Check this footage from Jay Diamond at an event last night in New York featuring Pete Rock and Smif-n-Wessun, launching their new album Monumental.

Police stormed into the event, shut it down, told people to leave and started beating people up. As Pete Rock commented on Twitter: “Black is not da favorable color in dat area i guess!!”

General Steele of Smif-n-Wessun gives a great breakdown of what happened in the interview he gives at the end of the video:

“You can witness it was jam packed, there was no fights, no confrontations. There was all kinds of people in there, from all over the place. There was music in there, it was going off, it was poppin’. Then the police came and stormed the place, telling us we had to get out. And then they started beating on people, telling us to move away. This is what goes on in New York City. New Yorkers get frustrated when the police come in and, instead of bringing order, they create more chaos. This is what NYPD does. They create more chaos, because they don’t identify with the people… These motherfuckers is the overseers of this land right here. We witnessing it right now. I guess they bored. They can’t find no rapists, killers and criminals, so they wanna fuck up the common folk, the party-goers, the hip-hoppers, the current revolutionaries of this time. Long live hip-hop, long live free speech, long live you guys out there.”

Again we see the true nature of the police: their main function is to intimidate people, to keep them in their place, to preserve the status quo of capitalism and imperialism. They are playing the same role in Greece (where they’re attacking protestors with tear gas right now) and in England (where we have seen several deaths in police custody in recent weeks).

Let’s give the last word to the late, great J Dilla…

Can’t believe Rebel Diaz ‘Warrior Wednesdays’ has been going on for four weeks and I’m only just blogging about it now!

Check out these four great conscious hip-hop tracks, all available for free download! Let us know in the comments which your favourite is (I’m going for ‘Guilty’).

All tracks can be downloaded from http://warriorwednesdayz.blogspot.com/.

Week 1: Guilty

Week 2: I Need You More

Week 3: Craazy

Week 4: Chubaca

If you’re in London, you can catch Rebel Diaz at the following events:

LATIN AMERICA RISING – film, panel discussion and performance
Thursday 16 June, 2011, 5.30-9pm
Bolivar Hall, near Warren Street tube
Facebook event page

SPEAKER’S CORNER
Friday 17 June, 2011, 9pm-5am
Brixton Jamm
Facebook event page

Kyza drops some thought-provoking bars over this classic Common (Kanye-produced) beat. Kyza is a talented and underrated MC – this vid is definitely worth checking.

Follow Kyza on Twitter

Uncompromising anti-war anti-cuts UK hip-hop anthem!

Chorus
No ifs, no buts, no fees, no cuts
No more buying lies from these evil fucks
No ifs, no buts, no fees, no cuts
No surrender no retreat not me, not us
No ifs, no buts, no fees, no cuts
No rotten politician can speak for us
No ifs, no buts, no fees, no cuts
No surrender, no retreat, not me, not us

Verse 1
Clegg claims we haven’t read up he thinks that we’re fools
You patronising fuck you’re the one whose ignorant dude
You think 50 grand of debt wouldn’t influence you?
And it’s not just the money it’s the principle too
Why should the next generation pay for your crisis
While big business dodge tax and evade the law like this
They talk of fairness everyone’s feeling the squeeze
A cabinet of millionaires who got free degrees
They say the recession was made by irresponsible debt
So what’s the government done in response to this threat?
Charge the students more leave the poor wanting instead
Solving debt with more debt’s an incompetent bet
And that’s not the only reason I despise the policy
Cos it’s not right to treat knowledge like commodity
Anger in streets the press can’t describe it properly
Calling petty vandalism violence, honestly?
Regarding police as the divine authority
I saw them charge with horses but they deny atrocities
It’s no surprise and yet it rightly bothers me
That we value human life less than private property
It’s 1984 spreading like a virus
Having de ja vu cos we got striking minors
From the schools not the pits a frightening likeness
Students and workers unite and fight beside us!

Chorus

Verse 2
Once more, rich bailed out by the poor
Lopsided cuts bringing us through class war
Queen’s subjects with nuff debts are taxed more
Than the rich fat cats who dodge through the back door
Look at Tesco, registered in Britain alone
But with Seven Sister companies out in Monaco
The cost of the cuts to the DSS
Could be covered by the unpaid debts of Vodafone
That knob from Topshop knows what’s what
Got the whole lot boxed off
It’s got me mad distressed cos he cashed a cheque
For over a billion quid and wasn’t taxed a cent
It’s like they’ve got the game theory on lock
So the strategy is spanners in imperial cogs
Boycott big chains burn the big 3 and rise up
It’s high time we wise up

Chorus

Verse 3
I’m sick of living off crumbs of a table we have made
From the bread that we have baked using wheat we have raised
Now they’re putting up funds and taking EMA
We want to save jobs but don’t forget that we are slaves
See we put in the hard work they just pocket the funds
So I’m in the streets shouting at the top of me lungs
We’re claiming them back from these opulent scum
I’m plotting not stopping till we topple these cunts
This one’s for the mums, the students and the migrants as well
It’s rich two toffs telling us to tighten our belts
Say goodbye to our jobs goodbye to our health
Might as well tighten the noose on kids bright with no wealth
Does smashing windows constitute actual violence?
I’ll tell you what the real fucking staggering crime is
We pay a thousand pound a week for Cameron’s stylist
Is your tax misspent? Cos I’m adamant mine is
No money for our schools but we can pay for our troops
Disgracing our youth with lies displayed on the news
It’s blatant abuse they’re manipulating the truth
About police brutality won’t engage with the proof
My lyrics laced with fury but I’m staying astute
Gracing the booth with the pain of kids facing the boot
From the dirty pigs they’re the real thugs on the streets
Like NWA we say FUCK THE POLICE!

Chorus

Non-step militant rhymes from UK hip-hop legend Skeme, filmed as part of the recent SBTV 1K Cypher. Trust me, this is deep.

Follow Skeme on Twitter

Just a few days ago I was raving about this track. Here’s the perfect video to go with it.

Geronimo ji-Jaga (né Elmer Pratt), former Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party, died on the 2nd of June, 2011. He will be remembered as an upstanding revolutionary who never stopped fighting for justice and freedom.

Ji-Jaga was born on 13 September 1947, in a close-knit black community in Louisiana. He said of his early surroundings: “The situation was pretty racist, on the one hand; on the other, it was full of integrity and dignity and the pride of being a part of this community … the values, the work ethic, very respectful to everyone.”

Having graduated from high school, he was sent by the elders in his community to join the army, in order to learn military skills that could be used to protect the black community.

“There was a policy that some of us, when we got of age, would be sent to come back and help protect the Black community from racist attacks from the Ku Klux Klan. It had nothing – and listen to me carefully – nothing to do with being patriotic to America. It had everything to do with getting training and returning to protect the community from the Ku Klux Klan. Little did I know, I was going to end up in Vietnam, blown up, all this stuff, but that’s just the way things happen.”

Upon his return from Vietnam, ji-Jaga began to see how the police treated the black community in much the same way as the army treated the rebel Vietnamese forces. He proceeded to put his significant military experience at the service of the black liberation movement. By 1968, he was acting Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party, and a leader of its Los Angeles chapter. After leading the LA chapter’s defence against a six-hour onslaught by LAPD’s SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team, Geronimo was described in the Black Panther newspaper as “the very essence of a revolutionary”. In 1969, ji-Jaga was sent by Huey P Newton to go underground and develop a revolutionary infrastructure in the deep south.

The FBI targeted Geronimo ji-Jaga in their notorious Cointelpro operation, aiming to “neutralize Pratt as an effective BPP functionary.” In 1972, he was falsely accused and convicted of the murder of a woman. He spent a quarter of a century in prison, much of which was spent in solitary confinement. He was freed in 1997 when his legal team, backed by a number of civil rights groups, were able to prove that the main witness against Geronimo was an FBI informant.

Upon his release from prison, Geronimo worked hard in support of other political prisoners.

Geronimo always maintained a strong Afrocentric focus, and considered it very important that the African diaspora in the US and elsewhere reclaim the African roots that slavery and white supremacy had tried to cut off. He changed his surname from Pratt to ji-Jaga in 1968, reasoning:

Names are very important to our historical personality. By having these alienating names, we develop a certain kind of schizophrenia that we can regain by reclaiming our historical personality.

He spent many months a year in Tanzania. In one of his last interviews, he said: “I want to remind all Africans, please come to Africa. It’s right across the water. Come look at yourselves. Momma is waiting.”

Geronimo ji-Jaga is a particularly important name in the hip-hop community due to his being Tupac Shakur’s godfather. Ji-Jaga had a great insight on the attempts of the state and the corporations to subvert hip-hop:

“Hip-hop is indigenous and it’s powerful and it scares the hell out of these people, right? So, they have to get control and employ Cointelpro-like tactics. They work easily. I saw it with Pac. Before he was murdered I mentioned that to him. I believe to this day that they were involved in his death and they were involved in other deaths.”

On the legacy of Cointelpro and the rise of gangsterism since the decline of the black power movement, Geronimo said:

“After the leadership of the BPP was attacked at the end of the 60s and the early 70s, throughout the Black and other oppressed communities, the role models for up-coming generations became the pimps, the drug dealers, etc. This is what the government wanted to happen. The result was that the gangs were coming together with a gangster mentality, as opposed to the revolutionary progressive mentality we would have given them.”

Geronimo ji-Jaga died of a heart attack in his adopted country, Tanzania, on June 2. Rest in power always.

Pharoahe Monch, Styles P and Phonte explore the position of black people in the US, exposing the many problems and bringing a message of unity.

(Styles P)
Give me five on the black hand side,
I’ll tell you what I see through the black men’s eyes
Fly chick, in the Cadillac a black man rides,
But every different day a different black man dies
Shwaty momma tripping off of crack, mad high
Now you’re watching TV, loving the bad guys
Piss poor with the welfare check
You know we’re African,
Cause we ain’t get healthcare yet,
Now he puts down his knapsack, got a crack pack
You don’t overstand if your vision ain’t abstract
Me and the projects, a lot of us is lab rats,
Voted for Obama, hoping he wouldn’t have that
Now I can tell you that I felt that
I still remember how a cell smells
I still remember how the pigs at
Family crying up on the ?, I couldn’t have that
Open the door and teach your soul,
Passing the blunt around, and hoping to reach his soul
Now give me five on the black hand side,
Goes to Pharoahe Monch watch the black man ride!

Chorus (Phonte)
I say open the door, let me in,
Teach your soul, preach your sins
Turn the cheek, let it slide
Give me five on the black hand side

(Pharoahe Monch)

Pharoahe’s a Navajo chief, the way I’m making it rain
Enough for a stipper with emotional pain
You would spiks shit that’s meant for the brain
Cause rain plus soil equal fruits and grains
My hood told a ni**a keep it simple and plain
Let me explain the game, break it down a couple levels like tetris
These youngins kill they own blood for a necklace
Leave slumped over the wheel of your lexus
Smoke kush, wake up and eat breakfast,
What the fuck he expect?
A generation overly obsessed with mobsters
Our revlutionaries won grammys and oscars
Imposters, fake orators, weak shockers
Making a mockery of the music to be pop stars,
And they say I’m a saint, because I see the remains of the whips and chains
In my hood where it ain’t all good
Peep the main of a single mother struggling
Young child sayin give me five on the black hand side!
Let’s maintain like it’s Soul Train keep and move it together,
I’m saying

Chorus (Phonte)
I say open the door, let me in,
Teach your soul, preach your sins
Turn the cheek, let it slide
Give me five on the black hand side

Gil Scott Heron – the legendary poet, singer, revolutionary and musical innovator – sadly passed away on May 27th, at the age of 62. He was without a doubt a genius, and one of the most important cultural revolutionaries of our time, speaking from the heart about poverty, inequality, racism, apartheid, drug addiction and more. In the words of Dream Hampton:

Hip-hop did much to strip shame from poverty, but with songs like “Whitey on the Moon”, where he juxtaposed high health care bills, rat-infested apartments and late rent payments with space race budgets, Gil Scott’s songs restored humanity to America’s inner-city poor.

Heron was in many ways the key cultural voice of the black power movement of the 1970s, and he noted Malcolm X, Langston Hughes and Huey P Newton among his influences. His combination of militant poetry and music served as one of the key precursors of hip-hop, especially in its conscious/political form. As the legendary Chuck D said via Twitter: “RIP GSH…and we do what we do and how we do because of you.”

When fans found out last year that Gil Scott Heron was booked to play in Tel Aviv, they formed a campaign to show Heron that to break the cultural boycott of Israel would be a violation of the principles he had upheld his whole life. To his great credit, he cancelled the gig.

Gil Scott Heron will be greatly missed, but his music and words will continue to inspire and educate.

If you haven’t got his albums yet, you need to catch up quick! In the meantime, here are a few highlights.

More wisdom in these 2,000 words than most people receive in five years of secondary school! Massive respect to Raghav for transcribing the lyrics (I don’t even want to think about how long it must have taken!).

Yes, I grew up on the dole in a single parent family
Been through a little bit of tragedy
Yes I was around drugs and violence
Before the day that I started secondary
And that’s part of it
Not half of it
Get the picture, the rest ain’t necessary
Growin’ up, got a little caught up
But that ain’t even half of my life
I was also given the knowledge of self
That is all we actually need to survive
If you saw me aged 9, reading Malcolm just fine
Teachers still treated me stupid
Students that couldn’t speak English, they put me in groups with
And the irony is
Some of the first man to give me schoolin’
You would call gangsters
But I already explained, we know what the truth is
They used to say ‘Don’t be like me’
Yeah I got a name and dough on the street
Night time comes, I can’t sleep
And that’s the part that rappers don’t speak
We don’t hit the road cos we are thugs
Don’t come out the womb, wanting to sell drugs
If we got the right guidance and love
Would we fight people just like us?
How could I knock the hustle to get by?
How do you think I ate as a child?
Judge no one, done many things wrong
I just don’t boast about it songs
But listen to my older bars
I was just as confused as you probably are
But you grow and you learn
Travel and f*** up,
One too many man you know get cut up
One too many man that could’ve been doctors
End up spending their whole life boxed up
You learn, if you study
Its all set out just to make them money
No cover, it’s all about getting poor people to fight with one another
So its logical that us killing our brothers,
Dissin’ our mothers
Is right in line with the dominant philosophy of our time
But time is a cycle, not a line
Comes back around you regain your mind
You be ready for the energy I channel in my rhymes
Remedy the pedigree, the jeopardy of mine
When the world’s this f***ed up, lethargy’s a crime
We can all fight with our brothers over crumbs,
Far harder to fight the one who makes guns
We can all talk sh** and get two dollars
Far harder to be the one who seeks knowledge
If we understood economics
We’d know money’s nothin’
Think nothing of it
Money is a means to get wealth, not the wealth itself
Don’t get confused, I’m far from broke
All that you see me do I own
But I wont hang what I make around my neck
I know from where that the diamonds came
But I do quite literally own a library,
That definitely costs more than your chain
And businesses, and properties
Far from starvin’, I eat quite properly
And I don’t care, just said it for the kids
Who need to know that you’re not broke to listen
Don’t know an asset from a liability
They’ve never been shown or told the difference
So they don’t change situations
Richest man in Britain is Asian
That’s significant, not coincidence,
Asian people build businesses,
Not by flossin/going out shoppin’
Giving out their culture for everyone’s profit
Who run’s Bollywood? Indian people
Who owns our shit?
So we shake our arse and dance
As if racism just upped and vanished
But has it? No its right on course
You’re beaten so bad, you’re trained to ignore
Let me not just make sweeping statements
Gimme a second, I’ll explain it
For small amounts of drug possession there’s more black people in jail in America than there is for rape and armed robbery and murder all put together
You can say they’re just locking up thugs,
Imagine if they locked up every middle class kid that had ever held drugs,
Oh that’s right, that’d be your kids!
Bigger than that what is going on with this,
Prison in America’s a private business
They get paid 50k per year per inmate by the State, just wait…
Also legally are allowed to use their prison inmates as slaves
Cheap slave labour, big corporations
They come out of jail, can’t get a job
So when we celebrate going to jail,
We are LITERALLY CELEBRATING ENSLAVEMENT
Add to that, that the hood that you’re livin’
Engineered social condition that breeds crime by design
Where do you think you get your nine?
You can say that they’re just black,
But I like to deal with facts
In the 1920s you would’ve found in America
Black towns,
Prospering centres of economics and education to make you proud
But some people couldn’t bear that the former slaves would not just lie down
So the KKK and other hate groups burnt those towns to the ground
Killin hundreds,
If it ain’t understood,
You think you were always livin’ in the hood?
Shit it’s only been sixty years
Since they hung blacks and burned em’
And that was so cool
Day reel passes, picnic baskets
Even gave kids the day off school
To go see a lynchin’
Have a picnic
It’s fun to watch the little monkeys die(!)
Then people act a little dysfunctional
You wanna pretend that you don’t know why
If your colour means you can be killed
And you’re powerless to get justice about it
Is it difficult to figure out how you would then end up feelin’ about it?
And that ain’t excuses,
Just dealing with the roots of abuses that make a reality
Where a generation of young men speak of ourselves as dirt casually
That’s America,
This Britain,
Some things are similar,
Some different,
In this country the first enslaved were the working class
What’s changed?
Worst jobs, worst conditions
Worst taxed, look where you’re livin’
You go to the pub, Friday night,
You will fight with a guy,
Don’t know what for,
But won’t fight with a guy, suit and a tie,
Who sends your kids to die in a war,
They don’t sell the kids of the richer politicians,
It’s your kids, the poor british
That they send to go die in a foreign land
For these wars you don’t understand,
Yeah they say that you’re British
And that lovely patriotism they feed ya
But in reality you have more in common with immigrants
Than with your leaders
I know, both side of my family
Black and white are fed ghetto mentality
Reality in this system,
Poor people are dirt regardless of shade
But with that said,
Let’s not pretend that everything is the same
When our grandparents came here to Britain
If you had a criminal record you couldn’t get in
Yet that ain’t protect them from all the stupid, stupid abuses they would be livin’
Kicked in the teeth,
Stabbed in the street,
Many times fired bombed our houses,
Put faeces through our letter box
And of course the cops did so much about it(!)
Daily, up to the 80s
People spittin’ into my pram cos’ I was a coon baby
But of course that has had no effect on why today we are crazy
And none of this was for any good reason
They were just dark and breathing
To ease the guilt now for all of this treatment
Constant stereotypes and needed
So if I celebrate how big that my dick is,
Bricks that I’m flippin’
Clips that I’m stickin’
Chicks that I’m hittin’
I’m playing my position
But if I teach a kid to be a mathematician,
Messin’ with the schism,
How they gonna fill a prison when materialism is no longer our religion?
What do you think we got now in Britain?
Just like America, private prisons
Prisons for profit!
That mean when your kids go jail people make money off it,
So keep environments that breed crime
Build more jails at the same time
Market badness to the kids in the rhymes
As long as rich kids ain’t dying its fine!
Get em’ to the point where some are so lost
They actually believe that if they don’t celebrate killin’ themselves off
That it’s because they’re soft
Was Malcom soft?
Was Marley soft?
Tell me was Marcus Garvey soft?
Well? Was Mohammed Ali soft?
Nah, Nah I think not!
But they want us to think that the road is cool
Being on road is all we can do
We don’t control the wholesale productions
Who benefits from us movin’ the food?
Or thinking there’s no way out of road life
But Malcolm X used to hustle out on the roadside
When Marcus Garvey organised more than 6million people
With no Facebook or Twitter
Why is this something you cannot equal?
Shiiiiit!
One of my homeboys did a ten straight in the box in yard
Now what’s he doing?
Passin’ his doctorate
Don’t tell me that it’s too hard!
Who trained you to believe that you’re inferior?
Sungbo Eredo in Nigeria are the remains of an ancient moat,
Dug 1000 years ago
20 metres wide, 70 down,
Round the remains of an ancient town
That’s 400 square miles around
400 square miles around
Please, please don’t believe me,
It was a documentary on BBC!
But we ain’t studyin’ history,
Too busy watching MTV
And MTV said wear platinum,
Now everybody wanna go and wear platinum,
And MTV said pop magnums,
Now everybody wanna go and pop magnums
If MTV said drink prune juice
You would start hearing that in tunes soon,
‘Hey! Today I wore my Cartier,
Is it now more important what I got to say?’
Oh and I drive a Mercedes by the way
So everybody listen to what I got to say
Huh, does that make you all happy?
Ahh but shit my head’s still nappy
Think for myself, still some mad at me
But on the mic ain’t not one bad as me
All of this here’s good for the rhymes
Put us in the same place at the same time
And it’s clear to everybody that I’m out of my mind
Some of these guys are runnin’ out of their rhymes
Clear to everybody that has got ears
I’m the guy that they just might fear
They wanna get near but they can’t have a peer
Ah dear I’m hard liquor you’re just like beer
Front on the kid for another five years
Come to my shows and some cry tears
It mean that much to em’, it’s a movement!
I don’t speak for myself but a unit,
Black, white, man, woman, anyone that respects truth we put in
Dudes are like dinner with no puddin’
Yeah you’re sweet but no substance puddin’
You could never ever be with a level on
Our songs get out played out there in Lebanon
We speak for the people properly
Not for the old fat guys in offices
And the girls love him, it ain’t fair
He can’t even be bothered to comb his hair
Anyway that’s enough kissin’ my own arse
Back to the more important task of being so shower
I got half the hood screaming “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER”
And I ain’t saying that will change rap
But I do know this for a fact
Right now there’s a yout’ on your block
With his hands on his balls, face screwed up
Swear he don’t care, don’t give a fuck
That he won’t let nobody caught his block
But the words go in
Open your shackles
Because once that’s happened there’s no going back
Once you start to see what is really happening
Who the enemy you should be attackin’ is
So READ, READ, READ!
Stuck on the block, READ, READ!
Sittin’ in the box, READ, READ!
Don’t let them say what you can achieve
Cos when people are enslaved
One of the first things they do is stop them reading
Cos’ it is well understood that intelligent people will take their freedom
Cos’ if we knew our power we would understand that we can’t be held down
If we knew our power, we would not elevate not one of these clowns
If we knew our power, we wouldn’t get arrogant when we get two pennies
If we knew our power, we would see what everybody sees, that we’re rich already!
But never mind MCs go run for your mummy
I’m hungry, I run for my tummy
That’s enough back to worshipping money
I’m off, back to the study!

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