Take a few minutes to read this in-depth interview with the very talented revolutionary rapper Jasiri X, which appeared on examiner.com a few days ago.

Gone are the days when rappers actually had something of substance to say when they picked up the microphone. The late 80’s and early 90’s were filled with Hip-Hop acts that raged against the machine while most of today’s acts are simple and overly hedonistic. I guess everything is all good.

Pittsburgh MC Jasiri X is a throwback to acts like Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Paris, and X-Clan. His lyrics are not about being combative but more about doing the right thing. With rhymes steeped in factuality Jasiri X is a breath of fresh air to Hip-Hop in 2010.

I spoke with Jasiri X about the Tea Party Movement, police brutality in the inner city, his upcoming album Ascension, and why Gucci Mane and Waka Flocka Flame are part of a modern day minstrel show.

SS: I first heard of you from your song What if the Tea Party was Black? Talk about why you decided to record that song and explain the meaning behind it.

Jasiri X: It really came from a conversation that I had with Paradise the Architek from X-Clan. He sent me an article written by a gentleman named Tim Wise. The article basically said, imagine if the Tea Party was black. I read the article and I thought it was decent. I saw Paradise later on and he asked me about it. I said it was cool, and he said that it would make a great song. I was like, “Wow, it would.” At that point in time it was instantaneous and I just started writing.

The purpose was to show media bias. It wasn’t about the Tea Party as much as it was about how they’ve been covered. It’s interesting to me when you hear them talk about revolution and see them with guns. We know the history of our revolutionary organizations and how the government conspired to destroy them, but what if black people decided to march on Washington with guns? How would they treat us? We know it would be a lot harsher treatment than the Tea Party gets. I’m somebody that always analyzes and studies the media. It was right along the lines of what I like to do as far as exposing the biases that I see in the media–especially when it comes to our people.

SS: Race has been in the news recently with people like Shirley Sherrod, Jesse Jackson, and Mel Gibson making headlines. Recently I had a discussion with my 15-year old cousin concerning Jesse Jackson’s allegation that Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert had the mentality of a slave master. My cousin said, “Why are people still talking about slavery? Why do people still bring up race?” I’ve heard similar comments from people of all colors recently but it shocked me coming from a young black man. What would you say in response to my cousin’s questions about why race and slavery are still brought up in 2010?

Jasiri X: Wow. I would talk to him about how race matters. It’s sad because you would think that in 2010 we would have witnessed Dr. King’s dream by now. Especially with the election of President Obama, we would have moved beyond it. What you see with the election of President of Obama is it’s gotten even more racial. I’d talk to him about Oscar Grant because everybody missed that when LeBron James made his decision on ESPN. Grant was a young brother in Oakland who was shot point blank in the back on video tape. The officer was charged with involuntary manslaughter. I would show your cousin how statistics say that young black men born after 1991 have a 91% chance of going to jail at least once in their life. The percentage for white people is just 5. I’d talk to him about graduation statistics and employment statistics. Even today when we go before a judge after committing the same crime we get longer sentences than white offenders. The reality is, race is still a problem.

Here in Pittsburgh we were called America’s most livable city. At the same time a report was issued saying that we have the poorest black community of any of the major cities in the United States. Black children under 5-years old are poorer in Pittsburgh than anywhere else in the United States. That’s the disparity right there. If your cousin lived in the hood I’d say look at your neighborhood and ask why is it not like the neighborhoods of others.

SS: He does live in the hood! He’s on the west side of Chicago and it’s serious over there…

Jasiri X: Wow. Oh yeah. I’m originally from the south side so I understand. I would say look around your own neighborhood, you know?

SS: Tell me about the American History X mixtape that you dropped a few months ago.

Jasiri X: The idea came about from watching the movie. The movie deals with race which is a topic that I deal with often. The white student writes a History paper about Hitler and the black principal takes him into the office and says, “I’m your history teacher now, our topics are going to be about current events, and the class is going to be called American History X.” This Week is a video blog where I was dealing with a lot of current events and issues–the mixtape was right along those same lines.

SS: Earlier you mentioned Paradise the Architek; how did you hook up with Paradise?

Jasiri X: Man, just found out he lived in Pittsburgh! I’m someone who is definitely inspired by X-Clan. We ended up hooking up but what’s interesting is when we did it wasn’t about rap. Paradise is someone who has a tremendous love for our people. He’d call me every time a young person lost their life in Pittsburgh and ask me, “What are gonna do?” We ended up getting with some other young brothers who love Hip-Hop and love working with young people and formed a group called 1 Hood.

After organizing with 1 Hood and doing the anti-violence things in Pittsburgh we got to the music. I almost gave up Hip-Hop because I didn’t think people wanted to hear conscious rap. It changed for me when I wrote the song Free the Jena 6. It ended up being played all over the country and Michael Baisden was the catalyst for that. I ended up in Jena and people responded well to the song saying it touched their lives. It showed me that people really wanted to hear Hip-Hop with substance and a message. That’s when Paradise and I really started working on music together.

SS: Going back to the era when X-Clan came out, acts like X-Clan, Public Enemy and Brand Nubian were at the forefront of rap, now acts like that you won’t see on BET. Why do you think that’s changed in less than 20 years?

Jasiri X: The powers that be of the industry will say outright that that music doesn’t sell. A group like Little Brother who you might not even classify as conscious, I would say they’re conscious or have intelligent music; BET wouldn’t play their video because they said their music was too intelligent for their audience. I think what happened was this industry created a formula for a hit record. People began focusing on making hit records instead of music that inspires and educates. It was like if you don’t fit into this formula that equals hit we aren’t going to support you. The industry is saying we won’t invest in you because you won’t be this big monster hit. This is actually why we started putting our videos on YouTube to show that people want to hear this type of Hip-Hop. It’s good to be able to negotiate a contract and say we have a half a million views on YouTube and people want to hear this type of music.

If you look at the history of the representation of black people in the industry and the media its always been this negative portrayal. It seems to me that now the industry says we only want two representations of black men. Either you’re this unintelligent gangster super thug or you’re this effeminate non-threatening person with super tight jeans. It seems like the media has always had a problem with an intelligent strong black man. Women have it worse. If they don’t want to get buck naked they don’t have a place for you in this industry. This is why me, Paradise, and others have said that we’ll do it independently. There is a market there. There are people that want my music, there’s people that want good conscious Hip-Hop with a message. Look at what’s happening to the industry, it’s collapsing on itself because it’s not producing real good music that people want to listen to. What really destroyed Hip-Hop was when people went into the studio and tried to make hit records instead of making good quality music. What you get out of that is junk. You get a whole bunch of attempts at a hit record and they’re terrible. I took the opposite approach and said I want to make quality music that has an impact and talks about what’s happening.

You’re in Chicago the violence is off the chain! Violence, poverty, the recession, the intense attack on President Obama; all these issues we have and we’re still talking about making it rain? We’re talking about swag? I tend to also get mad at Hip-Hop fans because the fans don’t demand real good music. If the industry is pushing you the fans will accept you. We’ll accept Rick Ross even though we know he’s lying. We know he was a C.O. and he wasn’t a big time hustler. We accept it because the industry is pushing it.

SS: I interviewed Scoop Jackson from ESPN and I asked him why Hip-Hop changed from conscious rap to mostly gangsta rap. He said Hip-Hop didn’t dictate that but the people did. He said in the late 80’s and early 90’s Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton played a much bigger role in the community then than they do now. There is no so-called black leader now so the rappers are a reflection of the people…

Jasiri X: I love Scoop but that’s just absolutely ridiculous. The reason I say that is because I live in the hood. Everybody is not a killer. Everybody is not selling drugs. When you analyze it, it’s a small segment of the people in the community living that life. It’s not everybody. I was just in London Homes; I got a lot of family there. Are there people there doing what they gotta do? Yeah. Sure. But it’s not everybody that lives there. What happens is it’s glamorized. At 1 Hood we walked the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh called Homewood. Before we started walking it was five shootings in a 21 hour period– a three and a four-year old got shot. We said enough is enough, black men we’re going to get together and walk these streets. What we found out was it really wasn’t that bad. There were a couple of trouble areas but it’s not what’s portrayed. My thing is, yeah we have violence and hustling in the hood but definitely not at the level that these rappers talk about.

SS: On the block that I grew up on there was crime, but there was literally like two houses that people sold drugs out of. Everybody else on the block went to work every day and minded their own business.

Jasiri X: [Laughs] Exactly! Did what they had to do to survive.

SS: Drugs bring guns, people who use drugs steal, and it’s a never ending cycle…

Jasiri X: It’s definitely a vicious cycle. What we saw in Pittsburgh is a change in the policing. It went away from a community policing where people knew the officers and they were from your community. Most of the people that police our communities are white. They’re these hyper ex-soldier type guys that come from the suburbs and rarely have interaction with black people therefore there is no relationship there. That’s why they’re pushing for people to snitch. It used to be where people in the community had a relationship with the police and would talk to them.

An honor student in Pittsburgh named Jordan Miles was beaten severely by the police. He looked like Emmitt Till. He had his locks ripped out of his head. He’s an honor student and a violinist who played for Michelle Obama when she visited Pittsburgh. He was just walking to his grandmother’s house and some undercover cops jumped out on him so he ran. He didn’t know they were cops and they gave him the beat down. The police are defiant in the face of that and the head of the F.O.P says they followed their training. They charged this young brother with resisting arrest and he’s an honor student who never had any history with the police–as if beating him down and ripping the locks out of his head wasn’t enough. Look at the history of America, sex and violence is what America is founded on and what America loves to digest.

SS: I haven’t been stopped by the cops in a while. I’m 34-years old but when I was a teenager I was stopped constantly. It was always humorous to me because I was never in any kind of trouble but the house across the street from me was flooded with drug dealers and the police never bothered them. A lot of these cops work with drug dealers. They take payoffs or shakedown these small-time dope dealers so they aren’t concerned about policing the community. Earlier you mentioned that there should be more black police officers in black neighborhoods but in my experiences the black cops are way worse than the white ones. So how would you propose to change this?

Jasiri X: Yeah, yeah. You’re absolutely right. Pittsburgh was one of the first cities they used the RICO Act on. To talk to those brothers who were victims of that they didn’t get hit until they actually stopped selling drugs [laughs]. I think ultimately what we have to do is begin to police our own communities. It’s like education; do I send my child to this school that really doesn’t care about my child? Or do I take it upon myself to home school my child? We’re being pushed to do for self and practice self sufficiency. Ultimately it’s our neighborhood. On the block that I live on if I see someone breaking into my neighbors’ house I have a responsibility to say, “Nah, you’re not breaking into my neighbors’ house,” because the next house you’ll break into is mine.

The solution is we have to organize block by block and community by community to say we’re going to watch out for one another. Sadly people are afraid to approach these young brothers–they’re approachable. You can say, “Hey, on this block right here we’re watching out. It might be wise to leave us alone.” At the same time our tax dollars pay the salary of the police. With this organization 1 Hood we went up against the police a few times. When we first went up against the police an officer pulled a gun on a 7-year old girl and said he was going to blow her brains out. There were five witnesses to this account. What they tend to do is drag the case out and what we tend do is get real hype when it first happens and then go back to sleep. We have to begin to organize for the duration and hold the police responsible for what they’re supposed to do. What happened was the mother was charged with disturbing the peace because she was calling on Jesus to save her from the wicked police officer. They ended up dropping the charges against her but the judge said he did not believe that this officer would do something like that even though there were five eye witnesses. Less than a year later that officer shot and killed a mentally disturbed man. When we go and speak we bring that stuff up. We have to hold the officers accountable for the jobs they’re supposed to do and not be afraid to do that as well.

SS: Back to the music, I heard a song of yours called Blackface and another song called Just A Minstrel. How do you differentiate between someone having fun and being themselves versus someone putting on a minstrel show?

Jasiri X: Being yourself, are you really being yourself? To me that’s the $64 million dollar question. I read in XXL magazine that Gucci Mane had an academic college scholarship for computer science. So when we see Gucci Mane playing this role is he being himself? Obviously this dude is super-intelligent. Lil’ Wayne is very intelligent. When you see them acting out like this are they being themselves? I would say no. T-Pain? No. They’re playing a character. When they get caught and get on that witness stand like The Game you can tell. The Game’s lawyer said, “Do not call my client a gangsta rapper. That’s not what he is.” They’ll get on that stand and say that’s not really me, I’m playing a character.

Why is it that the character that they’re playing resembles a minstrel act from the 1920’s and 30’s? Why can’t you being an intelligent man reflect that in your music? If Gucci Mane would be goofy in one video and an intelligent business man in the next I would say OK, in this video he’s having fun and in this video he’s handling business. If in every video you’re showing all your teeth and high on pills that’s not real. Especially when you’re going in front of the judge and talking about how you want to change your life and be a role model.

SS: Waka Flocka Flame…

Jasiri X: Lord have mercy.

SS: [LAUGHS] He got into some minor verbal thing with Method Man. One of the things he said was that people don’t want to hear intelligent lyrics, I’m paraphrasing but that’s basically what he said. I’ve actually never heard one of his songs..

Jasiri X: You don’t want to hear it [laughs].

SS: I don’t think that guy is playing a character. I think that’s really him.

Jasiri X: No. To understand who Waka Flocka Flame is… Do you know who his mother is?

SS: No.

Jasiri X: His mother managed Gucci Mane and Nicki Minaj. How hard did you have it if your mom is managing Gucci and Nicki Minaj? You got some money now! That’s the mentality that the record labels have. The record label will say Soulja Boy had a million hits, did a dance, and sold some records so in their mind this is proof that people don’t want to hear lyrics anymore, but explain the success that Jay-Z and Eminem have. To me that’s a cop out. This is somebody who has no respect for the culture of Hip-Hop. He just wants to make money. His mom is managing Gucci so he can get Gucci and Nicki Minaj on a song so it’s like why not put some songs out there and you can make money too. He didn’t have to go through what most rappers have to go through to get on.

Even if you were the hood rapper you have to have some skills. You have to be able to say some rhymes to make the people in the hood say, “That’s him–he’s the one.” He never had to go through that. Because of how he got on and how quickly he got on he doesn’t have the same appreciation and respect for the culture and the music because he didn’t have to pay those dues. He’ll go out as fast as he came in–just watch. People that have an easy time getting on don’t last long. Look at the stories of Jay-Z, Eminem, and Diddy. They had a hard road, they fought. Every record label turned Jay-Z down and he financed his own record. They worked hard just to get their foot in the door. Their grind level is different.

We have an artist here in Pittsburgh named Wiz Khalifa. I’ve known him since he was 16-years old and when I met him he was dead set on being a professional Hip-Hop artist. He had a mindset like a 25-year old. He was in the studio back then, he wasn’t playing the block. He signed with Warner Bros, it didn’t turn out like people thought it would and it made him grind even harder. There was a time in Pittsburgh when there was a hate campaign for Wiz. He used to have to have a bodyguard.

SS: Why?

Jasiri X: It was two reasons. He’s young and his management is young. They made a mistake by marketing him as the only thing that’s happening in Pittsburgh. He also had a couple of street type songs. A lot of the rappers are heavy in the streets and they had a problem because they knew he wasn’t heavy in the streets. Wiz just hadn’t found himself yet and now he’s found himself as an artist. His management learned from those early mistakes. They reached back to Pittsburgh and when Wiz comes back to the city he’s like the Steelers now. It wasn’t easy and that dude went through a lot. I think he’s going to have a longer career than these dudes who just got a co-sign from a big star to get on. Wiz built his own machine and he’s going to be around a lot longer because of what he went through that I witnessed first hand.

SS: Talk about the album you have coming out.

Jasiri X: I’m really excited, it comes out in January. It’s really to me my first real album. American History X is a good album and we got the Pittsburgh Hip-Hop album of the year award but it was more like a compilation of my episodes. What you’ll find on American History X is me talking about things going on around the world and things that affect us. This is the first album where I get to get a little more into myself and just spit on some stuff. I put a couple songs out where I just spit and I’m nice with it. I can spit on this mic. It’s produced entirely by a producer named Rel!g!on out of Vancouver, Canada. He did a song last season that was very popular called Silent Night. I got with him and this new company called Wandering Worx — myself and Planet Asia were the first acts signed to it.

I’m just excited about an album that’s separate from me doing political stuff. As an artist you get more of a wider range of me on the album. It’s called Ascension. When we do the This Week with Jasiri X series we do nine episodes, nine weeks straight. So it’s nine new songs and nine new videos. I pushed myself to a point where I was ready to give up. It was like boot camp times fifty. I edit the videos too so I wasn’t sleeping at all. We kind of changed it up this year. It was a dark time for me so Ascension represents me coming out of that and finding the love for Hip-Hop again. I had to get off Twiter and Facebook and just wrote. Rel!g!on is a super producer as far as his beats and I’m really excited about people hearing it.

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If you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out Jasiri’s classic ‘What if the Tea Party was Black?’

JasiriX.com
Jasiri X on Twitter
Jasiri X Facebook group

Check out this powerful and moving new video from Akala, for his track ‘Yours and My Children’. Shot on location in Rio’s favelas, the video is definitely a major step up from the average hip-hop vid. No bling, no phat cars, no bragging or bullshit; just regular scenes from the Brazilian hood, interspersed with clips from various live performances, all very slickly and professionally edited.

No doubt you’ve heard the track before, so I don’t need to tell you how deep it is. Akala kicks some of the realest knowledge, with breathtaking skill and passionate delivery. His simple message of unity is one that we need to take up! Here’s an excerpt of the lyrics:

Even the fact that I call myself black
Social conditioning and that’s a fact
The idea of races has no factual basis
It was made just to serve racists
To justify doing to some what couldn’t be done to others
But they all are all of our sons
BLack or white, all of our sons
Muslim, Christian, all of our sons
Look up in the sky, that’s all of our sun
Last time I checked, we only had one
So if some were inferior, others superior, based on exterior
Well then surely the sun would know and fall into line
It would rain on your crops and not mine
Air would prefer to inhabit your lungs
Food would prefer the taste of your tongue
If that’s not the case then nature’s declared
Despite what we say, the world’s in fact fair

Kids in Iraq, yours and my children
Kids in Iran, yours and my children
Afghanistan, yours and my children
Even Sudan, yours and my children
Kids in Brazil, yours and my children
Police drive by the favela and just kill dem

Spread the word! Let’s get the view count up and make sure the music industry knows Akala cannot be ignored.

Big ups to SB.TV for premiering the video.

Follow Akala on Twitter
Follow SB.TV on Twitter
Buy Akala’s latest album, DoubleThink, on iTunes
Read our review of the recent Dead Prez and Akala gig

Right, I’m going to try and post a ‘conscious classic’ every week. To kick things off, check this incredible lyrical performance from Skinnyman, taken from his 2004 album ‘Council Estate of Mind’. Three minutes of pure knowledge and depth – with no hooks!

In a relentless indictment of the music industry, Skinny explains why UK hip-hop artists have difficulty getting signed – because they talk too much realness! No doubt the likes of Lowkey, Akala and Black the Ripper will relate to this, given that they get a bare minimum of exposure on commercial media, in spite of having massive underground popularity.

One positive development over the last few years is that good artists don’t have to be as reliant on the music industry as they once were – the internet gives new opportunities for guerrilla marketing and distribution that mean you can get music into people’s ears without having to spend tens of thousands of pounds. Without a doubt, some of our best conscious/political rappers are using these opportunities with great effect.

Anyway, check the lyrics.

I don’t wanna blow up, throughout every era I’ve been here
So far the underground circuit has been fair
The home of hip hop, can you say you’ve been there?
Home’s where the heart is so hip hop lives right here
I’m from UK, to you that might seem rare
I’m steppin’ up now to make sure I seem clear
In every council estate we’ve got pure talent
No one don’t care because they’re seen as a challenge
I suppose we’ll never be the balance that you’re lookin’
You wanna dilute the realness then sling a hook in
Most A&R cats I’ve ever met was all shookin’
I’m lost for words if they don’t bring a chequebook in
I’m livin’ in a place where you can get your life tooken
For half steppin, by kids that’ll blast weapons
Pull up at the lights they’ll have you out in half seconds
Think your rough hang around if your ass reckons
Don’t have to look for trouble, trouble it’ll find ya
Don’t turn around it’ll be right behind ya
Maybe September the 11th will remind ya
Nobody ain’t too major nor minor
If you’re bruck in the street or in a brand new recliner
Grab ya dicks and girls rub your vagina
Pay the pound I’ll provide the punch liner
Might look young but I’m a real old timer
Been around ever since the days of Boogie Down
You can check my résumé, the evidence can be found
Forever been blessin’ eloquence over sound
Before they had the lino for spinnin’ on the ground
Since then shit’s changed man, shit goes down
But we’re still gettin’ down to the same old sound, it’s hip hop
It’s good shit for rockin’ a crowd
Where there ain’t no space for mistakes allowed
I feel proud if I’m leaving crowds crying for more
This year I’m really thinking ’bout trying a tour
Is hip hop worth dying for, if your life’s on the line and your only crime is being poor?
This time around I feel I want more
I wanna see my son’s future set secure
Without havin’ to go out and start breakin’ the law
I’m sick of being sat in the flats shotting the draw
I’m sick of watchin every day come and go by, tellin’ titch and fat boy, hold ya head high
See others come and go, watchin’ their mothers cry, singing “why did my boy have to die?”
And still we try
As others might choose to get high
But we must up rise through to get by
It don’t take too much to figure out the facts, who’s bringin in all the coke and the crack?
This week an 82 year old got her throat slashed in the flats, cats are lookin’ cash for their crack
And we’re the kids whose left facing the facts
Now used for lookin’ mobiles that match their straps
As if it’s fashion, everybody’s ready for the action
Ready for the mashin’ and thuggin’ it with a passion
Only takes two egos to start clashin, bullets start flyin then the blood’ll start splashin’
Social rage is really climaxing
Everyday I see it getting worse by a fraction
Droughts for the weed, but ‘nough of that crack thing
Nobody round here is gonna be relaxin’
And this ain’t a whites or a blacks thing
It’s if you’re livin in the council flats and on a brack ting
They got us on a lab rat thing
And it’s funny to me how easily we’re all adapting
So I’m jus gonna keep on rapping
You lot keep ya next snapping, but fuck the hook
Just say fuck the hook, fuck the hook.

Massive respect to the one and only Skinnyman! Please please please give us another album!

Tupac Amaru Shakur was assassinated 14 years ago, on 13 September 1996. He was one of most important and influential rappers of all time. He may not have been the best lyricist or battle MC, but his voice, his passion, his politics, his background and his personality made him an exceptionally powerful vocalist.

The son of a very well-known New York Black Panther, Afeni Shakur, Tupac was exposed to the ideas of black power and freedom from a very early age (his godfather was Geronimo Pratt, one of the leading Panthers and a long-term political prisoner). Nonetheless, unlike a lot of other ‘conscious’ hip-hop MCs, Pac was from the *street*. He didn’t go to college; he didn’t grow up in relative comfort. He grew up in the projects, and he always identified with the disenfranchised, disenchanted, impoverished young people he grew up with.

Pac grew in the aftermath of an intense political struggle in which many of his family’s friends and relatives had been killed or imprisoned. In her book ‘The War Before’, Safiya Bukhari (another New York Panther who was a close friend of Afeni’s) points out that everyone who came through this struggle was, to some extent, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. To see your friends die in shoot-outs; to operate ‘underground’; to go to prison; to suffer solitary confinement – all of these things have an impact on your psychological health. Afeni, like a number of other Panther veterans, became addicted to crack cocaine in the early 1980s. As a result, Tupac’s childhood was highly unpredictable, and the contradiction of his family’s Panther legacy and his own erratic, impoverished childhood is one of the main themes that defines his life and his music.

Tupac more than any other rapper bridges the generation gap between the black power generation of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the hip-hop generation of the 1980s onwards. He brings the Panther legacy to his music, but he does it in order to bring certain ideas to bear on the struggles of his generation, rather than just giving a history lesson. Unfortunately, once he hooked up with Death Row records in the later part of his career, his music took on a much less positive, much less revolutionary, much more gangsta aspect. However, his earlier albums stand out as some of the best works of political art in recent memory.

Here is the video to ‘Changes’, one of Pac’s most heartfelt and memorable songs, the lyrics for which contain some real depth and insight. The song is an indictment of the oppression of African people in the US, and a call to oppressed people to start working together and to stop killing each other.

Pac makes an important point that many seasoned politicians (even on the left) don’t properly understand, relating the situation in the Middle East to the situation in the ghettoes of the United States:

And still I see no changes, can’t a brother get a little peace?
There’s war in the streets and war in the Middle East
Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs
So the police can bother me

With a note of desperation, he points out that the most vibrant struggle of black people in the US to gain freedom and equality was struck down ruthlessly by the state:

It’s time to fight back, that’s what Huey [Newton] said
Two shots in the dark, now Huey’s dead

But the real message of the song is more optimistic: we need to stop doing what the oppressors want us to do, and we need to unite.

I got love for my brother, but we can never go nowhere
Unless we share with each other
We gotta start makin’ changes
Learn to see me as a brother instead of two distant strangers

Tupac Amaru Shakur, RIP

Lowkey is on a serious roll at the moment – everything he is putting out is lyrically, musically and politically on point. The latest video from his forthcoming (and much-anticipated) album ‘Soundtrack to the Struggle’ is called ‘Terrorist?’, and it explores the true meanings of the concepts ‘terror’ and ‘terrorism’.

Lowkey starts off by quoting the dictionary definitions as follows:

Terrorist: the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coersion.

Terror: violent or destructive acts such as bombing, committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands.

He proceeds to compare some of the people that are labeled in the media as ‘terrorists’ (ie. Iraqis and others using primitive explosives against colonial domination) with the powerful states and corporations that are terrorising millions on a daily basis.

What’s the bigger threat to human society,
BAE Systems or home-made IEDs?
Remote controlled drones killing off human lives
Or man with home-made bomb committing suicide?

Although the ‘terrorist’ label has primarily been used to describe Muslims, particularly since the twin towers attack, Lowkey points out that resistance to imperialism isn’t limited to any one religion or racial group, and that all oppressed people are united by their opposition to the empire.

This is very basic
One nation in the world has over a thousand military bases.
They say it’s religion, when clearly it isn’t
It’s not just Muslims that oppose your imperialism.
Is Hugo Chavez a Muslim? Nah, I didn’t think so.
Is Castro a Muslim? Nah, I didn’t think so.

He brilliantly exposes the hypocrisy of western colonisers describing anybody as terrorists:

Lumumbah was democracy
Mossadeq was democracy
Allende was democracy
Hypocrisy, it bothers me
Call you terrorist if you don’t wanna be a colony
Refuse to bow down to a policy of robbery

The song is summed up by its beautiful, haunting chorus:

They’re calling me a terrorist
Like they don’t know who the terror is
When they put it on me I tell them this
I’m all about peace and love.

They’re calling me a terrorist
Like they don’t know who the terror is
Insulting my intelligence
Oh how these people judge

All in all, another very powerful track from Lowkey, with excellent production by the ever-reliable Red Skull and a highly professional, innovative video by Global Faction. Please spread the word!

Follow Lowkey on Twitter
Red Skull’s Facebook page

This is a very potent and very slick track/video from Detroit rapper Invincible. Invincible smashes a *lot* of stereotypes, as a white female rapper, an anti-zionist from a Jewish family (she was born in Israel) who raps about gentrification, racism, Native American rights and the occupation of Palestine. Without a doubt she is a highly proficient rapper that people need to start taking notice of.

Check this interview for more details about Invincible.

Many London hip-hop heads (myself included) first heard of Mangaliso Asi at the Jay Electronica gig at the Jazz Cafe back in November 2009 when Jay hosted a short open mic segment. Mangaliso stepped straight up and, to the amazement of the crowd, absolutely merked it! Jay Electronica looked pretty much dumbfounded. “Daaamn. Most times you let people on the mic and they can’t really spit. This motherfucker can SPIT!” Jay went on to instruct Gilles Peterson, who was in the crowd, to get Mangaliso on his Worldwide show on BBC Radio 1.

A few months later and Mangaliso has released his much-anticipated debut mixtape, ‘Heartbeat of the Street’, an incendiary and emotional statement about the statement of the world and Mangaliso’s place within it.

Mangaliso Asi’s diverse cultural heritage clearly plays a major part in forming his style – his biog describes him as the “son of a Jazz singing father and a single mother raising her first child against the back drop of Apartheid South Africa.” Now living in London, the influence of Soweto is still evident in his music, as he deals with topics that the average rapper wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, such as AIDS (actually, if you think about it, it’s incredible that so few rappers are willing to talk about AIDS, given that it is one of the leading causes of death in the US ghetto – what happened to keeping it real?).

As indicated by the mixtape’s title, Mangaliso places himself firmly at street-level, representing the dispossessed and downtrodden. It’s not the type of ‘street’ that glorifies the crack industry or promotes a negative attitude to women; it’s the type of ‘street’ that rejects the suicidal prejudices that come from the corporations, the mass media and the governments.

Through me the street speaks
I am the voice that gives speech to the freedom we seek.

For a new artist, his voice is impressively well-honed and his lyricism appealing. I think it’s fair to say that his technique is strongly inspired by Rakim.

Cop the mixtape now – it’s a free download – and keep an eye out for Mangaliso. DOWNLOAD LINK

Mangaliso Asi on Bandcamp
Mangaliso Asi on MySpace
Mangaliso Asi on Twitter
Mangaliso Asi on YouTube
Mangaliso Asi on Facebook

There have been some amazing F64s (big up SB.TV for the initiative and a whole lot of hard work), but the one that really got people talking was Akala’s. I honestly can’t think of an example of a rapper dropping so much knowledge in such a short space of time. And the best thing is: it’s Akala – one of the most talented and widely-respected rappers on the scene! It’s not patronising, it’s not neeky, it’s not coming from someone who’s paid to ‘teach’ a curriculum full of irrelevant bullshit designed to put kids off learning; it’s just 100% relevant, interesting ideas from a guy who’s studied a lot and lived a lot and who loves humanity.

Thankfully Akala took pity on me when I told him I was going to transcribe the lyrics, and emailed them over. Here goes.

---

The lyrics for Akala’s F64

Sorry kids let me apologize before I go further
Unfortunately I don’t rap about how many man I have murdered
And you may find it boring appalling and I ain’t scoring braps
From your little rat packs for just stating facts
See I lack not the ability to murder man lyrically
I just thought that killing should not be glorified, silly me
Apparently murdering man has become an aspiration
But what would happen if you reversed the situation?
Every black rapper claiming he clap a black in the face, talked about killing white people as much, would he still get embraced?
Or would you find the applauding would quickly turn to appalling and you got no career here by the next morning
I ain’t saying you should do that, it is true that would be just as dumb
I am just pointing out how absurd it has become
If a Chinese rapper were to say die ‘Chink’ die
Everybody would be like ‘What is wrong with this guy?’

But some of us have become so accustomed to just behave disgusting
We think it’s just our behaviour and it ain’t worth discussion
Or worse yet that it is cultural expression
But who owns Baretta and who owns Smith and Wesson?
Who owns the car you’re driving that you think’s defining who you are
Running from yourself you’ll find there is no hiding
So you can boast about your Prada and your Christian Dior
Still security will follow you when you’re in the store
And you can boast about your platinum chains and your diamond rings
While kids in Sierra Leone keep on losing limbs
Act like you got no brain and you ain’t got no shame and say so what I am getting dough
But you’re pawns in a game
They are laughing at the little coons
Who really think they are goons
Real goons don’t wear platinum chains they wear ties and suits
They don’t live in estates and sell flake
They invade with guns and tanks and take your whole state mate
So pardon me if I don’t find it funny
You boast about it but do you even know what is money?

See it’s hard to act dumb when you have read a couple hundred books
But still in anybody’s hood so tell me who is shook?
When you have been to Brazil and stood in favela streets next to kids holding hand grenades and M16s when you come back to London it ain’t serious
The ghetto is in our heads
We are delirious
If you lived in a real slum without food or running water
Where police drive by and kill sons and daughters
You would give your right arm just to go to school
Instead what do we do?
The killer the trigger the play the fool

I ain’t saying school is the answer, educate yourself
See it’s not the money you make, you are the wealth

I ain’t saying we ain’t got a struggle right here in Britain
But you’re taught to act inferior and play position perfectly
It’s disturbing me, the verbal murder be absurd to me
It occurred to me if you have not heard of me
It’s probably because I do not rap about Gucci and booty
Quite enough for the urban scene to fully salute me
But I don’t really care, I’m too busy writing my master thesis
It’s hard to play the stereotype when you study Egypt
Plus urban scene we’re racist to ourselves
Elevating words of hate we’re merely hating ourselves
And if you are musically broad or dare to speak intelligent
People look at you like who the hell you think you are better than
I’m better than no-one on this earth and I know I’m not
But I refuse to play small just to fit in your box

And I don’t hate none of these other rappers
In fact it’s quite the other
Look at me as your bigger wiser older brother
And as a brother should I tell you you’re in trouble
If they clap when you’re talking of killing do they really love you?
If record label bosses kids were dying, would they sell us violence
As quickly as they are ready to desensitise us?
They tell you to shit on your floor while holding all the scoops
Then throw you a bone like a dog jumping through a hoop
Don’t take it as a compliment because it is not that
If I tell you that you’re African you tell me it’s not that
But humanity is African even if not black
The truth can be painful
Sshhh better stop that
It’s so inconvenient
For those at the top that you talk too much truth and you might just get popped at

And if women are such hoes that we do not want to kiss them
What does it say about us that we want to put our dick in?
I’m done with the lies third eye open wide I see the tougher that you act the weaker you really feel inside
So all the killer the trigger and when we call ourselves niggas
And want platinum chains bigger than jigga’s
It’s just to run from the fact that we feel insecure
Get as many things as you want but you cannot restore
The core of who you are truly that will surpass beauty
That comes from knowledge of yourself and a sense of duty
So all my brothers pretending that we are thugs
Know if we are honest we just want to be loved

But we feel that we are not worthy and that we are not smart
So we act aggressive to protect our fragile little hearts
But we’ve got to deal with this pain or it will consume
That’s enough honesty now lets resume…

Turn this off go back to rappers that tell you kill
But inside of yourself you know that this is real
Akala on sbtv DOUBLETHINK May 3rd check the CD
If you want a little knowledge bigger than college
I PROMISE YOU the metaphorics that will offer you solace like…

The Great Pyramid alone 2.3 million stones
If you took them apart and placed them in a row
They would stretch 2/3 way around the earth
That is more stone that there is in every single British church (put together)
Each one cut to a degree of accuracy of 1/1000 of an inch
Well what does that mean?
In 1978 the Japanese ran an experiment to rebuild them with modern technology and failed terribly

But anyway that’s enough for today.

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Follow Akala on Twitter
Download ‘Doublethink’ on iTunes
See Akala on tour this autumn

If you’re into conscious hip-hop (or political rap, or freedom rap, or whatever you want to call it) and you live in or around London, it was always gonna be the night of the year. The legendary Dead Prez – true veterans of the scene – supported by some of the brightest and best UK hip-hop talent: Skinnyman, Akala and Sway.

The show got off to a great start with the help of the one and only MC Skinnyman – the man behind what to my mind is the best UK hip-hop album of all time, ‘Council Estate of Mind’. Skinny was at his brilliant best, giving an energetic performance with Mudfam collaborator RTillery. They came on to the massive hit ‘Ballistic Affair’, before Skinny went into acapella mode, dedicating his performance to the oppressed and dispossessed youth. The crowd didn’t hesitate to join him in chanting “F*** the police” 🙂

Skinnyman and RTillery’s performance of ‘Music Speaks Louder than Words’, a new track from Skinny’s forthcoming EP, was definitely one of the highlights of the night. A near-perfect beat is laced with an uplifting vocal, cursing out the politicians and putting forward the truth for the youth in the language everybody understands – music.

Next up was Akala – without a doubt one of the smartest and most talented people on the scene. Sporting an impressively large Africa medallion, he moved the crowd with several bangers from his new album, Doublethink. Never one to stick with the tried-and-tested formulas, he came on with a live drummer, which definitely helped to make his set stand out.

An impassioned performance of the beautiful ‘Find No Enemy’ had the crowd eating out of his hand, but he saved the best for last, bringing out Lowkey, Black the Ripper and Sway for a live performance of the ‘Yours and My Children’ remix. For anyone into UK hip-hop and particularly the revolutionary brand of music that people like Akala and Lowkey are pushing, it was an inspiring, deep moment to see some of the scene’s best talents uniting to make music that uplifts the people!

As if that wasn’t enough of a surprise, Akala then brought out one of the kings of Brazilian hip-hop, MC Marechal, who delighted the crowd with a big track. I’d love to know what he was saying, but it was in Portuguese. I’m pretty sure he’s on the right side 😉

The last act before Dead Prez was Sway, who put in a very solid performance including tracks from his most recent ‘Delivery’ mixtape as well as some classics from his first album (I’d almost forgotten how good it was).

Now don’t get me wrong, I like and respect Sway. He’s a talented brother, a great lyricist, a positive human being and a capable performer. However, one of my few gripes about the gig was that I don’t think Sway should have performed directly before Dead Prez, simply for the sake of continuity of content. Dead Prez, Akala and Skinnyman are revolutionary in their lyrics. Sway’s a good guy, but his lyrical focus is not consistent with the lyrical theme of the other artists on the night. That small gripe aside, Sway definitely put in a lively performance and got a great response from the crowd, so all respect due.

Next up was of course Dead Prez. Well… actually, Sway was followed by around an hour of waiting for Dead Prez! DJ 279 took the chance to get the party moving, playing some utter classics, including ‘Nas is Like’, Mos Def’s ‘Mathematics’, Mobb Deep’s ‘Shook Ones’ and Klashnekoff’s ‘Murda’. It was kinda funny to see the conscious rap crowd shockin’ hard to a Snoop track though!

Just as we were all starting to wonder if Dead Prez were ever going to make it, the RBG soldiers ran on stage to start off a phenomenal performance that showcased tracks from across the range of their 14-years-and-counting existence. M1 and Stic.man’s endless energy and their profound devotion to freedom were shining brightly as they performed classics such as ‘Mind Sex’ and ‘Hip-Hop’, as well as hits from their 2009 album ‘Pulse of the People’ such as ‘Gangsta Gangster’ and ‘Stimulus Plan’. A couple of numbers from their most recent mixtape (‘Revolutionary But Gangsta Grillz’) got a fantastic crowd response, including the epic ‘Malcolm Garvey Huey’ and their Drake cover, ‘Far From Over’.

M1 let slip that he and Stic.man had spent the previous night in the studio with Lowkey, recording a follow-up to Lowkey’s enormous ‘Obama Nation’. Definitely something to look forward to! I was hoping Lowkey might join DPZ on stage for a tune or two, but it wasn’t to be.

To close a mindblowing set, Dead Prez turned down the tempo a little, playing Al Green’s ‘Let’s Stay Together’ and leaving the stage to loud cheering from the crowd. Safe to say they rocked the party. It was a privilege to be there, celebrating the ten-year anniversary of one of the greatest LPs in hip-hop history, ‘Let’s Get Free’.

All round a great night. My only serious complaint would be that the sound quality was far from perfect. HMV Forum, please fix up!

Heads from the scene spotted in the crowd: Ms Dynamite, Genesis Elijah (good to meet you bro), Logic (you disappeared!), Stylah and DJ Gone. Big up!

Download DPZ ‘Revolutionary But Gangsta Grillz’
Follow Dead Prez on Twitter
Follow Akala on Twitter
Follow Sway on Twitter
Follow Skinnyman on Twitter
Follow Lowkey on Twitter
Follow Black the Ripper on Twitter
Follow RTillery on Twitter
Follow MC Marechal on Twitter

Uhuru!

In under 500 pages, Jeff Chang has managed to give a detailed, fascinating and relevant history of hip-hop culture, covering almost every important aspect: the social conditions that gave rise to it, the stories of the people and communities that pioneered it and moved it forward, its transformation from a primarily party-oriented movement to a culture of resistance, its re-transformation to a culture of individualism and consumerism, and a peek into its future.

While many (probably hundreds) of books have been written about the history and sociology of hip-hop and the people who listen to it, I can’t think of any that cover quite as much material as “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop”, and there are very few written in an accessible style. Jeff Chang combines the detailed knowledge and big picture understanding of the academic world with the passion and politics of the street (fittingly, he describes his location as “Brooklyn and Berkeley” (Berkeley is a university in California with a reputation for student activism)).

Chang devotes the first few chapters to exploring the social conditions prevailing in New York, particularly the South Bronx, in the years leading up to the birth of hip-hop. In many ways, although it is not directly about hip-hop, this is the most important section of the book, as this history gives some important clues as to what makes hip-hop so special, so important.

Chang describes one of the most crucial events that shaped the early hip-hop generation: the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, between 1948 and 1972. This single road, designed to decrease travel times for rich suburban commuters, forced the relocation of some 60,000 working class Bronx residents. While many white residents “moved north to the wide-open spaces of Westchester County or the northeastern reaches of Bronx County”, the majority of African and Latino residents had little choice but to move to the South Bronx, where there was a boom in social housing but a near-total lack of jobs.

The South Bronx was a place of rapid economic deterioration, having lost 600,000 manufacturing jobs in the late 60s and early 70s. Youth unemployment was said to be around 80%. “If blues culture had developed under the conditions of oppressive, forced labor, hip-hop culture would arise from the conditions of no work.”

Chang gives vivid descriptions of the social degeneration that followed the economic degeneration, as the most prominent face of the South Bronx became the gangs, the slum landlords, the insurance scam fires, the race tensions, and the drugs. The social policy response from the government was, basically, to ignore the ghetto, to pretend it didn’t exist. With the black power movement of the late 60s and early 70s defeated for the time-being, the state shut down the social programmes and replaced them with the fiction of ‘trickle down’ economics.

Gang life had become a central feature of many young people’s lives in the Bronx. “When African-American, Afro-Caribbean and Latino families moved into formerly Jewish, Irish and Italian neighborhoods, white youth gangs preyed on the new arrivals in schoolyard beatdowns and running street battles. The Black and brown youths formed gangs, first in self-defense, then sometimes for power, sometimes for kicks.”

Back in those days at least, the gangs and the major movements for political change were not a million miles apart. The Black Panthers, for example, had taken some important steps towards turning gangs away from the path of self-destruction and towards the path of revolution.

Chang writes that, in Chicago, legendary Black Panther Fred Hampton (who was murdered in his sleep by police in an unprovoked raid on his home) was “forming alliances with the powerful Blackstone Rangers, Mau Maus, and the Black Disciples gangs. He believed that the gangs collected the fearful and the forgotten. If gangs gave up robbing he poor, terrorizing the weak, hurting the innocent, they might become a powerful force for the revolution.”

In New York, the Puerto Rican revolutionary group The Young Lords had started as a street gang and had transformed themselves into an organisation for helping the community. They also had a powerful effect on the South Bronx gangs, especially when the gangs and the revolutionary groups discovered a shared enemy: police.

As the gangs found common ground in their opposition to police, to heroin dealers and junkies, and to poor social provision in their neighbourhood, a new era of unity started to emerge. It became suddenly possible for kids from different blocks, different gangs and different races to mix. All were drawn to the emerging block party scene, where young DJs like Kool Herc – generally considered to be the creator of the hip-hop movement – were making their names, putting on big parties much influenced by Jamaica’s sound system culture (which Herc, a first generation Jamaican immigrant, had grown up with).

The mix of African-American, Puerto Rican and Caribbean youth cultures – strangely vitalised by poverty, awash with rebelliousness, heavily inspired by Black Power and Puerto Rican socialist movements, in this North American cultural capital that had given birth to swing, be-bop, disco, Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X – was explosive. Impoverished young people, struggling to survive in a deprived area that the world had chosen to ignore, gave birth to a culture of music, dance (breakdancing) and art (graffiti) which the world couldn’t ignore, and which it eventually would have no choice but to adopt.

Saying something

Having written about the social origins of hip-hop, the early innovators such as Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, the emergence of graffiti, the emergence of breakdancing, and other important topics related to the ‘early years’, Chang turns his attention to the emergence of ‘political rap’.

Hip-hop had originally emerged as a party movement. It wasn’t overtly political, although it was implicitly political in that: 1) it brought young people from diverse impoverished communities together and gave them a way out of a culture of self-destruction; 2) it gave a powerful voice to oppressed people who weren’t supposed to have a voice.

However, by the time the mid-80s rolled around, there was no escaping politics. Reaganomics – the set of anti-poor economic policies associated with the Reagan government – was in full effect, and social welfare budgets were being cut left, right and centre. The gap between rich and poor, and between people of colour and whites, was growing at an incredible rate, as was the prison population. US foreign policy needs (principally their desire to give financial support to the fascistic Contra movement in Nicaragua) had created the conditions for the rapid and devastating spread of crack cocaine in the black ghettoes of Los Angeles and elsewhere (“Nearly half of America’s largest cities is one-quarter black; that’s why they gave Ricky Ross all the crack”, says Mos Def in his classic ‘Mathematics’).

Now that the poorest sections of the population in urban US had a voice, it was natural to use it to decry the corporate/government attack on their communities, especially when the older generation of black radical politics – the civil rights and black power movements – had gone quiet (or had been ‘quieted’). “In the new crisis time, as it had been for Jamaica’s embattled roots generation, rappers were increasingly being recognised as ‘the voices of their generation.’ The centre of the rap world swung decidedly in a radical direction. Hip-hop culture realigned itself and re-imagined its roots, representing itself now as a rap thing, a serious thing, a Black thing.”

Chang gives a detailed coverage of the emergence of Public Enemy – without a doubt the best-known and most important political rap crew in history (I’ll write more about them when I review Russell Myrie’s biography of PE, ‘Don’t Rhyme for the Sake of Riddlin’). He also points out some of the major milestones in late 80s and early 90s political rap, such as Run DMC’s performance at the Columbia University campus protest against apartheid, and KRS One’s co-ordination of the Stop the Violence Movement.

For many long-time hip-hop fans, that period of a few years when political rap was thriving is considered the ‘golden era’. Here was a vibrant, rebellious youth culture that spoke to the needs of working class and oppressed people everywhere.

The backlash didn’t take long to arrive. Upset by the pro-poor, pro-black lyrics of Public Enemy (and particularly their pro-Palestinian stance), mainstream journalists whipped up a frenzy of opposition to Public Enemy and other Afrocentric and black nationalist artists, labelling them as racist and anti-semitic. When certain comments made by Public Enemy’s Professor Griff regarding the Palestinian intifada were deemed to be anti-semitic, a national storm was created and numerous calls were raised for a boycott of Public Enemy’s music (what Griff actually said is still disputed, and this issue will be covered in depth in a future post).

Artist interviews were misquoted, lyrics were taken out of context, and rappers were demonised. The threat of boycott became a major establishment weapon. The big players in the music industry (still very much controlled by the old, rich, exclusively white corporates) got the message loud and clear: hip-hop could be exploited for financial gain, but it was not to be a platform for radical politics. After all, the FBI didn’t pursue its elaborate, expensive and murderous COINTELPRO operation just so that black and working class power could re-emerge in the form of rap music.

Funding and support for radical music disappeared, and the big deals started going to those willing to promote misogyny and black-on-black violence. While quick to point out that ‘gangsta’ rap is not a simple phenomenon and that many artists are highly contradictory (Jay-Z, for example, although considered as a misogynistic and ultra-consumerist artist, has made tracks opposing police brutality), Chang points out the sea change that occurred in rap music. Even NWA’s lyrics, although problematic in many ways, had a critical seed of rebelliousness; but by the time Dr Dre’s landmark ‘Chronic’ album landed in late 1992, it seemed like the time for “guiltless, gentrified gangsta” had arrived. “No Peace Treaties, rebuilding demands, or calls for reparations, just the party and the bullshit. The video for ‘G Thang’ seemed to ask: didn’t all boys everywhere just want to bounce in hot cars to hotter beats, hang out with their crew, party all night, and spray conceited bitches with malt liquor?”

The content swing within hip-hop reached a point where, “by the turn of the century, to be labelled a ‘conscious’ or ‘political’ rapper by the music industry was to be condemned to preach to a very small choir.”

Where to go from here?

Having given a brilliant description of the hip-hop generation, charting its highs and lows, Chang resists the temptation to give a prescription as to what needs to happen for hip-hop to regain its radical essence. Instead, he concludes his book with several important examples of grassroots activists from the hip-hop generation using the music and cultural imagery of hip-hop to positive effect in their communities. This at least gives a hint as to how Chang sees hip-hop heads re-developing music as a weapon.

In his introduction to the book, Kool Herc is less humble about making demands of today’s hip-hop artists and fans. Noting that “hip-hop is the voice of this generation”, Herc also points out that this is a role that comes with responsibility, a responsibility that many leading hip-hop artists are not taking seriously. “The hip-hop generation is not making the best use of the recognition and power that it has… We have the power to [change things]. If Jay-Z comes out one day with his shirt hanging this way or LL Cool J comes out with one leg of his pants rolled up, the next day everyone is doing the same thing. If we decide one day to say that we’re not gonna kill somebody senselessly, everyone will follow…

“I don’t want to hear [rappers] saying that they don’t want to be role models. You might already have my son’s attention. Let’s get that clear. When I’m telling him, ‘Don’t walk that way, don’t talk that way,’ you’re walking that way and talking that way. Don’t just be like a drug dealer, like another pusher. Cut the crap. That’s escape. That’s the easy way out. You have the kid’s attention. I’m asking you to help me raise him up.”

For Herc, it’s all about people within hip-hop taking responsibility and working to address the issues faced by their communities. “East, west, north or south – we come from one coast and that coast was Africa. This culture was born in the ghetto. We were born here to die. We’re surviving now, but we’re not yet rising up. If we’ve got a problem, we’ve got to correct it. We can’t be hypocrites. That’s what I hope the hip-hop generation can do, to take us all to the next level by always reminding us: It ain’t about keeping it real, it’s about keeping it right.”

If you love hip-hop, you should pick up a copy of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. It’s a beautiful book.