughout these areas. These marches were only a prologue to a longer discussion with Southeast San Diego. The goal of the marches was to introduce RTC's united front to the community. Following each march, RTC threw public barbecues with free food, drinks and music at the parks of the various districts. In doing so, RTC fostered important public conversations between community members, which eventually grew to larger community engagement with very real and important legislative changes in California. Amongst its many victories, these marches helped rally community support for the passage of California Proposition 47, which reclassified most non-serious drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. The main goal of the marches and RTC movement, however, has always been about moving people, and not just changing policy. Since the marches, the RTC movement has consistently engaged a variety of public concerns, with its largest focus on policing and criminal justice.

Critical to self-determination and community control is another term, "self-definition." Before a people can decide where they want to go, they must first decide who they are. Culture is vastly important to the self-definition of a people and it is therefore logical that cultural workers such as musicians, poets, visual artists, and other creatively minded people have always played a prominent role in movements for liberation. Cultural and social events prove just as important, if not more, as canvassing neighborhoods, polling, and holding public rallies. In 2014, while RTC was organizing the community marches, one of its founding members Khalid Alexander of Pillars of the Community, proposed the composition of a hip hop soundtrack. RTC organizers had utilized music as a tool during their community marches, and local artists such as Big June and Wilnisha Sutton, in addition to other musicians, had played an important role as community organizers. RTC members believed that a soundtrack would help further unite San Diego and carry RTC's message to the masses. Further, a major component of this message was criticisms of recent unjust and racist criminal conspiracy charges against a variety of young men and women from the Lincoln Park section of San Diego.

Among this group of men and women were two young men, Aaron Harvey and rapper Brandon "Tiny Doo" Duncan, who were arrested in June 2014 and charged with murder under the extremely controversial Proposition 21. Passed in 2000, Proposition 21 allows for the prosecution of anyone determined to benefit from or promote crimes committed by gang members. Actually admitting that Harvey and Duncan had no involvement in a series of killings that took place in 2012 and 2013, San Diego District Attorney charged that Facebook postings and music of the respective defendants allowed them to profit from the series of killings. Members of the RTC movement and other parts of San Diego rallied against these unjust charges against Harvey, Duncan and other defendants. In addition to presenting a clear violation of the First Amendment, these charges were grounded in the logic and working of a long history of racism and anti-blackness embedded in our criminal justice system. The charges against Harvey and Duncan are only comprehensible to people who are unable to separate Black people from their art or, even worse, the deviant images conjured in the popular imagination. In the spring of 2015, the charges against Harvey and Duncan were proven to be unfounded and they were released. But the charges against Duncan substantiated the power of Black and minority cultural production in San Diego. If rap lyrics could be used by Bonnie Dumanis to try to take away the lives of people, then why couldn't rap music be used as a tool of unity and to give life? As a counterpoint to the oppression and misappropriation of justice waged by Dumanis and her office, collective mobilization against these charges served to energize the RTC album project. Rappers and musicians have therefore played a critical role in RTC from the beginning. As the album's producer Parker Edison has noted, "The street rappers and hip hop artists are the voice [of the people maligned by throughout the US]. This CD is the natural outcome of the larger push for positivity and desire for self-determination that we see throughout South East San Diego."

The RTC album is an important tool in community organizing, as it brings together a group of local artists, many whom have intimate ties to the hard streets of Southeast but have also dedicated their life's work to trying to find an alternate and more positive way forward for all of San Diego. A reflection of RTC's overall political beliefs, the album project lets the community speak for itself, as opposed to just being spoken to. Parker notes, "It is meant to encourage all of those who are struggling for positivity and to overcome the many obstacles that society has place in their way, but most of all, it is a reflection of the realities we live with here on a daily basis; the good and the bad." The RTC album challenges the dominant narratives about life in South East San Diego, especially the ones that promote cultural links of Blacks and poor people to criminality. The album stands in direct opposition to the images that Dumanis, in her attempts to prosecute Harvey and Duncan, sought to exploit. In an interview, one of the album's artists Ecay Uno pronounced his appreciation for being a part of the RTC project because, despite his history of gangs and drugs, ever since his youth, he has wanted "to be a part of what gets people out of the mindset that we are in which causes us to make the choices that we make…a lot of the negative activity in the streets."

It is phenomenal and a testament to the artists themselves that this album was able to be completed. The album brings together artists such as Tiny Doo and C-Hecc, whose Blood and Crip neighborhoods have been in longstanding feuds with each other. Despite this, both artists recognize in their songs on the album that the decades-long genocide that Southeast has endured is a result of limited public and economic resources, and the destruction of the radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Tiny Doo's track is entitled "Deserve This" and C-Hecc's track is entitled "True Story." Both songs do what all great art is supposed to do and ask the people to imagine a new Southeast, a new San Diego, a new world beyond the one given to us. C-Hecc states, "Picture the progress, transforming the new day/not only money, our people living a new way/all that malice in their hear and they tears gone/no more mamas going broke over headstones/understanding is key to this transition/now these kids ain't got they brothers and they dads missing." In his song, Tiny Doo demands a return of the leadership of people like Huey P. Newton as a possible solution to the current state in which the Black community finds itself. In fact, the RTC movement and album have already engaged the tradition and ideals passed down by the Black Panthers-which they inherited from Malcolm X.

Students of the teachings of Malcolm X, the Panthers and other radical movements of the 1960s and 1970s understood that all successful liberation movements must organize what Huey Newton called "the brothers and sisters on the corner" and other people have referred to as the lumpenproletariat. Huey understood this personally because, like Malcolm, he too had spent a wealth of his childhood incarcerated. Malcolm once stated that to be born in America is to be born Black in America is to be born a prisoner. For this reason, the problem of mass incarceration in the RTC project is understood as one that impacts all of us and not just the formerly incarcerated. What's more, it is the formerly incarcerated who are best prepared to lead the movement because as one historian asked, "Who better to define freedom than the slave?" The victims of "neoslavery" are the ones leading this fight for freedom.

The RTC album released July 28, 2015 amidst a well historic moment for the history of American liberation movements. This date marks the 150th year anniversary of the end of the American Civil War and the passing of the 13th amendment. In an alternate universe, this would be a year in which we celebrate how far our nation has come. However, just as the great writer and critic James Baldwin noted in his famed letter to his nephew, "My Dungeon Shook," we are not truly free until the legacy and the structures of white supremacy have been defeated. The RTC album project was released on the 28th of July because that is the same day in 1868 that the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified by the Secretary of State William Seward and the Congress. The 14th Amendment was supposed to bestow citizenship, equal rights, and due process to the formerly enslaved and ensure that no one is denied their inalienable rights regardless of race, creed or color, but the continued struggles over the past 150 years underscore that this has yet to come. In this light, the RTC album is more than your average hip hop compilation-it is a political manifesto, a treatise. The RTC album is not the first San Diego album to bring together such a diverse grouping of artists across gang and racial boundaries. A dozen years ago, many of these same artists came together to create the now legendary compilation Str8 Off the Streets of Southeast. A couple of years later, the New West compilation album released. What makes this album different is the explicit political purpose amidst a larger political moment. RTC artists such as Black Mikey, Ecay Uno, and Odessa Kane have a longstanding tradition of progressive and radical lyrical content. Wilnisha Sutton is a local artist and a budding activist. Following the decision not to indict Darren Wilson for his killing of Mike Brown last fall, she was among the first to take to the streets in the mass actions in Southern California. However connected to the larger local, national, and international movement, the RTC album carries historic significance as it extends their activism to new height.

The RTC album was composed, produced, and released in lockstep with the RTC movement and within the spirit of the age. The album gives voice to the disposed and forgotten. It has transformed the "brothers and sisters of the corner" into agents for change. Be it about Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, or Tiny Doo, everyday people are discussing the long history of injustice. They are reading, studying, and preparing for a new day. They are demanding that that change come now and that we no longer be asked to wait patiently. As the RTC artist letter notes, it "is the sound track to that feeling. It is a voice for those who society would leave voiceless. This album is a call to action, a call to solidarity, and a collective effort to haul up a new day. We believe a new day is dawning in America and you are the artists that are making it happen."

***

The RTC album project is available for download at https://rtcproject.bandcamp.com/. As an extra treat, the album has a second part-a mixtape. The album hosts the local artists Hotta (aka Silhouette), Tiny Doo, Big June, Ecay Uno, Odessa Kane, Black Mikey, Jaz Williams, Wilnisha A. Sutton, Looselyric, Aye Hitt, Licwit Loco, C-Hecc, Dave Moss, and Bossman Hogg. The mixtape contains music from Real J Wallace, Aki Kharmicel, Piff PCH, Ric Scales, Pedalay the Boss, Leon Saint Heron, GMG and Von Dream. For people who are less tech-savvy or are old school and like to purchase albums themselves, the artists will be selling copies; as well local barbershops such as Imperial Barbershop have copies for sale. The prices of both discs have been set at $10 each. The proceeds from the album will go to support this completely grassroots and remarkable movement.

Now That's a Bad Bitch!: The State of Women in Hip Hop

By Asha Layne

The state of rap music has changed since its creation in the 1970s. Starting in Bronx, New York rap was always seen as an underground subculture that deviated from the social norms and patterns of the dominant culture. It was here that the expressions of young Black and Hispanic men were freely expressed and not criticized. Rap music is a cultural art form that consists of four elements: deejaying, break dancing, rapping, and graffiti. Having its historical roots in ancient African culture traditions, rap music can also be traced to countries that were part of the African diaspora. For example, Lliane Loots indicated that two elements of hip-hop culture have their roots in Brazil and Jamaica (2003, p.67). The art of rhyming culturally stems from West African tradition of the griots or story tellers that were part of the oral tradition of African culture. The Jamaican influence on hip-hop can be located in deejaying practices referred to as dub-mixing, utilized first by Jamaican immigrant Deejay Kool Herc.

Since its inception, rap music has evolved from an underground subcultural movement to a mainstream subcultural expression that profits from the ideology of dominant culture and vice versa. Rap music during the 1970s remained national commodity until the 1980s. During this time participants in this subculture were involved directly in one of the four elements (Hunter, 2011, p.16) in which young men and women of color were rapping at parties, tagging or creating graffiti on subway cars, or breaking (Nelson, 1998). The 1980s ushered in the idea that rap music could not only be popular in the United States but also in other countries. The market for rap music increased as capitalism expanded along with the industry. With the increased popularity of the genre, media sources became the main locus for rap music to not only become more mainstream, but to also increase their purchasing power under capitalism. In order to examine the purchasing power of rap music under capitalism it is important to talk briefly of the underpinnings of capitalism.


Rap and Capitalism

Capitalism can be defined as an economic system based on private ownership with the goal of making capital or profit for the owner. Under capitalism there exists a divergent economic relation between the laboring class (proletariat) and the ruling class (capitalist). Unlike the capitalist, the laborer becomes a commodity as their labor is sold to the purchaser. According to Rousseau, the relationship between the owners of production and the workers is inherently oppressive, as the goal of the capitalist to accrue wealth from the laboring working class (2009, p.20). As the laboring class becomes increasingly objectified in the market, the state represents the instrument of class rule. The state can be seen as an instrument of power because of its production of ideological hegemony of the ruling class, which not only legitimizes exploitation but maintains the ruling class ideals as described by Antonio Gramsci. The state produces ideas that control our behavior through various forms (i.e. the media).

Manning Marable argues that the logic of the ideological apparatuses of the racist/capitalist state leads inextricably to Black accommodation and accommodation into the status quo, a process of cultural genocide which assists the function of ever-expanding capital accumulation (1983, p.9). As capitalism moved from the industrial sector to financial, and from financial/corporate to global, capitalists are continuously seeking cheap labor power and methods of exploitation; and the rap industry is not immune. This buttresses Antonio Gramsci's argument that the capitalists can assert their power and control through the subordination of the working class by means of ideological hegemony. The ideological hegemony of the ruling class, therefore, prolongs the subordination of the working class and also legitimizes the power and control of the capitalist or owner.

As hip hop grew in popularity, capitalists found new ways to assert their control and power over the industry, which became more lucrative with neoliberal policies. According to Derek Ide, rap was born from the ashes of a community devastated by a capitalistic economic system and racist government officials (2013). Ide continues to express that it was not long before corporate capitalism impinged upon the culture's sovereignty and began the historically familiar process of exploitation (2013). As hip-hop transitioned from its unadulterated underground image to mainstream adulteration, the industry began to support the capitalist ideologies which spread rapidly as profits increased with the deregulation of the market.

As the rap industry expanded, many have argued that the image and state of rap worsened as rap became a keen marketing tool for corporations. Corporate giant, Viacom, which owns Black Entertainment Television (BET), VH1, and Music Television (MTV), has been influential in disseminating controversial messages and images to its audience and critics. Felicia Lee asserts that "protestors want media companies like Viacom to develop 'universal creative standards' for video and music including prohibitions on some language and images" (2007). Achieving this level of prohibition has not happened in recent years as images of scantily clad female rappers, misogynistic lyrics, and the negative portrayals of African culture continue to be exploited. The relationship between rap artists and corporations can be paralleled to that of slavery.

Solomon Comissong explained that the 1990s saw a corporate takeover and commodification of rap, which has made the music less diversified in various media forms (2009). This change has led to changes in lyrical content, style, and fashion as artists display themselves in the best way to expand their marketing power, which is directly influenced by capitalism. The hegemonic ideologies of the ruling class have been transferred into the beats, rhymes and imagery in the rap industry as artists continue to exploit themselves and culture for economic gain.

In 2007, Forbes magazine released its first annual "Hip Hop's Wealthiest Artists" list which measured the annual earnings of rappers. As stated by Greenburg, unlike traditional music genres like pop, rock, and country, whose artists generally make their money through touring and album sales, rappers like Jay Z, 50 Cent, Kanye West, and Sean "Diddy" Combs have become entrepreneurs who have parlayed their fame into lucrative entertainment empires (Goldman and Pain, 2007). More recently, Nicki Minaj became the first documented female rapper on Forbes "Hip-Hop's Cash Kings" list since its creation in 2007. Earning an estimated $29 million in 2012, Minaj has successfully beaten many boys at their own game. But at what cost?

This paper explores how the commodification and consumption of the black female body has given rise to the "bad bitch" phenomenon in rap culture. It is argued that the effects of being a bad bitch not only changes the state of rap but also the attitudes and behaviors of young black girls, and their interactions with the opposite sex. Also, the topic of whether or not the bad bitch phenomenon is a form of deviant behavior within African-American culture will be addressed.


Bad Bitch

The word "bitch" has morphed from a term of disrespect to a term of endearment that often takes on the meaning of empowerment. Once viewed as debilitating, the term has appropriated a new perspective within a subcultural context that is perceived as a term of empowerment. In examining this change, Aoron Celious explains that the term "is located in a society where sex and power are interrelated - men afford status and privilege over women because they are men, and women are relegated to a diminished status and restricted access to resources because they are women" (2002, p.91). The change in the meaning of the word thus subverts the tools of oppression used to dominate women to now empower them. This has been seen in the frequent usage of the word by many female rappers as rap music became commercially lucrative.

Although the word historically has been a long-noted negative stereotype against women, it has only added to many stereotypical orientations for women of color. Misogynistic orientations of Black women were not separate from the historical changes in the United States - "the imagery projected in rap has its roots in the development of the capitalistic patriarchal system based on the principles of White supremacy, elitism, racism, and sexism" (Adams and Fuller, 2006, p.942). During slavery - a form of capitalism - Black women were not only exploited for their labor power but also their reproductive power. The location of Black women under capitalism therefore is dually exploitative and profitable. The patriarchal attitudes seen against Black women today can be traced back to oppressive and exploitative control methods of the state and the economy.

The images of Black women historically have served the interests of the ruling class. Adams and Fuller further assert that the images of the "Saphire" are analogous to the "Mammy" image in that they both serve the entertainment needs of Whites (2006, p.944). In rap music, the word "bitch" can be linked to the stereotypical image of the Saphire, as a woman who de-emasculates her man by running the household and being financially independent, or as a woman who simply does not know her place. This sentiment has been shared by radical feminist Jo Freeman. In Freeman's The Bitch Manifesto, the word is used to describe a woman who "rudely violates conceptions of proper sex role behavior" (Buchanan, p.12). Among Generation Y, this word has been enhanced to compliment women who are sexy, smart and independent, thus justifying and perpetuating the commodification of the Black female body.

According to Stephane Dunn, in "Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films," the term "Baad Bitches" began with the sexploitation of Black female actors in the 1970s, as well as being products of contemporary dominant culture (2008). Scallen highlights Dunn's (2010) work by referencing the following:

The "Bad Bitch" suggests a black woman from working-class roots who goes beyond the boundaries of gender in a patriarchal domain and plays the game successfully as the boys by being in charge of her own sexual representation and manipulating it for celebrity and material gain" (2010, p. 27).

The role of black women in film is strikingly similar to the rap industry in that they both lucratively exploit black sexuality in different media outlets. The image of Foxy BrownCoffy, and Cleopatra Jones by Pam Grier embodies her super-womanhood and sexuality. Gwendolyn Pough (2004) states:

By exploiting Black women's bodies, the blaxploitation movies fall short of offering fulfilling and complete images of empowerment for Black women. However, the films do offer some interesting subversions and complications. If we really begin to critique and explore the genre, we can see the ways Black women such as Pam Grier have participated in the cultural processes of gender construction for Black women and turned some of those processes completely around. We will also be able to explore and critique contemporary reclamation of Grier's characters such as the ones offered by Foxy Brown and Lil Kim. They are bringing the big bad Black supermamas into the new millennium and using them to construct contemporary Black women's gender and sexuality (p. 67-68).

The portrayals of Black women in film, along with the music industry, have either classified Black women as Saphires, Mammys or Jezebels, also known as "hos". These various forms of imagery have continuously been accepted by White America and thus perpetuated into the social interactions and perceptions of Black women and men in the Black community. The depictions mentioned here are increasingly common as more and more consumers are not only buying, but are also emulating these negative stereotyped roles.


Black Feminist Thought

The inclusion of black feminist theory is essential in examining the exploitation of the Black female body in rap. Collins' Black Feminist Thought explains that race, gender, and class are oppressive factors that are bound together. In investigating the placement of the commodified Black female rappers in the industry, the role and location of Black women in the United States has to be examined. Since, central to this analysis, one may ask: Is the emergence of the bad bitch phenomenon foreign to the lives of Black women in this country? Collins highlights how the role of Black women always contradicted the traditional role of women in mainstream society. Collins poses the question, "if women are allegedly passive and fragile, then why are Black women treated as 'mules' and assigned heavy cleaning chores" (2000, p.11)? The placement of Black women as 'objects' and 'tools' for production has been and will always be embedded into American culture.

Black feminist thought places the standpoint of Black women at the forefront, which deviates from the general practices used under conventional feminist theories. According to Collins (2000), Black women in the United States can stimulate a distinctive consciousness concerning our own experiences and society overall (p.23-24). Collins understands this knowledge can be thoroughly attained from both women in academia and outside academia. The lyrics of some female rappers have taken a vocal stance displaying the issues and struggles faced particularly by Black women. These rappers have voiced their opinions on women's oppression in the industry as well as within their communities from the hypermasculinity of their male counterparts. For example, in Queen Latifah's U.N.I.T.Y., she writes:


But I don't want to see my kids getting beat down
By daddy smacking mommy all around
You say I'm nothing without ya, but I'm nothing with ya
This is my notice to the door, I'm not taking it no more
I'm not your personal whore, that's not what I'm here for
And nothing good gonna come to ya til you do right by me
Brother you wait and see, who you calling a bitch (1994)!!


Rap music has been used as a stage for both men and women from disadvantaged neighborhoods to express their experiences with oppression and also serve as a means for coping with that oppression. One main characteristic of oppression is the repressive nature it places on the individual that results in objectification of material wealth. Historically, the Black body has taken the form of material wealth in that it was aggressively commodified during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, especially for women. The commodification of the Black female body has changed to meet the needs of the political economy in a particular society. The "bitch phenomenon" in rap culture is no different because it has been integrated into forms of the dominant culture to serve the needs of the dominant and ruling class.

Collins argues that the domination always attempts to objectify the subordinate group in which the ideas and one's own reality is not defined by members of the subordinate group (2000, p.71). This was clearly visible in the distinction between the figures of the "Mammy" and the matriarch. The Mammy symbolized something good by the dominant group whereas the matriarchal figure was deemed bad according to the same "standards". Collins references the Patrick Moynihan's report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, in locating the thesis for Black matriarchy. She writes:

…the Black matriarchy thesis argued that African-American women failed to fulfill their traditional "womanly" duties at home contributed to the social problems in Black civil society (Moynihan 1965). Spending too much time away from home, these working mothers ostensibly could not properly supervise their children failure at school. As overly aggressive, unfeminine women, Black matriarchs allegedly emasculated their lovers and husbands (2000, p.75).

Black feminist theory reminds us to never forget how race, class, and gender are central in understanding the development of the Mammy, matriarch, and the vast appearance of the "bad bitch" phenomenon.


Data and Methods

The "bad bitch" and Black feminist thought theses could be utilized to explain the manifestation of the "bad bitch" phenomenon. The bad bitch thesis explained by Dunn and Pough is a black woman who can be successful under a patriarchal system of control by defining success for herself and how she will go about achieving it. The limitations of the bad bitch thesis are considered by Collins through the use of Black feminist theory. This expansive theory examines how the intersection of race, class, and gender serves as a form of oppression for Black women under a patriarchal system.

To answer the question of how the bad bitch phenomenon continues to increase the commodification and consumption of the black female body, a content analysis of Nicki Minaj's songs will be reviewed. Nicki Minaj's work was selected because of her being the first female rap artist to make the Forbes list since its creation in 2007. It is argued that the effect of being a "bad bitch" not only affects the state of rap but also the attitudes and behaviors of Blacks. Also, it will be important to examine whether or not the bad bitch phenomenon is a form of deviant behavior within African American culture.


Pink Friday

The mentioning of women in rap music by men has been a largely demoralizing phenomenon, at which women are referred to as "gold-diggers," trifling, bitches, and hos. While it is easy to criticize male rap artists for demoralizing Black women, female rappers have not only participated in the gender politics but have also capitalized from these stereotypes in the rap industry. Born Onika Maraj, Minaj's popularity skyrocketed in 2010, with the releases of several mixtapes: Playtime is Over, Sucka Free, and Beam Me up Scotty, before her first major album Pink Friday in 2010. According to Caulfield, Minaj scored her second number one album on the Billboard 200 Chart in 2012 following the release of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded with the hit single "Starships" (2012). Upon her growing album sales, Minaj's popularity further increased with various collaborations that widened her notoriety to other areas of music, beyond rap. In analyzing the content of Nicki Minaj's songs, the following themes appeared: reclamation of the words "bitch" and "ho"; female independence; and female masculinity.


Reclamation of the Words Bitch and Ho

One significant difference seen between male and female rappers is the usage of the words "bitch" and "ho". Despite the negative, literal meaning of the words, Minaj has used them to demand attention from her competitors. In her controversial song Stupid Ho, Minaj allegedly addresses fellow female rappers in the same misogynistic form of disrespect typically reserved for male rappers. In the song, she writes:


Bitch talking she the queen, when she looking like a lab rat
I'm Angelina, you Jennifer
Come on bitch, you see where Brad at
Ice my wrists and I piss on bitches
You can suck my diznik if you take this jizzes
You don't like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, giving this the business
Cause I pull up and I'm stuntin' but I ain't a stuntman
Yes I'm rockin' Jordans but I ain't a jumpman
Bitches play the back cause they know I'm the front man
Put me on the dollar cause I'm who they trust in
Ayo SB, what's the fucks good?
We ship platinum, them bitches are shipping wood
Them nappy headed hoes but my kitchen good
I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish
A bitch would (2012).


In this example, the word "bitch" is used as: a form of address, form of disrespect; and distinction. Above, the word "bitch" is metaphorically used to address her competitors in a disrespectful manner traditionally used by male rappers to address women. It becomes self-evident that she is not on the same level as her competitors and refers to them in an unattractive manner as, "nappy headed hoes." The labeling of her female competitors as "nappy headed hoes" is even more destructive than the words bitch and ho, in that it brings about a new area of concern, which is beauty.


Female Independence

The establishment of female independence in rap has taken many forms. Black female identity by male rap artists has helped generate negative stereotypes of the Black female body or a male objectifying the female body. Female independence could also be seen as a woman objectifying her own body and image to gain financial independence. In her song Blow Ya Mind, Minaj writes:


She said her name is Nicki
She came to play and her body was sicken
She gets what she wants, so sexy when she talks
Oh, you know she gon' blow your mind
Okay, Nicki
Did these bitches fall and bump their little heads
I got 'em like, oh, which one of them I'ma dead
'Cause when they get sick, they start to cough bread
Body looks right, plus we crop heads
The Rolls Royce Phantom, yeah, the drop head
And that just goes to show I'm that bitch
I 26'inched the rims with black lips
Now this is the anthem, this is the anthem (x2)
In-ear, in-ear, all in your in-ear
Boy, I put this pussy on your chinny, chin, chin hair (2011).


In the above lyrics, Minaj demonstrates that her body allows her to get what she wants, which (according to her) makes her unique. Self-sexual exploitation can be seen here as a method in gaining financial freedom from the traditional methods.


Female Masculinity

The use of masculine rhetoric has been used by rap artists since the days of "battling", or battle rap, to gain popularity and to command respect from their fellow artists. The machismo attitude in rap music has been denoted by images of male rappers "acting hard", and having multiple women and material possessions, which have been expressed through misogynistic imagery and lyrics. However, female rappers have utilized this macho image as a tool of female empowerment despite its negative imagery. Nicki Minaj has continuously utilized masculine rhetoric in her lyrics as an act of empowerment which implies that, just like men, women could also be violent-so don't mess with me or else. In the song, I am your Leader Minaj writes:


Look sucker, this my gun butter
Street fighter bitches, this Is the up cutter
Nunchucka,' no time to ducka'
Sign of the cross, cause this is her last suppa'
Play with me, check who came with me
I brought a couple 9's, plus the k's with me
I breeze through Queens to check some bad bitches
I stunt so hard, assess the damage
Cause this that aw, this is that aw
And yes I body bitches go get the bandages
I hate a phony bitch that front that chunk chummy
I'm the top shotta' drop the top toppa
Big fat pussy with a icy watch (2012).


The aforementioned lyrics demonstrate how female rappers have perpetuated the repressive and oppressive nature of women in hip hop. It is important to note that the usage of negatively degrading words against women by women carries more weight and meaning. Within the subcultural context of rap, women disrespecting other women in the same manner as men solidify their "street" credibility therefore perpetuating the cultural acceptance of misogynistic lyrics, regardless of the gender of the artist.


Justifying the Commodification of a Bad Bitch

The role of female rappers in the rap industry has been manipulated to justify ongoing exploitation and repression of Black women. Examining the lyrical content alone does not clearly illustrate the role the media plays in justifying the commodification of a "bad bitch". Following the lyrical trend and imagery of female rappers in the industry, it is strikingly evident that the sexploitation of women has become more lucrative, thus legitimizing the bad bitch phenomenon. In making this connection, it is imperative to recognize how forms of media serve as tools of oppression by reproducing ideological hegemony. Gramsci saw that the ruling class maintained their power not by coercive actions, but through hegemony at which the ruled would accept the norms, belief systems, and culture of the ruling class without challenge.

The media, like the family, serve as an agent of socialization. Mass media is seen as a powerful agent of socialization in that it has been, and continues to be, used to manipulate the consciousness of others. For example, consumer research has shown that there is a correlation between mass media and the attitudes of consumers. In terms of music, Viacom Inc. owns the controlling interests of MTV, VH1, and BET. As a result, the interests of Viacom are not reflective of the 'ruled' class, but instead of the ruling class; which uses its platform to maintain its hegemonic control. The raunchy lyrics and depiction of female rapper Nick Minaj is largely supported by these capital investors who are benefiting off of an alternate form of labor: self-sexploitation.

The media is a tool of oppression that justifies and perpetuates the negative stereotypes of Black women. Therefore, support and acceptance of these negative stereotypes is measured lucratively by media giants. The three factors discussed: reclamation of the words "bitch" and "ho"; female independence; and female masculinity have been repackaged and sold to consumers in today's market. The popularity of mainstream rapper Nicki Minaj not only demonstrates cultural acceptance of the thesis of a bad bitch but approves of the notion that self exploitation and objectification is justified because women are defining it for themselves within a male-dominated framework.


Conclusion

The placement of Black women in the history of the United States has always deviated from the norms and standards of dominant culture. Black women's bodies have been both criticized and exploited by Whites for economic gains. These stereotypes have created images of Saphires, Jezebels, and the Mammy, which further pushed Black women's intelligence onto the periphery while mass media has largely capitalized on body and cultural images. The mainstream representation of these stereotypes, especially the Saphire or bad bitch, revisits how Black women have always been exploited and oppressed.

Attributes of the bad bitch phenomenon are not exclusive to Generation Y but can be traced back to sassy images and roles Black women coveted. The rap industry has served as a new locus for this type of Black female to dominate in. Adopting the bad bitch persona not only gives Black women the opportunity to survive economically and socially in a Eurocentric male-dominated society, but also provides them the freedom to assert their power under their own rules without apology. This essay indicates that the adoption and commercialization of the bad bitch phenomenon are not foreign to the history of the Black female body. One important difference is the rise in self-exploitation by Black women in the industry to attain money, power, and respect that is indicative of the transferring of a Eurocentric-based ideological hegemony onto an oppressed subcultural group.



References

Buchanan, P. (2011). Radical Feminists: A Guide to an American Subculture. ABC-CLIO. Santa Barbara, California.

Celious, A. (2002). How "bitch" became a good thing-or, at least not that bad." Perspectives. Retrieved November 25, 2013 from http://www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu.

Collins, P. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Second edition. Routeledge. New York, New York.

Comissiong, S. (2009, September). Corporate hip hop, white supremacy and capitalism. Black Agenda Report. Retrieved November 25, 2013 from http://www.blackagendareport.com.

Dunn, S. (2008). Baad bitches and sassy supermamas: Black power action films. Urbana. University of Illinois Press.

Fuller, Adams and Fuller, Douglas. (2006). The words have changed but the ideology remains the same: Misogynistic lyrics in rap music. Journal of Black Studies, 36,(6), 938-957.

Goldman, L. and Paine, J. (2007, August). Hip-Hop cash kings. Forbes. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.forbes.com.

Ide, D. (2013, June). How capitalism underdeveloped hip hop: A people's history of political rap (part 1 of 2). Social Movement Studies Analysis. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.hamptoninstitution.com.

Lee, Felicia R. (2007, November). Protesting demeaning images in media. New York Times. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.newyorktimes.com.

Marable, M. (1983). How capitalism underdeveloped black America: Problems in race, political economy, and society. Boston, MA: South End Pres.

Moynihan, P. (1965). The negro family: A case for national action. Office of Policy Planning and Research. United States Department of Labor. Retrieved on November 24, 2013 from http://www.blackpast.com.

Nicki Minaj (2011). Blow ya mind on All Pink Everything [CD]. MTC Records.

Nicki Minaj (2012). Stupid Ho on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded [CD]. Cash Money, Young Money, and Universal Motown.

Nicki Minaj (2012). I am your leader on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded [CD]. Cash Money, Young Money, and Universal Motown.

Pough, G. (2004). Check it while I wreck it: Black womanhood, hip-hop culture and the public sphere. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.

Queen Latifah (1994). U.N.I.T.Y. on Black Reign [CD]. Motown Records.

Scallen (2010). Bitch thesis. Department of American Studies. Retrieved from http://www.americanstudies.nd.edu.com on November 24, 2013.

http://www.billboard.com . Retrieved on November 25, 2013.

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of Political Rap (Part 2 of 2)

By Derek Ide

Disclaimer: The language expressed in this article is an uncensored reflection of the views of the artists as they so chose to speak and express themselves. Censoring their words would do injustice to the freedom of expression and political content this article intends to explore. Therefore, some of the language appearing below may be offensive to personal, cultural, or political sensibilities.


Read Part 1 here.



West Coast Projects, the Rise of Gangsta Rap, and Congress's War on the Youth

Gangsta Rap burst forth in its nascent form in the late 1980's in the heart of Los Angeles. To comprehend how this subgenre of rap developed, however, the ruthless conditions which originally produced the gang epidemic must be recognized. Institutionalized racial segregation, economic deprivation, and social degradation, enforced by hegemonic government and business structures, had historically plagued communities of color in the area and produced a distinct history which would give rise in the 1980's to a prodigious spike in gang activity and violence. Historically marginalized groups would be pitted against one another in despondent economic conditions and forced to compete amongst themselves for the paltry scraps that fell from society's table. Government departments, banking agencies, and the real estate industry would play into the game of get-rich-quick racial segregation. Redlining, the practice of denying or increasing costs of housing and insurance to economically segregate communities along racial lines, played a fundamental role in the homogenous racial composition of west coast urban areas. In 1938, the Federal Housing Administration released an underwriting manual which all lenders were forced to read, explaining that areas should be investigated in order to determine "the probability of the location being invaded" by "incompatible racial and social groups" and, more importantly, that for a "neighborhood is to retain stability" it must "be occupied by the same social and racial classes" because a change in these would lead to "instability and a decline in values." [1] Some entrepreneurs "figured out how to hustle racial fear" [2] by buying at low prices from whites fleeing their homes and selling to blacks at prices significantly higher than market level. This effectively kept blacks and whites segregated into different neighborhoods.

After World War II, public housing projects were constructed, giving Watts the highest concentration of public housing on the West Coast. [3] Combined with this historic segregation, the 1980s brought with it "deindustrialization, devolution, Cold War adventurism, the drug trade, gang structures and rivalries, arms profiteering, and police brutality" which would combine to "destabilize poor communities and alienate massive numbers of youth." [4] In the same decade 131 manufacturing plants closed their doors, Los Angeles's official unemployment was at 11 percent in 1983 and in South Central youth unemployment was over 50 percent, one quarter of Blacks and Latinos lived below the poverty line, and living conditions had drastically declined. [5] Even when gangs attempted to make peace and establish long-standing treaties with one another, no infrastructure was in place to maintain stable communities with jobs and social services. In fact, when the leaders from seven rival gangs called a truce and marched to City Hall to request funding for social services, they were told they could apply for a paltry $500 grant. [6] This denial was on top of the conservative economic agenda dominating the political domain at the time which had already cut spending on subsidized housing by 82 percent, job training and employment by 63 percent, and community service and development programs by 40 percent from post-World War II era progressive spending policies. [7]

It was within these conditions that by the 1980s, after the dismantling of political organizations such as the Black Panthers and Young Lords, 155 gangs would claim over 30,000 members across the city. [8] Gangsta rap, as it was labeled, would attempt to articulate, and in some instances glorify, the street life so common in Los Angeles. Immortal Technique points out that a "factoid of information probably purposely forgotten through the years is that before it was labeled 'Gangsta Rap' by the industry itself it was called 'Reality Rap' by those individuals that created it." [9] Political prisoner and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal explains that the music was spawned by young people whom felt "that they are at best tolerated in schools, feared on the streets, and almost inevitably destined for the hell holes of prison. They grew up hungry, hated and unloved. And this is the psychic fuel that seems to generate the anger that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry." [10] This anger would shine through on tracks such as "Straight Outta Compton" by N.W.A., where rapper Ice Cube explains that he's "From the gang called Niggaz With Attitudes" and "When I'm called off, I got a sawed off, squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off!" [11]

Their rhymes signified a shift from the revolutionary programs set forth by previous political rappers and instead focused on a complete self-indulgence in instant gratification; drugs, women, the murder of enemies and assassination of police, everything was fair game. It was N.W.A.'s track entitled "Fuck tha Police," released in 1988, which garnered national media attention. The rather prophetic song would become a universal slogan in ghetto communities just four years later with the police beating of Rodney King and subsequent urban uprisings. Disgusted with the police brutality they witnessed regularly, N.W.A. would take up the issue, not politically, but with an individual vengeance and wrath previously unmatched. Beginning with fictitious court hearing in which "Judge Dre" would preside "in the case of NWA versus the police department," the "prosecuting attorneys" MC Ren, Ice Cube, and Eazy E would each lay out their case against the Los Angeles Police Department. Ice Cube's opening lines, brimming with unparalleled virulence, would set the tone: "Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground, young nigga got it bad cuz I'm brown, and not the other color so police think, they have the authority to kill a minority." Reminiscent of Paris's earlier fantastical verbal assassination of President Bush, MC Ren would warn police "not to step in my path" because "Ren's gonna blast," and, turning the tables, he confidently proclaims his hatred towards the police "with authority, because the niggas on the street is a majority." Eazy E finishes the last verse, emphasizing that fact that cops should not be perceived as immune to violent resistance: "Without a gun and a badge, what do ya got? A sucka in a uniform waitin' to get shot." [12] The controversy revolving around this song would push the album it was featured on, Straight Outta Compton, to double platinum status. By June of 1989, the right-wing backlash against N.W.A. would be front page news, an entertainment manifestation of the "War on Gangs" which L.A. Police Chief Darryl Gates had already brought to South Central.

The atmosphere of late 1980's was dictated by punitive measures explicitly directed at youth and relentless attacks on youth culture. The Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act was passed in 1988 and enhanced punishments for "gang-related offenses," created "new categories of gang crimes," and gave up to three years in state prison for even claiming gang membership. [13] This piece of legislation had profoundly harmful repercussions for youth who identified with, or even may have displayed certain characteristics of, being involved with a gang; police considered any combination of two of the following examples to constitute gang membership: "slang, clothing of a particular color, pagers, hairstyles, or jewelry." [14] Within a decade most major cities and at least nineteen states had similar laws. [15] The crossover into what became a congressional attack on Gangsta rap was facilitated by opportunistic politicians who pounced excitedly on the chance:

Tipper Gore, the wife of former vice president Al Gore, and Susan Baker, the wife of Bush's former campaign manager, James Baker, formed Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) which called for, and received, a congressional hearing on record labeling. Every song listed by the PMRC and presented at the congressional hearing as being too explicit and obscene and in need of censorship labeling was done by a Black artist. [16]

While politicians and networks of Christian fundamentalist groups had already begun anti-hip-hop campaigns under a guise of protecting morality, what Thompson labeled the "cultural civil war," [17] it was failed liberal politician and head of the National Political Congress of Black Women, C. Delores Tucker, who spearheaded the congressional war on Gangsta rap. Teaming up with cultural conservatives, Tucker, through a façade of feminism and racial pride, organized a concerted campaign against rap in order to push through legislation that strengthened juvenile-crime laws and crackdowns on youth. Inverting cause and effect, she argued that the hip-hop generation would become internalized "with the violence glorified in gangster rap" and that rap music created a "social time bomb" which would "trigger a crime wave of epidemic proportions," only to be stopped by smothering the cultural and musical developments of ghetto youth. [18]

Among some of her chief targets was Tupac Shakur (2Pac), who was not quiet in his opposition to Tucker and her political opportunism. Tupac, staying true to his roots on "Nothin' But Love," outlines the composition of his family tree as one of "Panthers, pimps, pushers, and thugs;" [19] this unique mixture helped him to articulate a conception of the rebellious ghetto lifestyle blended with the legacy of black struggle into what he termed "Thug Life." An acronym, which stood for "The Hate U Gave Little Infants Fucks Everybody," [20] his idea of "Thug Life" was a "new kind of Black Power" [21] that young black males were forced to live through:

These white folks see us as thugs, I don't care if you a lawyer, a man, an 'African-American,' if you whatever…you think you are, we thugs and niggas [to them]…and until we own some shit, I'ma call it like it is. How you gonna be a man when we starving?... How we gonna be African-Americans if we all need a gun? [22]

Tupac, whose mother Afeni Shakur was a prominent Black Panther and political activist, would utilize his connections with the streets and balance his music with historical connections to political organizers such as Huey Newton and chilling urban tales of despondent situations such as the fictitious tale of the teenage mother Brenda and the ever-present black-on-black violence. Through this unification of social commentator and street participant, Tupac would authenticate his image to millions of youth, black and white alike. Tupac's response to Tucker's critique of the lyrical content of his music was redolent of Chuck D's interpretation of rappers as journalists who help to show the world the gruesome reality of urban street life; as he argued, "I have not brought violence to you. I have not brought Thug Life to America. I didn't create Thug Life. I diagnosed it." [23]

Furthermore, according to Dyson, the attempt to suppress "gangsta rap's troubling expressions" is manipulated for "narrow political ends" that fail to "critically engage…artists and the provocative issues they address." [24] While dialogue concerning rampant homophobia, sexism, and other dehumanizing aspects of certain rap artists should be challenged, it should be done so in a way that does not alienate and isolate, but engages and allows for the artist to transcend both actions that reflect the dominant ideology and the use of oppressive language. Rapper and activist Son of Nun summarizes his position:

Some real rappers spit truth every night, but say stupid shit when it comes to gay rights. They talk about the Panthers, but they never knew that Huey woulda' called their asses out for what they do…So, in my music, I try not to call out specific emcees…[because] I realize that I have more in common with them, then I'll ever have in common with the label head or the corporate people putting that music out… [Despite sexist or homophobic remarks] when you read the interview and listen to some lyrics, you'll see that there's a revolutionary consciousness that's there at the same time…and I'd rather see those brothers as my comrades whom I can build with, as opposed to people I need to chop down and diss… [25]

This extension of the right-wing economic attack on working class and poor youth into the cultural realm, as exemplified by politicians like Tucker, should not be viewed in isolation from the larger historical trends occurring at the same time; it operated within a certain political economy and aided the perpetuation the dominant ideology required in order to push through neoliberal economic policies.

The mental framework in which Gangsta rap functions is articulated by Immortal Technique, drawing on the theoretical contributions to education outlined in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he explains, "Our youth and young adults see these gangstas and other ruthless men [famous gangsters, drug kingpins, etc.] as powerful beyond the scope of a government that holds them prisoner. People emulate their oppressor and worship those that defy him openly." [26] This does not, however, mean that Gangsta rap is devoid of a political foundation or that it should be ostracized by the Hip-hop community. As Dyson argues, "While rappers like N.W.A. perform an invaluable service by rapping in poignant and realistic terms about urban underclass existence, they must be challenged…[to understand] that description alone is insufficient to address the crises of black urban life." [27] Thus, this fusion of gangster and rebel, a sort of misguided revolutionary, groping in the darkness of urban decay and abandonment for a way to challenge oppressive, hegemonic institutions, finds its musical expression in the West Coast rap scene. Today, gangsta rap has spread far beyond the streets of L.A. and into every neighborhood, ghetto, suburb, country, to every corner of the world. The rebellious, gangster appeal, devoid of social content and reality, continues to be marketed on every street corner; a sort of "manufactured, corporate bought thug image" is pushed to the youth while "the Revolutionary element is for the most part completely sanitized by the corporate structure."[28]



Corporate Consolidation and the Telecommunications Act

This rejection of the revolutionary and embrace of the thug caricature so common in contemporary hip-hop is, in large part, a result of corporate monopolization of radio airwaves and dismantling of independent record labels. For years, questions concerning rap's viability as a musical genre and it's viability as a pop music sensation surrounded the relatively young art. Industry executives looked upon rap with disdain, viewing it as a niche market unsuitable for broad consumption. This allowed the genre to slip under corporate radar and maintain a sense of independence from major pop labels for a significant period of time. After the innovative development in 1991 of SoundScan that utilized bar-code recording to garner hard data on music sales and replaced the previous "archaic method" which had relied on the retail personnel who compiled weekly, subjective reports of sales trends "open to interpretation," [29] rap was found to have a much broader appeal than originally thought. With this new, more objective methodology of measuring music consumption, rap jumped from the relative obscurity of being a subcultural phenomenon to a major competitor with rock and pop music on the Billboard charts. [30] The "underreporting of rap was a result of long-standing cultural sensibilities and racial assumptions" [31] on the part of retail personnel. Subsequently, industry executives who still may have "harbored ill feelings toward the genre" could no longer "ignore the sales data SoundScan provided…[or] the huge financial payoff it offered." [32] As hip hop observer and critic Craig Watkins explains, "In an industry that had long ago sold its soul to the guardians of capitalism, the commercial compulsions that operate among culture industry executives are a powerful force." [33] The music, however, would have to be tamed considerably.

These commercial compulsions galvanized industry executives to tighten their stranglehold on rap music. In order to protect their status within the capitalist framework and pop music industry, executives were forced to marginalize and reject progressive, dissident, revolutionary, socialist, or any other form of independent and autonomous rap that may present a systemic critique of the established relations of power in society. Corporate hip-hop, as exemplified with the rise of rappers like 50 Cent in 2003, "rested almost entirely on its ability to sell black death" where "guns, gangsterism, and ghetto authenticity brought an aura of celebrity and glamour to the grim yet fabulously hyped portraits of ghetto life." [34] Statistics are not conclusive, but Mediamark Research Inc. estimates that whites constitute around sixty percent of the consumer market for rap in the United States. [35] Other sources, such as Def Jam CEO Russell Simmons, place the number somewhere closer to eighty percent. [36] Regardless, it is obvious that hip-hop is not an exclusively black culture; the composition of the consumer market facilitates a sort of "cultural tourism" where a "staged authenticity" [37] filled with racial stereotypes of black culture can be marketed to white youth.

Corporate consolidation of media outlets has galvanized this process of promoting a certain image of ghetto youth while downplaying the revolutionary or counter-hegemonic sentiments expressed in the music. Major labels and corporate conglomerates have very little interest in promoting artists who question capitalism or the free market fundamentalism. After all, it was that very system which originally granted them the ability to garner the enormous capital required to build their constantly expanding media empire. Immortal Technique articulates this concept:

The hood is not stupid, we know the mathematics / I make double what I would going gold on Atlantic / 'Cause EMI, Sony, BMG, Interscope / Would never sign a rapper with the white house in his scope / They push pop music like a religion / Anorexic celebrity driven / Financial fantasy fiction. [38]

Without an understanding of the significant role that major media outlets play in promoting a specific paradigm, especially in the case of a popular musical juggernaut such as rap, the rise of the glorified, gangster image cannot be concretely analyzed. Chang comments that "a lot of times people will talk about 50 Cent, but they won't talk about the structures that have made a 50 Cent possible." [39] The structures Chang refers to are multifaceted, and include broad neoliberal market deregulations that, since the 1970s, allowed for massive corporate takeovers of independent record labels and a consolidation of radio and other media outlets. For instance, by 2000, five companies - Vivendi Universal, Sony, AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann, and EMI - dominated eighty percent of the music industry. [40] One act in particular, however, the Telecommunications Act passed by Congress in 1996, presented "a landmark of deregulation," a "legal codification of the pro-media monopoly stance" that allowed the free market to shift power "decisively in the direction of the media monopolies." [41] The passage of this act had a percussive impact on the artists' creative control over their music.

The Telecommunications Act relaxed ownership limits over radio and television for corporate entities, essentially creating fewer corporate conglomerates with concentrated control over various media outlets. Congress ostensibly passed the act under the tenuous postulation that "a deregulated marketplace would best serve the public interest." [42] As to be expected, its passage spurred a rapid absorption of smaller, local radio stations into the hands of large, already established companies such as Clear Channel,[43] Cumulus, Citadel, and Viacom. [44] The result was that hundreds of jobs were decimated, community programming was abandoned, and radio playlists became standardized across the country. [45] For a stations like KMEL-FM in the Bay Area, whom prided themselves on being a "people's station" by engaging in social issues affecting the San Francisco community, this meant being bought out and merged with competing stations; playlists became nearly identical, specialty shows were cut, local personalities were fired, and local or underground artists "unable to compete with six-figure major label marketing budgets" were left without a venue. [46] Artists like Binary Star, who challenged the gangster caricature, would become, even more than before, systematically excluded by these corporate structures. Rhymes, such as those displayed on one of Binary Star's most well-known tracks "Honest Expression," [47] would be consistently ostracized from airplay.

Conglomerates like Clear Channel, unlike locally controlled radio, had no community affairs department to foster dialogue or promote local artists with fresh sounds or unique lyrics. [48] Companies downsized to maximize profits and regional programmers overtook local ones, signifying a further shift from local interests of listeners. [49] The ever-present need to increase profitability also galvanized some stations to replace live disc jockeys with prerecorded announcers who would create localized sound bites and patch together entire shows based upon a master copy that was filtered down through regional and local distributors; [50] radio truly became top-down. Subsequently, the public sphere in which artists could contest the image of the apolitical gangster or socially devoid party-goer shrunk rapidly. Corporate rap became a medium through which content was filtered and sterilized while dissident voices were marginalized or shut out completely. Even political rap was reworked into a specific consumer niche; "defanged as 'conscious rap,' and retooled as an alternative hip-hop lifestyle," the prefix became "industry shorthand for reaching a certain kind of market" instead of an authentic, organic title. [51]

Thus, as is the trend in a capitalist society where the "market...does not assure that all relevant views will be heard, but only those that are advocated by the rich [and can market a product of mass appeal that will attract advertisers, which dominate the programming message]," the Telecommunications Act has had profoundly negative implications upon hip-hop's autonomy and ensured that the media landscape was "dominated by those who are economically powerful."[52] Likewise, the prodigious increase in corporate consolidation facilitated the process by which consumption could be artificially managed and manipulated by the "mass media's capacity to convey imagery and information across vast areas to ensure a production of demand." [53] Therefore, the exclusion of particular forms of musical expression, especially those deemed political or controversial, are replaced with corporate-driven, marketed images of young black males adhering to a socially constructed thug stereotype. Fokami explains:

Corporations which dominate the media, have heavily marketed (to influence consumer demand), produced and perpetuated, the gangsta image by, among other things, playing gangsta rap lyrics, almost to the exclusion of other alternative voices that would contest such lyrics or image... The Act has made it virtually impossible for alternative voices in rap (either by the gangsta rappers themselves through their alternative "positive" tracks or by other "positive" rap artists) to be heard on the radio, since corporate conglomerates are less concerned with diversity in ideas but in meeting market created consumer demand for such lyrics. [54]

Thus, while congressional attacks were pummeling rap music for degrading lyrical content and demeaning music videos, the same politicians were simultaneously passing laws which facilitated the crystallization of apolitical, socially devoid gangsta rap into mainstream pop culture. This apparently blatant contradiction is, when viewed in the context of the capitalist state, much more consistent than at first glance; the political establishment sought to promote corporate consolidation and media monopolization, thus limiting public space for dialogue and debate in the hip-hop community, which, in turn, allowed them to pursue a the preferable path of blaming the victims for society's woes. Avoiding an uncomfortable and possibly incriminating dialectical analysis which would address the root cause, namely the dominant political and economic system, that perpetuates many of the social blights expressed in rap music, politicians attack the youth, and especially Black and Latino youth, for problems that plagued urban communities long before rap music hit the scene.



Bursting Onto the Mainstream Scene and Contemporary Political Rap

Hip-hop stepped forward into the mainstream political establishment in 2004 when it had a brief, rather superficial media campaign targeting youth voters. Rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs used hip-hop as a platform to organize a campaign under the sensationalist title "Vote or Die" as an attempt to register younger voters, garner youth participation, and generate excitement about the elections. While registering voters was only a marginal success, [55] it was clear the goals were decidedly apolitical with little actual political motivation for urban youth who, for years, had felt alienated from mainstream political discourse. The two candidates put forward by America's ruling elites, George Bush and John Kerry, had platforms so similar it was challenging to generate enough interest for young people to mobilize within the context of the two-party duopoly. Four years later, however, hip-hop would emerge as an unimaginably powerful advertisement for Barack Obama. His 2008 campaign sparked immense interest within the hip-hop community and debate flourished over whether or not hip-hop should stand behind Obama. It was little more than a decade prior that Tupac hopelessly exclaimed "although it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready, to see a Black president" on the song "Changes." [56] Now, energized by a candidate whom, for the first time, they felt would reach out to the hip-hop generation, many artists, such as Jay-Z, took center stage in fundraising concerts and spoke proudly of their involvement in his campaign. Nas, one of hip-hops "most brilliant orators" [57] whose own political trajectory involved going from conscious gangster with his first album Illmatic (1994) to passionate revolutionary with his latest release Untitled (2008), "captures the gambit of fears, hopes and doubts that swirl together in the consciousness" [58] of the black community on the track "Black President:"

KKK is like "what the fuck," loadin' they guns up / Loadin' mine too, ready to ride / Cause I'm ridin' with my crew / He dies--we die too / But on a positive side / I think Obama provides hope and challenges minds / Of all races and colors to erase the hate / And try and love one another, so many political snakes / We in need of a break / I'm thinkin' I can trust this brotha / But will he keep it way real? / Every innocent nigga in jail gets out on appeal / When he wins--will he really care still? [59]

Nas is not alone in his critical support for Obama; Mary J. Blige and rapper Big Boi from Outkast compose a song of solidarity for the working class and poor in "Something's Gotta Give," which challenges Obama to truly listen to the concerns and pressures of urban communities while earnestly calling for desperately needed social change. Big Boi articulates his working class consciousness when he rhymes, "You know the common folk, blue collar, day-to-day workers that squeeze a dollar / so maybe they can swallow a little, not a lot, just enough to fill that bottle / But it's a million dollars a gallon for gas to get to work tomorrow." [60] Unapologetically political, well-known artists creatively maneuvered political dialogue and discussion into the mainstream discourse.

Still, these odes to Obama were able to push through corporate outlets partly because their content and message remained safely within the established political borders. Obama, after all, garnered large support from many of the capitalist classes ruling elites, whom viewed the Republicans eight-year run as disastrous for the United State's economic power and image abroad. Despite this brief stint within mainstream circles, political hip-hop did not begin, and it will not end, with Obama. Radical hip-hop and revolutionary artists like Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, Paris, Lupe Fiasco, Son of Nun, and an innumerable amount of other artists remain marginalized and embroiled in the struggle to spread their message in the face of a competitive, cut-throat jungle of corporate conglomerates and consolidated, top-down radio. Often, hip-hop artists formulate unique narratives or relay stunningly academic critiques of society that tie together seemingly separate issues and help the listener foster a more critical, holistic analysis of larger societal forces.

On his latest single, "3rd World," Immortal Technique utilizes a percussive, hard-hitting instrumental produced by DJ Green Lantern to expose U.S. imperialism and militarism across the globe, brilliantly explicating on the concept of contemporary war as a natural outgrowth of capitalism. Born in Peru and representing his "Third World" roots, Technique explains that he is:

From where the only place democracy's acceptable, is if America's candidate is electable… from where they overthrow Democratic leaders, not for the people but for the Wall Street journal readers… So I'ma start a global riot, that not even your fake anti-Communist dictators can keep quiet!

On "Ghetto Manifesto," The Coup humorously outline ghetto conditions, sardonically utilizing hip-hop lingo to emphasize their point, "Got a house arrest anklet but it don't bling bling, got a homie with a cell but that shit don't ring!" Later, they put out a call for organization and mobilization, explaining "even renowned historians have found that, the people only bounce back when they pound back." They simultaneously challenge nationalist ideology, "the trees we got lifted by made our feet dangle, so when I say burn one I mean the Star-Spangled." A plethora of underground and independent rap artists express similar themes which address the need for autonomous political organization and present alternative, more humane visions for society.

Hip-Hop at a Crossroads: Conditions Today and Where Do We Go From Here?

Hip-hop was cultivated in the streets as an innovative response of urban minorities, traditionally marginalized by dominant political and economic structures, seeking a voice of their own. Alienated by harsh conditions imposed upon them by an advanced capitalist society, these urban youth sought an outlet where they could foster their own conceptions of identity and challenge institutional oppression, whether individually or collectively. Poverty, unemployment, a decrepit educational system, cuts in social services, and capitalism's inherent need to maintain a permanent underclass blended together to create a matrix in which a new, counter-hegemonic culture would emerge with the dialectically opposed characteristics of both the oppressor and the liberationist. Today, the devastating conditions which birthed hip-hop remain a reality and, in some instances, have intensified. The recent crisis capitalism has found itself in continues the downward spiral and the world economy appears close to collapse. The conditions for the working-class and the poor, however, have only worsened over the thirty years since hip-hop established itself as a cultural entity. Unemployment is skyrocketing nationally across color lines but in many cities, such as Milwaukee, Detroit, and Chicago, black unemployment is at or near 50 percent. [61] Already claiming the highest rates of poverty in the industrial world, U.S. poverty statistics have risen drastically since the onset of the world banking crash, placing both Blacks and Latinos at or above 20 percent; youth minority statistics are often much higher. [62] The loss of jobs, combined with the collapse of the housing market and sub-prime predatory lending, has pushed an immense amount of working-class residents out of their homes[63] and left nearly fifty million people without healthcare. [64] Schools, after a brief glimmer of hope with post-civil rights integration, have become more segregated now than they were thirty years ago with public school systems in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and many other urban areas 80-95 percent Black and Hispanic. [65]

Thus, the conditions in which hip-hop originally arose have not improved. Social commentator and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor postulates these are rational outcomes of the dominant political economy:

The material impact on the lives of Black workers should be clear enough, but ideologically, the systematic and institutional impoverishment of African American communities perpetuates the impression that Blacks are inferior and defective. These perceptions are perpetuated and magnified by the mass media, Hollywood and the general means of ideological and cultural production in bourgeois society. The recurrence and persistence of racism in this economic system is not accidental or arbitrary. American capitalism is intrinsically racist. [66]

Like Taylor, independent hip-hop has, throughout its existence, maintained a critical approach to the capitalist mode of production and the material conditions resulting from it. On "Window to My Soul," Stic.man of Dead Prez painfully professes the emotional trauma he experienced as he watched his older brother develop a serious drug addiction. Rather than blame the individual, an old rhetorical tactic utilized to conceal social inequality and displace blame, even more prevalent now that a Black man occupies the Whitehouse, [67] Stic.man addresses the larger socioeconomic forces which often dictate and limit choices for the urban poor:

The same conditions that first created the drug problems still exist… / And on days off, we blow off them crumbs like nothing / Getting high cause a nigga gotta get into something / But we get trapped in a cycle of pain and addiction / And lose the motivation to change the condition… / How did Black life, my life, end up so hard? [68]

He questions the entire wage system and bourgeois morality with piercing lines such as "got to go to the job or starve, without a gun every day employees get robbed." Questioning whose interests are served in the perpetuation of the current system, he concludes that it's "the police, lawyers, and judges, the private owned prison industry with federal budgets." He ends with an unapologetic proclamation that the oppression of blacks is systemic, but oppressed communities cannot turn to individualized forms of escapism and instead must discuss the organization of society as it currently exists, "I blame it on the system but the problem is ours, it's not a question of religion; it's a question of power." [69] The call to a revolutionary alternative, although not always explicitly detailed, has been a persistent theme in the language of political rap. This, undoubtably, is due to the fact that many within the oppressed communities share Taylor's conviction that the dynamic interrelationship between wealth, power, poverty, and the institutional forms in which oppression is manifested.

The landscape of independent, political hip-hop is constantly changing, progressing, and evolving. In the last few years, the augmentation of revolutionary hip-hop which aims to combat traditionally oppressive societal institutions and entrenched corporate structures provides a glimpse of the potential for the art's future. Hip-hop's place in politics extends far beyond a presidential election or congressional debates on explicit content; hip-hop, in the words of Dead Prez's M-1, "means sayin' what I want, never bitin' my tongue / hip-hop means teachin' the young." [70] Immortal Technique tells it like this, "I live and breathe Revolution, Rebellion is in my blood and Hip Hop is the heart that pumps it." [71] Two decades into the rap game, Paris provides a way forward with the newest single, "Don't Stop the Movement," from his independently owned label Guerrilla Funk:

Givin' power to the people to take back America / Panic in the head of the state, pass the Derringer / Aim and shoot, Beruit to Bay Area… / Panther power, acid showers/ This land is ours, stand and shout it… / Hard truth revolutionary black militant / Death to the Minutemen, checks to the immigrants / Streets still feelin' it, we still killin' it / We still slaughterin' hawks, feed the innocent / Read the imprint / Guerrilla Funk was birthed outta' necessity, collectively / Respectively, to behead the beast / On behalf of the left wing scared to speak, NOW GET UP! [72]

Expressing the need for solidarity between the struggles against militarism in the Middle East, black oppression in the U.S. and dehumanizing anti-immigration policies, the chorus warns activists to not stop the movement for social justice and liberation. It ends with a recording of the common protest chant which proclaims that "the people, united, will never be defeated." KRS-One comments that hip-hop is the only place Dr. Martin Luther Kings dream is visible, "black, white, Asian, Latino, Chicano, everybody. Hip-hop has formed a platform for all people…that, to me, is beyond music." [73] As underground rap artist Macklemore urges his listeners, "to my real hip-hop heads, please stand up, because the only ones who can preserve this art is us." [74]

The battle continues to rage over hip-hop's soul. Two contradictory forces clash to gain dominance: one representing the great wealth and power of the established order, the other struggling for independence, autonomy, and social change. Black intellectual Manning Marable makes the argument that "cultural workers," such as hip-hop artists, "must be able to do more than rhyme about problems: they have got to be able to build organizations as well as harness the necessary monetary resources and political power to do something about them." [75] To answer the question of what role hip-hop will play in the formation of such revolutionary organizations and movements depends on which side wins, the power of profit or the power of the people. For hip-hop activists to rescue the art form from capitalism's corporate clutches it will take dedication, organization, and education; time will tell if the hip-hop generation is up to this onerous task. The very essence of the culture is at stake.



Notes

[1] Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, "Origins of Housing Discrimination," International Socialist Review, Issue 59, (May-June 2008), accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.isreview.org/issues/59/letters.shtml; Internet.

[2] Chang, 307.

[3] Ibid., 308.

[4] Ibid., 315.

[5] Ibid., 314-5.

[6] Ibid., 367-8.

[7] Ibid., 279.

[8] Ibid., 314.

[9] Immortal Technique, "Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop," HipHopDX.com, accessed 5 April 2008; available from http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/columns-editorials/id.692/title.is-gangsta-rap-hip-hop-by-immortal-technique ; Internet.

[10] Mumia Abu-Jamal recording on Immortal Technique, "Homeland and Hip Hop," Revolutionary Vol. 2, 2003, Viper Records.

[11] N.W.A., "Straight Outta Compton," Straight Outta Compton, 1988, Ruthless/Priority.

[12] N.W.A., "Fuck tha Police," Straight Outta Compton, 1988, Ruthless/Priority.

[13] Chang, 388.

[14] Ibid., 388.

[15] Ibid., 388.

[16] Folami, 263.

[17] Chang, 292.

[18] Ibid., 453.

[19] Tupac Shakur, "Nothin' But Love," R U Still Down? (Remember Me), 1997, Jive.

[20] Urban Dictionary, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=thug+life; Internet.

[21] Shakur, "Tupac Resurrection Script."

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.,

[24] Dyson, 414.

[25] Son of Nun, "Son of Nun - Hip Hop Artist and Activist," SleptOn Magazine, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.slepton.com/slepton/viewcontent.pl?id=1955; Internet.

[26] Immortal Technique, "Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop."

[27] Dyson, 407.

[28] Immortal Technique, "Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop."

[29] Watkins, 36-7.

[30] Ibid., 39.

[31] Ibid., 39.

[32] Watkins, 41-2.

[33] Ibid., 42.

[34] Ibid., 2-3

[35] Manning Marable, "The Politics of Hip Hop," World History Archives, accessed 5 April 2009; available from - http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/594.html; Internet.

[36] Carl Bialik, "Is the Conventional Wisdom Correct in Measuring Hip Hop Audience?" The Wall Street Journal, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB111521814339424546.html; Internet.

[37] Dean MacCannell, In The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (Schocken Book 1976), 153.

[38] Immortal Technique, "Watch Out," The 3rd World, 2008, Viper Records.

[39] Chang quoted in Jones, "Politics of Hip-Hop."

[40] Chang, 443.

[41] Ibid., 440-1.

[42] Anastasia Bednarski, From Diversity To Duplication Mega-Mergers And The Failure of

the Marketplace Model Under The Telecommunications Act of 1996 , (2003), 273, 275.

[43] Adam J. Van Alystyne, Clear Control: An Antitrust Analysis Of Clear Channel's Radio And Concert Empire, (2004), 627, 640.

[44] Folami, 291-2.

[45] Chang, 441-2.

[46] Folami, 300.

[47] Binary Star, "Honest Expression," Masters of the Universe, 2000, Infinite Rhythm/Subterraneous/L.A. Underground. Lyrics such as these present a challenge to the corporate gangster image: "I ain't hardcore, I don't pack a 9 millimeter / Most of y'all gangster rappers ain't hardcore neither… So what you pack gats and you sell fiend's crack / You ain't big time, my man / You ain't no different from the next cat in my neigberhood who did time."

[48] Chang, 442.

[49] Eric Boehlert, "Radio's Big Bully," Salon.com Arts & Entertainment, accessed April 5 2009; available from http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_channel/print.html; Internet.

[50] Van Alystyne, Clear Control, 660.

[51] Chang, 447-8.

[52] Owen Fiss, Free Speech and Social Structure, 71 Iowa L. Rev. 1405 (1986), 340.

[53] Rosemary J. Coombe, Objects Of Property And Subjects Of Politics: Intellectual Property Laws And Democratic Dialogue, 69 Tex. L. Rev. 1853 (1991), 1862-3.

[54] Folami, 301.

[55] Mark Boyer, "What Happened to 'Vote or Die'?" Fresh Cut Media, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://getfreshcut.com/2008/02/04/what-happened-to-vote-or-die/; Internet.

[56] Tupac Shakur, "Changes," 2Pac's Greatest Hits, 1998, Interscope Records.

[57] Zach Mason, "Hip Hop Speaks Out for Obama," Socialist Worker, accessed 5 April 2009, available from http://socialistworker.org/2008/10/28/hip-hop-speaks-for-obama; Internet.

[58] Mason, "Hip Hop Speaks Out for Obama."

[59] Nas, "Black President," Untitled, 2008, Def Jam.

[60] Lyrics quoted in Mason, "Hip Hop Speaks Out for Obama."

[61] Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, "Race in the Obama Era," accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/03/race-in-the-obama-era; Internet. Taylor cites a study by social scientist Marc Levine from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

[62] Sylvia A. Allegretto, "U.S. Government Does Relatively Little to Lessen Child Poverty Rates," Economic Policy Institute, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060719/ ; Internet. *Research by Rob Gray. After taxes, child poverty rates in the U.S. are 26.6 percent. Black and Latino minor poverty rates are higher.

[63] Taylor, "Race in the Obama Era." Taylor notes that "Black homeownership has dropped from 49 percent to 46 percent… By 2007, 30 percent of Black households had zero net worth, compared to 18 percent of white households… Households of color lost between $164 billion and $213 billion over the past eight years… Combined, this could lead to a one-third reduction in the Black middle class."

[64] "Facts on Health Insurance Coverage," National Coalition on Healthcare, accessed 6 Dec 2008; available from http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml; Internet.

[65] Jonathan Kozol, "Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid," Harper's Magazine, Vol. 311, September 2005, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.htm; Internet.

[66] Taylor, "Race in the Obama Era."

[67] Dinesh D'Souza, "Obama and Post-Racist America," To The Source, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.tothesource.org/1_21_2009/1_21_2009.htm; Internet. Pundits have already used Obama's election as an example that institutional racism does not exist in America. For instance, author Dinesh D'Souza wrote after his victory: "As I watched Obama take the oath of office…I also felt a sense of vindication. In 1995, I published a controversial book The End of Racism. The meaning of the title was not that there was no more racism in America…My argument was that racism, which once used to be systematic, had now become episodic…racism existed, but it no longer controlled the lives of blacks and other minorities. Indeed, racial discrimination could not explain why some groups succeeded in America and why other groups did not...for African Americans, their position near the bottom rung of the ladder could be better explained by cultural factors than by racial victimization."

[68] Dead Prez, "Window to my Soul," Turn off the Radio: The Mixtape, Vol. 2: Get Free or Die Tryin', 2003, Landscape Germany.

[69] Dead Prez, "Window to my Soul."

[70] Dead Prez, "It's Bigger Than Hip Hop," Let's Get Free, 2000, Relativity.

[71] Immortal Technique, "About Immortal Technique," Myspace, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.myspace.com/immortaltechnique; Internet.

[72] Paris, "Don't Stop the Movement," Acid Reflux, 2008, Guerrilla Funk.

[73] Manning Marable, "The Politics of Hip Hop."

[74] Macklemore, "B-Boy," The Language of My World, 2008, Integral Music Group.

[75] Marable, "The Politics of Hip Hop."

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of Political Rap (Part 1 of 2)

By Derek Ide

Disclaimer: The language expressed in this article is an uncensored reflection of the views of the artists as they so chose to speak and express themselves. Censoring their words would do injustice to the freedom of expression and political content this article intends to explore. Therefore, some of the language appearing below may be offensive to personal, cultural, or political sensibilities.



Introduction: Historical Phenomena, Hip-Hop Culture, and Rap Music

Historical phenomena never develop in a vacuum, isolated from reality; nor are they mechanistically manifested from the historical material conditions lacking the direction of human agency. Rather, historical phenomena are products of a specific environment at a particular time period that have been molded, processed, and transformed by human beings who attempt to define and control their own destiny. The culture fostered in the grimy streets of the South Bronx during the 1970s is no different. Heavily influenced by the economically and socially oppressed ghettoes, along with the echoes of the last generation's movements for liberation and the street gangs that filled in the void they left, the South Bronx provided the perfect matrix in which marginalized youth could find a way to articulate the story of their own lives and the world around them. In this historically unique context, a culture would be created through an organic explosion of the pent-up, creative energies of America's forgotten youth. It was a culture that would reach every corner of the world in only a couple decades; this is hip-hop.

Many people mistakenly narrowly define hip-hop as a particular style of music. The reality, however, is that Hip-hop is an extremely multifaceted cultural phenomenon. As hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc explains, "People talk about the four hip-hop elements: DJing, B-Boying, MCing, and Graffiti. I think that there are far more than those: the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you look, the way you communicate." [1] Indeed, each component presents its own unique history, heroes, and tales of resistance; each acts as a distinct piece of a larger puzzle. Viewed in its totality, hip-hop is undoubtedly a global phenomenon, reaching across the borders of nation-states and touching entire generations. One integral aspect of this culture, familiarly labeled rap, is the musical element which combines MCing and DJing; it is "is the act of speaking poetically and rhythmically over the beat." As Black intellectual Michael Eric Dyson eloquently explains, "Rap artists explore grammatical creativity, verbal wizardry, and linguistic innovation in refining the art of oral communication." [2] The characteristic east coast sounds of New York City, the intricate Hip-hop scene in France, the nascent grime subgenre in London, and the politically charged rap developing in Cuba demonstrate just how global the influence of rap music truly is.

Hip-hop was born from the ashes of a community devastated by a capitalist economic system and racist government officials. At first independent and autonomous, it would not be long before corporate capitalism impinged upon the culture's sovereignty and began the historically familiar process of exploitation. Within a few years the schism between the dominant, mainstream rap spewed across the synchronized, consolidated radio waves and the dissident, political, and revolutionary lyrics expressed throughout the underground network would develop, separating hip-hop into two worlds. Rapper Immortal Technique frames this dichotomy in a political context emphasizing the opposition between the major label "super powers of the industry" and the "underground third world of the street." [3] Indeed, the stark difference between the commodified songs and albums pumped out by the mainstream rap industry and the creativity and resistance exemplified in the underground movement cannot be overemphasized.

Hip-hop's glamorized, commercialized image, made familiar through every aspect of pop culture and privately centralized radio stations, is viewed by some as a justification for the prevailing "boot strap" ideology derived from thirty years of neoliberal economic policies and the dominant ideological formulations supporting them. Time argues capitalism allowed for "rap music's market strength [to give] its artists permission to say what they pleased." [4] Indeed, some argue that one's ability to market a product in a capitalist society is what has allowed rap music to flourish and become as large of an industry as it is today.[5] This simplistic view, however, ignores one crucial aspect; the culture has been manipulated by a handful of industry executives for capital gain. Meanwhile, hip-hop activists who advocate for social change, formulate political dissent, and fight for economic redistribution have been systematically marginalized and excluded from the mainstream discourse. Corporate capitalism, aided by neoliberal deregulation and privatization, have stolen the culture, sterilized its content, and reformatted its image to reflect the dominant ideology. Independent, political rap containing valuable social commentary has been replaced with shallow, corporate images of thugs, drugs, and racial and gender prejudices filled with both implicitly and explicitly hegemonic undertones and socially constructed stereotypes. Hip-hop has been underdeveloped by the mainstream industry in the same sense that third world countries were underdeveloped by traditionally oppressive first world nations: it has been robbed of its content like a nation is robbed of its resources, its artists exploited like a country's labor is exploited, and its very survival hinged upon complete subservience to an established political, economic, and social institution. The following is an outline of a culture's musical resistance to subjugation by the economic, political, and social authority of American capitalism and its ruling elites.



The South Bronx in the 1970's and Material Conditions in Hip-Hop's Birthplace

Until 1979 with the release of Sugarhill Gang's six minute track titled "Rapper's Delight," hip-hop's musical component, rap, had not spread far beyond the South Bronx where it originated. To highlight 1979 as the year rap music began, however, would be a disservice to not only historical accuracy, but to any serious understanding of the roots through which hip-hop music blossomed. Comprehending the rise of a culture inevitably entails a holistic approach where the political, economic, and social institutions and conditions are analyzed to derive an understanding of their effects on the thoughts, ideas, and actions of the generation who created the culture. Therefore, the rise of hip-hop is inevitably linked with a host of changes during the 1970s to the political economy and the dominant ideology supporting it. These changes include the fading of the nonviolent civil rights movement and the subsequent black power movement, a massive restructuring from the failed Keynesian economic policies of state-interventionism to neoliberal, trickle down economics, the prodigious deindustrialization and the resulting unemployment, and the abandonment of urban spaces by government divestment and white flight. The Bronx of the early 1970s provides a paragon for such conditions and how they impacted the residents of these urban spaces; these conditions, however, were not limited to one area but were widely represented in many urban areas during this decade. Hip-hop culture, springing from such a particular set of conditions, would spread like wildfire into other areas where a similar combination of political and economic changes was rapidly advancing.

As Akilah Folami explains, "Historically, Hip-hop arose out of the ruins of a post-industrial and ravaged South Bronx, as a form of expression of urban Black and Latino youth, who politicians and the dominant public and political discourse had written off, and, for all intent and purposes, abandoned." [6] These youth were alienated from decent employment opportunities and confined to under funded schools with little community resources; New York would suffer immense job losses coupled with decreased local and federal funding for social services. [7] The South Bronx alone would lose:

600,000 manufacturing jobs; 40 percent of the sector disappeared. By the mid-seventies, average per capita income dropped to $2,430, just half of the New York City average and 40 percent of the nationwide average. The official youth unemployment rate hit 60 percent. Youth advocates said that in some neighborhoods the true number was closer to 80 percent.[8]

Such conditions would leave "30 percent of New York's Hispanic households...and 25 percent of black households…at or below the poverty line. [9] This massive loss of employment was not the only contributing factor, however. Urban renewal programs, such as the one directed by elite urban planner Robert Moses, helped fuel white flight and suburban sprawl along with subsequent capital divestment from the city. Moses would go on to plan and build the Cross Bronx Expressway, which would "cut directly through the center of the most heavily populated working class areas in the Bronx," tearing apart the homes of some 60,000 Bronx residents. [10] Utilizing "urban renewal rights of clearance," Moses and local legislators would effectively enforce economic and legal segregation of poor and working-class Blacks and Latinos whom were pushed into "tower-in-a-park" model public housing units where they "got nine or more monotonous slabs of housing rising out of isolating, desolate, soon-to-be crime-ridden 'parks'."[11] Thus, it was deep within these hellholes of poverty, unemployment, segregation, and desperation that hip-hop's first birth pangs would be felt. As hip-hop historian Jeff Chang poignantly explains, it's "not to say that all hip-hop is political, but hip-hop comes out of that particular political context." [12]

The enormous influence of material conditions on hip-hop are lucidly illuminated with the 1982 release of a song titled "The Message" by pioneering rap group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Hesitant at first to record such a "preachy" rap song by a self-titled "party group," eventually Melle Mel, the lead rapper of the group, decided to give it a try.[13] Thus, the group helped to pioneer "the social awakening of rap into a form combining social protest, musical creation, and cultural expression."[14] Although not the first to provide social commentary on institutional racism and abject living conditions, as evidenced by earlier rappers such as Kurtis Blow, Brother D and the Collective Effort, and Tanya "Sweet Tee Winley,[15] "The Message" would provide the first mainstream, commercial success to speak seriously on these issues. The immense frustration and alienation of being confined to run-down ghettoes presents itself repeatedly throughout the song. Wrapped in each and every line is piercing social commentary on the condition of America's rotting inner city slums. The song opens by describing the horrendous conditions found specifically in the South Bronx during this period but could also be applied most the nation's abandoned urban centers:

Broken glass, everywhere / People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care / I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise / Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice / Rats in the front room, roaches in the back / Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat / I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far / Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car [16]

The sentiment expressed in the last two lines of being unable to escape the projects is one that runs consistently throughout the history of Hip-hop. Tupac, nearly a decade later, would articulate this despair further in his song "Trapped" where he speaks to the agonizing feeling of hopelessness and anger at being segregated into ghettoes and harassed by police.[17]

Dyson notes that as rap evolved it "began to describe and analyze the social, economic, and political factors that led to its emergence and development: drug addiction, police brutality, teen pregnancy, and various forms of material deprivation."[18] The Message takes up many of these issues and more, commenting repeatedly on the terrible state of education children in the projects are confined to. One line provides an explanation of how in the ghetto one rarely gets more than "a bum education" alongside "double-digit inflation." Another verse tells the story of a young boy who exclaims to his father that he feels alienated and dumb at school, due at least in part to his teachers' attitudes towards him; as the child explains, "all the kids smoke reefer, I think it'd be cheaper, if I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper." In this succinct rhyme, the postulation put forth by educational theorist Jean Anyon that working-class and poor students are pushed into occupations which perpetuate the existing class structure is brilliantly summarized.[19] The despair and bleakness of abject ghetto life is articulated in a rather percussive manner in the last verse, "You grow in the ghetto, living second rate, and your eyes will sing a song of deep hate, the places you play and where you stay, looks like one great big alley way."[20]

Although "The Message" was not the first social commentary on ghetto life to be produced, it was the first mainstream success to reach a broader layer of listeners and proved that socially conscious rap had an audience. By the early 1980's hip-hop had already exploded onto the scene through particular mediums in certain areas. Graffiti had already provided a way in which alienated and seemingly invisible youths could make themselves visible outside the Bronx through creative, counter-hegemonic acts that signaled to the ruling authorities they were claiming their own space. Break dancing, or B-Boying, provided an outlet for youths to engage each other in peaceful competition and while it "did not dissolve the frustrations of being poor, unemployed, and a forgotten youth, it certainly served… as a catalyst to increasing the youth led community based peace effort." [21] However, it was rap music that, arguably, would have the largest impact in the future:

At a time when budget cuts lead to a reduction in school art and music programs, and when vocational training in high schools lead to jobs that had significantly decreased or no longer existed, "inner city youth transformed obsolete vocational skills from marginal occupations into the raw materials for creativity and resistance," with "turntables [becoming] instruments and lyrical acrobatics [becoming] a cultural outlet." [22]

This cultural outlet would not remain isolated in the South Bronx for long. Neither would it be confined to simply describing the harsh reality of living in the projects.



Afrocentricity, Black Power, and Hip-Hop's New School

Hip Hop was originally honed in house parties, parks, community centers, and local clubs by pioneers such as DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash. Independent record labels were quick to pick up on the enormous buzz generated by this new street sound. Small record executives, with their ears to the street, realized that "there were potentially many more millions of fans out there for the music," but they needed a way to push it from the traditional arenas where spontaneity reigned into the lab where Hip-hop could be researched, developed, and put into radio rotation. [23] Rap had to "fit the standards of the music industry" and labels had to pursue methods which in which they could "rationalize and exploit the new product" to "find, capture, package, and sell its essence…Six-man crews would drop to two. Fifteen-minute party-rocking raps would become three-minute ready-for-radio singles. Hip-hop was refined like sugar."[24] The laws of capitalism dictated that the art form had to be commodified, manufactured, and sold to a market. After the initial commercial success of "Rapper's Delight" and "The Message," corporate encroachment would quickly invade Hip-hop sovereignty. This seminal musical format would act as a medium through which two distinct worlds would mesh; young, black youth who aspired to spit rhymes and find a way out of their seemingly despondent condition would be introduced to nascent white record executives, opening what ostensibly appeared as new, untested feasibilities to previously marginalized artists. As early Hip-hop head and B-boy Richie "Crazy Legs" Colon would comment, "it was getting us into places that we never thought we could get into. So there was an exchange there... [but] that was also the beginning of us getting jerked…that's a reality." [25]

The struggle over control of the culture would be a reminiscent theme for the next decade. Dissident rap presenting a critique of the political economy would briefly touch mainstream society in the early and mid 1980's before being stifled and ostracized. In the next few years, the crossover of rap acts like Run-D.M.C. and the rise of overtly political rap groups such as Public Enemy, along with lesser known but highly controversial artists such as Paris, would trigger intense debate over the nature of Hip-hop and the direction it was headed. Passing from the pioneering old-school, a new era of Hip-hop would develop consisting of a fresh blend of Afrocentricity, cultural nationalism, calls for a neo-Black power, and a focus on the African diaspora. It would delve into the questions of race and racism and the legacy of slavery, along with a critique of institutionalized forms of oppression and ideas of what methods could adequately challenge them. It also presented artists with the first taste of corporate control over creative expression, a tension that would remain a prominent theme throughout the history of rap music. Any definite time frame would only succeed in confining the progression of Hip-hop into arbitrary, categorical stages that lack accurate representation of the often overlapping and dynamic evolutionary process of the art. However, in the mid 1980s it became apparent that rap was burgeoning into uncharted territory.

Afrocentric rap, advocating a unique mix of cultural nationalism and Pan-Africanism, can trace its roots to Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, an organization of reformed gang members who attempted to take back their streets through the creation of innovative cultural outlets, many of which would develop into early Hip-hop culture. Bambaataa "started to believe that the energy, loyalty, and passion that defined gang life could be guided toward more socially productive activities…he saw an opportunity to combine his love of music and B-boying with his desire to enhance community life." [26] After some initial musical success, however, tensions began to mount between Bambaataa and the man who signed him, Tom Silverman, founder of the independent label Tommy Boy Records. Bambaataa recounts, "The record companies would try to tell us what we should make, what we should do…We said, 'Listen, we're the renegades, we sing what we want to sing, dress how we want to dress, and say what we want to say."[27] This sort of outright resistance to artist manipulation worked for a time, when artists dealt primarily with small, independent stations during the nascent stages of Hip-hop's development. Later, however, when the corporate structures completely enveloped the art, it would be nearly impossible to individually challenge such enormous institutions.

Queens rap trio Run-D.M.C. "is widely recognized as the progenitor of modern rap's creative integration of social commentary, diverse musical elements, and uncompromising cultural identification"[28] into what would become known as the New School of Hip-hop. [29] Fueled by Jam Master Jay' complex, percussive beats and brilliant lyrical deliverance, Run-D.M.C. would burst into the mainstream by signing a distributing deal with Colombia records.[30] Bridging the gap between rap and rock, Run-D.M.C. appealed to a wide range of audiences from rugged, street hustlers to well-to-do white kids in a desperate search to branch out from the cultural confinement of suburbia. As their album Raising Hell rushed to platinum status, they catapulted rap music into mainstream discourse and charted a new path for commercial success. The group presented an interesting dynamic where, challenging corporate-driven consumerism with lines such as "Calvin Klein's no friend of mine, don't want nobody's name on my behind," [31] they simultaneously promoted a specific style of apparel with tracks such as "My Adidas" that would break with previous, flashily clad rap artists and forever tie Hip-hop's look to the styles of the street. Raising Hell would end with "Proud to Be Black," a track emphasizing African history and the struggle against slavery while documenting the historical progress of black people. Involving themselves in specific struggles or causes, such as doing benefit performances for the anti-Apartheid struggle, [32] they did not shy away from political issues.

On "Wake Up," the trio echoed calls for democratic participation of the masses, full employment, fair wages, and an end to racial prejudice that would be familiar to any socialist activist. They provided a glimpse of the shape a truly humanizing society could take:

There were no guns, no tanks, no atomic bombs / and to be frank homeboy, there were no arms… / Between all countries there were good relations / there finally was a meaning to United Nations / and everybody had an occupation / 'cause we all worked together to fight starvation… / Everyone was treated on an equal basis / No matter what color, religion or races / We weren't afraid to show our faces / It was cool to chill in foreign places… / All cities of the world were renovated / And the people all chilled and celebrated / They were all so happy and elated / To live in the world that they created… / And every single person had a place to be / A job, a home, and the perfect pay…[33]

The song is haunted by the chorus proclaiming that all the hopes and desires for the fanciful world articulated are "just a dream." The group switches gears on "It's Like That," citing unemployment, atrocious wages, ever-increasing bills, and the struggle to survive within the confines of a capitalist political economy. At the end of each verse they communicate their prodigious frustration manifested from the despair and helplessness prevalent in oppressed communities, leaving the listener with little hope for change: "Don't ask me, because I don't know why, but it's like that, and that's the way it is!"[34] Grand ideals aside, Run-D.M.C. ultimately did not pursue a confrontational approach to the dominant institutions in society and, thus, their commercial success in part reflects their desire to integrate into the established system rather than attempt to dismantle the established structures.

Ideas of collective social change would be articulated more thoroughly by artists such as Public Enemy. Coming from a relatively well-to-do, although still highly segregated, post-white flight neighborhood, Public Enemy's ambitions were to "be heard as the expression of a new generation's definition of blackness."[35] As opposed to artists who may record a political song or sneak a witty, politically charged punch line into a mainstream hit, Public Enemy would focus entire albums around counter-hegemonic themes reflecting their constantly evolving political philosophy. Their Black Nationalist ideology did not go unnoticed in their first album, but it would augment over time as the group developed their own conception of a new Black Power. On It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet they delved deeply into race relations, the oppression of the black community at home and abroad, and brought into question entire institutions of society they viewed as perpetuating racism. The group also spoke openly of their support for Palestinian liberation and against U.S. imperialism. On "Bring the Noise," they challenged black radio to play their music and on "Party for Your Right to Fight" they evoked images of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party in a "pro-Black radical mix"[36] while aiming verbal invectives at J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI for their historically repressive roles against the black community.

Public Enemy undoubtedly pushed political hip-hop to a new level. Their intense, in-your-face rhymes promoted a historical revival amongst black youth previously separated from prior cultural developments and struggles of the past. However, as Dyson points out, this can lead to rappers hoping to emulate the methods of the past without a critical analysis of its strengths and weaknesses or, worse yet, to promoting vacuous calls to past movements' cultural icons intended to draw reverence without attempting to augment the organizational infrastructure required to proactively challenge oppressive institutions. Still, given the tyrannical nature of the society in which they lived, the group labeled themselves "the Black Panthers of rap" [37] as a symbolic expression of their hostility towards the system. However, the framework within which they operated, borrowing large portions of their theoretical interpretation of society to the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, did not allow them to adopt the Panthers' revolutionary, socialist critique of the political economy. It was replaced instead with a form of black militancy aligned primarily with a narrow conception of Black Nationalism. Public Enemy would drastically differ from the Panthers who had come to reject Black Nationalism as a racist philosophy, aiming their crosshairs more broadly on capitalism[38] and arguing racism was a byproduct of that particular economic mode of production.[39] Regardless, Public Enemy's prodigious contributions to political hip-hop cannot be ignored. They fostered political discussion and pushed hip-hop to embrace black liberation. Yet, they would fail propose a cohesive, theoretical alternative or method through which this could be achieved.

Other times, political hip-hop took the form of cathartic, impulsive depictions of violence stemming from the wrath manifested within oppressed black communities. One example, Oakland rapper Paris, who adhered early in his career to a form of Black Nationalism similar to Public Enemy's, would seek a sort of lyrical revenge against individuals and institutions he found oppressive and exploitative. Through songs like "Bush Killa," where he fantasized about assassinating then President George H. Bush, he would decisively embrace a black militancy that challenged the past legacy of King's non-violence: "So don't be tellin' me to get the non-violent spirit, 'cause when I'm violent is the only time you devils hear it!" Later in the song he goes on to poignantly express his disgust with the predatory nature of military recruitment while uniquely mimicking the famous line from Muhammad Ali, [40] "Yeah, tolerance is gettin' thinner, 'cause Iraq never called me nigger, so what I wanna go off and fight a war for?" [41] Presumably due to the radical nature of his music, Paris was dropped from his record label, Tommy Boy, after parent company Time Warner reviewed the content of his album.[42] He distanced himself from the Nation of Islam, and thought that they were "more concerned with what was wrong with society than with how to change it." [43] Nearly two decades later, and still rapping under his own label, Paris would go on to develop a political stance that, while still bonded to certain aspects of his previous Black Nationalist thought, would become decidedly more working-class in its orientation, emphasizing class struggle and interracial solidarity rather than a simple black-white dichotomy.

The 1980's were, undoubtedly, a time of creativity, diversity, and cultural exploration within the musical realm of Hip-hop. Artists even tested the waters with politically significant album covers. Paris placed a potent photo of riot police choking a black protestor in his 1989 releaseBreak the Grip of Shame.[44] Rapper KRS-One, paraphrasing Malcolm X on his album title By All Means Neccesary (1988), poses on the front cover in a fashion reminiscent of Malcolm's famous photograph; Malcolm, standing with AK-47 in his right arm and peering out of the drapes with his left, symbolized the vision of armed self-defense and intellectual self-determination. KRS-One, adorned in a fashionable outfit and carrying a more contemporary Uzi, personified these principles Malcolm so vehemently defended throughout his life. [45] Chuck D of Public Enemy explains, given the group's extensive list of politically charged album covers, that sometimes "the covers were thought out more than the songs."[46] Corporate control was illuminated in this artistic arena as well when hip-hop trio KMD attempted to release an album titled Black Bastards which featured a "Little Sambo"[47] character being hung; Elektra, their label, quietly rejected the album and its politically charged album artwork.[48]

Some rappers, such as Rakim, toyed with abstract ideas of personal and spiritual development, meshed with political Islam and the elitist vision of the Five Percenters, a group who believed that a gifted five percent of the world's population was destined to fight against the exploitative ten percent on behalf of the ignorant, backwards eighty-five percent.[49] Others, like rap group Naughty by Nature, found unique ways to tie in urban culture and style to the historic legacies of the past. On one of the group's most political tracks, "Chain Remains," rapper Treach vividly explicates on the cultural significance of the chain commonly worn by black, urban youth, tying it into the past history of slavery and the prison-industrial complex:

Bars and cement instead of help for our people / Jails ain't nothin' but the slave day sequel / Tryin' to flee the trap of this nation / Seein' penitentiary's the plan to plant the new plantation… / Free? Please, nigga, ain't no freedom! / Who's locked up? Who's shot up? Who's strung out? Who's bleeding? Keep reading / I'm here to explain the chain remain the same / Maintain for the brothers and sisters locked / The chain remains…[50]

The last verse ends with an incendiary call to revolution, although the terms for which are not specifically outlined: "the only solutions revolution, know we told ya', the chain remains 'til we uprise, stuck in a land where we ain't meant to survive." Despite calls for racial solidarity and social empowerment, the violence found in poverty-stricken urban areas often followed artists into the realm of entertainment.

When violence broke out at various rap venues in 1987, the hip-hop community was quick to respond with a Stop the Violence Movement. A group of artists organized a project "that would include a benefit record, video, book, and a rally around the theme."[51] On the record "Self Destruction," a wide assortment of rappers came together to urge black youth to "crush the stereotype" and "unite and fight for what's right,"[52] by stopping the senseless violence that plagued the black community. Unfortunately, it was not a sustained political campaign and, as Jeff Chang argues, Stop the Violence "was always less a movement than a media event." [53] KRS-One, re-launching the Stop the Violence 2008 campaign in a similar fashion, disagrees, claiming Chang's interpretation is "inaccurate history and fake scholarship."[54] Regardless, media event or movement, Stop the Violence provided another example of rappers attempting to take control of their communities and control their own destinies.

New School Hip Hop was defined by its seminal, independent spirit of artists' attempts to maneuver within the confines of an ever-increasing hierarchal, corporate, top-down structure. Indeed, as Chang notes, "Rap proved to be the ideal form to commodify the hip-hop culture. It was endlessly novel, reproducible, malleable, and perfectible. Records got shorter, raps more concise, and tailored to pop-song structures." [55] The infrastructure needed to solidify corporate power over the culture was being rapidly built but originality and autonomy would not yet be completely shattered. The day would soon come, however, when creativity and free political expression would be stomped out and replaced with denigrating images of black men, as self-destructive gangsters and intellectually bankrupt drug-pushers, and black women, whose sole contribution is their sexual appeal, vigorously promoted by the dominant ideology. Generally, during this period artists would attempt to hold on "to the Black Panther ethic of remaining true to Blackness… to the people in the lower classes" while, on the other hand, rejecting the Party's anti-capitalist stance; "Rappers wanted a piece of the American pie while staying grounded to the urban culture, and wanted to speak in their own voice and on their own terms."[56] Given the political, social, and economic conditions of the mid-1980s, this was no surprise.

The sort of individualistic response exemplified by New School artists was developed within the context of a detrimental political vacuum left by the simultaneous failure and systematic repression of revolutionary left groups of the 1960s and early 1970s. Instead of political organizers, rappers would view themselves as reporters whose primary vocation was to give the voiceless a form of expression and relay the conditions of ghetto life to the rest of the world. Public Enemy articulated this concept when he explained that rap was "Black America's CNN, an alternative, youth-controlled media network." [57] Tupac would echo this concept, "I just try to speak about things that affect me and our community. Sometimes I'm the watcher, and sometimes the participant," he commented, and likening himself to reporters during the Vietnam War, he explicated on his role, "That's what I'll do as an artist, as a rapper. I'm gonna show the graphic details of what I see in my community and hopefully they'll stop it." [58] Rather than broad-reaching, collective social change achieved through organized resistance, rap music would act as a means to express counter-hegemonic, yet radically individualized forms of resistance that captured the very essence of the urban youth existence. This concept would be carried further into the realm of musical performance:

Rap…found an arena in which to concentrate its subversive cultural didacticism aimed at addressing racism, classism, social neglect, and urban pain: the rap concert, where rappers are allowed to engage in ritualistic refusals of censored speech. The rap concert also creates space for cultural resistance and personal agency, losing the strictures of the tyrannizing surveillance and demoralizing condemnation of mainstream society and encouraging relatively autonomous, often enabling, forms of self-expression and cultural creativity. [59]

It was this anti-authoritarian impulse, fostered in the hard streets of Los Angeles where police brutality was rampant and socioeconomic conditions were dire, that galvanized the next phase of Hip-hop which would take the nation by storm.

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of Political Rap (Part 2 of 2)



Notes

[1] DJ Kool Herc quoted in Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop, (New York City: St. Martin's Press, 2005), xi.

[2] Michael Eric Dyson, The Michael Eric Dyson Reader, (New York City: Basic Civitas Books, 2004), 408.

[3] Immortal Technique, "Death March" The 3rd World, 2008, Viper Records. DJ Green Lantern makes the opening remarks.

[4] Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Hip-hop's Down Beat," Time, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653639,00.html; Internet.

[5] David Drake, "The 'Death' of Hip-Hop," Pop Playground, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1525; Internet. Implicit in Stylus's 2005 article about the "death" of hip-hop is the idea that capitalism allowed for hip-hops growth. They argue the history of hip-hop cannot be separated and "well-behaved politicos with either leftist or moralist agendas" only "imagine a fictional past" since "capitalism was involved from the second it spread, from the moment a rhyme was laid to wax capitalism was there." While this is partly correct, as hip-hop developed within the confines of a capitalist society, and was thus influenced by the dominant ideological forces that perpetuate such a society, the early independence and autonomy from corporate capitalism and the art form that developed without the profit incentive, but instead for reasons of pure enjoyment (Kool Herc house parties) or political and social transformation (Zulus) shows that hip-hop and capitalism can not only be separated, but at it's earliest stages were separate entities.

[6] Akilah N. Folami, "From Habermas to 'Get Rich or Die Trying': Hip Hop, The Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the Black Public Sphere," Michigan Journal of Race and Law, Vol. 12(June 2007) (Queens, NY: St. John's University School of Law, 2007), 240.

[7] Folami, Habermas to "Get Rich or Die Trying," 254.

[8] Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop, 13.

[9] Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America 27 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 28.

[10] Rose, Black Noise, 31.

[11] Chang, 11-12.

[12] Jeff Chang interviewed by Brian Jones, "Interview with Jeff Chang, Hip Hop Politics," International Socialist Review, Issue 48, (July-August 2006), accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.isreview.org/issues/48/changinterview.shtml; Internet.

[13] Craig Watkins, Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 21.

[14] Dyson, Michael Eric Dyson Reader, 402.

[15] Chang, 179.

[16] Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "The Message," The Message, 1982, Sugar Hill.

[17] Tupac Shakur, "Trapped," 2Pacalypse Now, 1991, Jive. Tupac, who, originally just repeating stories from his peers, would have a violent run in with police not long after he released the song. Accused of jaywalking, Tupac would be knocked to the ground and have his face slammed into the concrete, leaving life-long scars across his right cheek bone. After a long court battle, he finally settled with the police department for a small sum. "You know they got me trapped in this prison of seclusion / Happiness, living on tha streets is a delusion… / Tired of being trapped in this vicious cycle / If one more cop harrasses me I just might go psycho / And when I get 'em / I'll hit 'em with the bum rush / Only a lunatic would like to see his skull crushed / Yo, if your smart you'll really let me go 'G' / But keep me cooped up in this ghetto and catch the uzi… / They got me trapped / Can barely walk the city streets / Without a cop harassing me, searching me / Then asking my identity… / Trapped in my own community / One day I'm gonna bust / Blow up on this society / Why did ya' lie to me? / I couldn't find a trace of equality…

[18] Dyson, 402.

[19] Jean Anyon, "Social Class and the Hidden Cirriculum." Journal of Education, 162(1), Fall, 1980. Online version available here http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~cac/nlu/fnd504/anyon.htm; Internet.

[20] Flash, "The Message."

[21] Folami, 258.

[22] Ibid., 257.

[23] Chang, 133.

[24] Ibid., 134

[25] Ibid., 177

[26] Watkins, Hip Hop Matters, 23.

[27] Chang, 190.

[28] Dyson, 402.

[29] Chang, 255.

[30] Ibid., 204.

[31] Run-D.M.C., "Rock Box," Run-D.M.C., 1983, Profile/Arista Records.

[32] Chang, 218.

[33] Run-D.M.C., "Wake Up," Run-D.M.C., 1983, Profile/Arista Records.

[34] Run-D.M.C., "It's Like That," Run-D.M.C., 1983, Profile/Arista Records.

[35] Chang, 249.

[36] Public Enemy, "Party For your Right to Fight," It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, 1988, Def Jam/Columbia/CBS Records.

[37] Chang, 248.

[38] Bobby Seale, Seize the Time (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1997), 23, 256, 383.

[39] Fred Hampton, "Murder of Fred Hampton, Reel 1," accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://mediaburn.org/Video-Priview.128.0.html?uid=4192; Internet. In this clip, Hampton is talking to a church crowd about how Blacks and the Black Panther Party should interact with Whites and White radicals.

[40] In 1966 Muhammad Ali, in his denunciation of the Vietnam War and U.S. attempts to draft him, explained "I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong… No Vietcong ever called me nigger." For more information, see here: http://www.aavw.org/protest/homepage_ali.html; Internet.

[41] Paris, "Bush Killa," Sleeping With the Enemy, 1992, Scarface.

[42] Peter Byrne, "Capital Rap" San Francisco News, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.sfweekly.com/2003-12-03/news/capital-rap/2; Internet.

[43] Byrne, "Capital Rap," 2.

[44] Andrew Emery, The Book of Hip Hop Cover Art, (Mitchell Beazly, 2004), 95.

[45] Emery, Hip Hop Cover Art, 133.

[46] Ibid., 81.

[47] "Sambo" is a racial slur for African-Americans in the United States but the image of the Little Black Sambo became famous after a children's book by Helen Bannerman was published in London in 1899. The original story can be found here: http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/sambo.htm

[48] Emery, 112.

[49] Chang, 258-9.

[50] Naughty by Nature, "Chain Remains," Poverty's Paradise, 1995, Warner.

[51] Chang, 274.

[52] Lyrics for the song can be found here: http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/krs-one_lyrics_3454/other_lyrics_10824/self_destruction_lyrics_125592.html

[53] Chang, 274.

[54] KRS-One interviewed by Brolin Winning, "KRS-One: You Must Learn," MP3.com, accessed 5 April 2008; available from http://www.mp3.com/news/stories/9464.html; Internet.

[55] Chang, 228.

[56] Folami, 263.

[57] Chang, 251.

[58] Tupac Shakur, "Tupac Resurrection Script - The Dialogue," Drew's Script-O-Rama, accessed 5 April 2008; available from http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/tupac-resurrection-script-2pac-Shakur.html Internet.

[59] Dyson, 403.