R. Dwayne Betts. A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison (2009) At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts—a good student from a lower-middle-class family—carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is a “certifiable” offense, meaning that Dwayne would be treated as an adult under state law. A bright young kid, weighing only 126 pounds—not enough to fill out a medium T-shirt—he served his eight-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state. A Question of Freedom is a coming-of-age story, with the unique twist that it takes place in prison. Utterly alone—and with the growing realization that he really is not going home any time soon—Dwayne confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system. Above all, A Question of Freedom is about a quest for identity—one that guarantees Dwayne’s survival in a hostile environment and that incorporates an understanding of how his own past led to the moment of his crime.

Related links

Websites Educational -- Using Hip Hop for Learning

The Hip-Hop Circuit: Teachers
hiphopcircuit.com/teachersup.htm
A tremendous resource for using hip-hop in education. Lesson plans, articles, unit materials, and other information make this a great first stop for educators.

Hip-Hop Poetry and the Classics for the Classroom
 http://hiphopintheclass.com/
Alan Sitomer cowrote an instructional guide for how to incorporate hip-hop into the classroom. At this site, teachers can see some sample lessons and order the book for more information.

Flipping the Script: Critical Thinking in a Hip-Hop World
www.justthink.org/curriculum/hiphop.html
A curriculum for teaching students media literacy and other topics using hip-hop music and culture.

akari Kitwana, a former editor at The Source, identifies blacks born between 1965 and 1984 as belonging to the "hip-hop generation" a term he uses interchangeably with black youth culture ("Generation X" applies mainly to whites, he says). He calls hip-hop "arguably the single most significant achievement of our generation," yet blames it for causing much damage to black youth by perpetuating negative stereotypes and providing poor role models.

—Bakari Kitwana, The Hip Hop Generation

. . . while 58 percent of blacks between ages 15 and 25 listen to hip-hop daily, most are dissatisfied with it. They find the subject matter is too violent, and women too often portrayed in offensive ways... Blacks are used largely to validate musical themes being marketed to the white mainstream. In other words, while 90 percent of commercial rap artists on TV and radio are black, the target audience lies outside the black community...   commercial hip-hop has become the ultimate minstrel show, and rap artists are pushed by the industry to remain perpetual adolescents." Davey D, Black Agenda Report

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Another Response to Young Black Male (or Hip Hop) Culture

Charles Johnson on the meaning of Obama—What’s changed is the ability of a majority of Americans to feel that race is irrelevant in their election of the president. What’s most important, as demonstrated, is their trust in the person and that person’s intelligence and professionalism.

That doesn’t mean that American society still isn’t saddled with racial misunderstanding. I came across an Obama doll somebody had done during the primaries [that] was basically a monkey with a tail and big ears, and they took it off the market quickly. Maybe 50 years ago they wouldn’t have had the pressure to take it off the market. There’s still someone who’s going to do something ignorant like that.

We can’t say we have a color-blind society at this moment because we do not. If you look at our English department where I’ve taught for 33 years, I’m the only black faculty here out of about 50 people. I think they recently hired a young woman who I haven’t met yet, so there may be two of us.  .  .  .

So they do have a problem. And we have far more black females graduating from college and getting master’s degrees and PhD’s than we do black males. And there are terrible figures. One out of nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34 are either in prison or on parole — somehow controlled by the criminal justice system.

There are lingering problems, and I’m sure Obama is acutely aware of all of them. And he can’t solve them. What he has to do is solve the economic problem, first and foremost, which affects everybody. If people don’t have jobs, you have a serious problem. If you lose your job, then you’re going to lose your home because you can’t make payments. There have to be jobs so people can pay their bills.

But there are deeper problems that affect the black community right now. I talked about women who are black who are doing better professionally than males. Seventy percent of professional black women are single. A black woman professional who reaches the age of 40 has five times the likelihood of remaining single than her white counterpart. A female professional doesn’t want a man who doesn’t have an education or a job. They look at the Obamas with tremendous admiration. They’d like to have a Barack in their lives just like Michelle does as a professional black woman.

But you do not solve that problem until you solve the problem of 70 percent of black children being born out of wedlock and 50 percent of them being raised in fatherless homes. You do not solve these problems until you solve the problem of the black family and its dissolution, and because the families dissolve the communities dissolve.

It’s a problem of young black male culture. I know what it is. August Wilson knew what it was, and we had to figure out how we were going to deal with it, so we didn’t wind up dead at 20 years old or in prison or with a criminal record. It’s a matter of the choices you make. As you have people in your life that you admire, like my dad, my mom, then you have a different direction you might take.

Obama gave that talk on Fathers’ Day last year at a church in Chicago about better parenting and black responsibility. He was basically taking a page from the playbook of Bill Cosby, and Jesse Jackson was furious with him and got caught on the air saying he wanted to cut [Obama’s] nuts off for talking down to Ns, and he used the N word. So we [need] more honesty and not illusions.

One of the things that has to be addressed seriously is the dysteleological behavior in black male culture. At a community college in the South three young black women asked me “Mr. Johnson, what’s wrong with these young black men?” I said, “I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t know what the solution is.” They were so frustrated.  .  .  .

They were seeing guys who just want to get over and get laid. They were seeing guys who do drugs or sell drugs. They were seeing guys who didn’t have their values, like valuing an education. They wanted guys they could feel good about, but they didn’t have that, which is sad.

I have talked about that in many essays, and people don’t want you to talk about it. King would talk about it, and people would say, “You’re airing dirty laundry. Don’t talk about that. Talk about what the white man is doing to us. Talk about the external problem, not this internal problem.” King said, “You have to have a battle waged on two fronts. One is the external battle to get rid of the things that keep black people down, segregation and [those issues], and one is the internal battle to raise our own standards.” He said, “You don’t win this war unless you have the battle on these two fronts because one supports the other.”

You look at Obama and have to ask, if you don’t want this guy as the first black president, who do you want? The guy’s a Harvard graduate, the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. And he’s excellent. And that’s King’s point. We have to be excellent. We cannot afford to be mediocre. And if that’s the case, you beat down any argument a racist can come at you with [because] it’s obviously a lie in the case of Obama or Michelle or any of the people he’s drawn to his orbit. Crosscut.com

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African Underground: Democracy in Dakar is a groundbreaking documentary film about hip-hop youth and politics in Dakar Senegal. The film follows rappers, DJs, journalists, professors and people on the street at the time before during and after the controversial 2007 presidential election in Senegal and examines hip-hop's role on the political process. Originally shot as a seven part documentary mini-series released via the internet - the documentary bridges the gap between hip-hop activism, video journalism and documentary film and explores the role of youth and musical activism on the political process. http://nomadicwax.com/film/democracy-in-dakar/

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We All Live in Jena--National Student Walk-Out to rally and show support for the Jena 6 We All Live in Jena! / National Call to Action! / Monday, October 1, 2007 / 12:00 Noon, Central Time Artist/Activist Mos Def along with M1, Talib Kweli, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Sankofa Community Empowerment, Change the Game, National Hip Hop Political Convention, Hip Hop Association, and student leaders from 50 campuses call for a National Student Walk-Out to rally and show support for the Jena 6, who are being denied their human rights by the Louisiana criminal justice system. . . . Other Endorsers Include: Immortal Technique, NyOil, Cynthia McKinney, Delta Sigma Theta, April Silver/AKILA WORKSONGS. For more info contact info@mxgm.org / To add your school to the list, email assata@pitt.edu or spjlewis@hotmail.com

Hip hop stars rally for Jena Six—Bakari Kitwana, an author whose books include The Hip-Hop Generation and Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, says the rap community has gotten more politically active in recent years, especially after Hurricane Katrina. "What's different about this moment in terms of hip-hop and political activism is that ... we're to the point where grass roots activists and hip-hop artists are talking with each other about political change," said Kitwana. The walkout that Mos Def endorsed was planned and executed as a collaborative effort among artists Talib Kweli, M1 of Dead Prez, Common and the activist groups the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Sankofa Community Empowerment, Change the Game and the National Hip Hop Political Convention.  "We will continue with these acts of civil protest until Mychal Bell's freedom, not only — but safety, is secured," Mos Def had said in a video last month publicizing the walkout. Still, many of hip-hop's most famous names have still not lent their voices to the protest, and Kitwana said a larger examination of unequal treatment by the criminal justice system might better serve all involved. "If 50 Cent came out on that question — `Why are we targeting Black and Latino communities for more policing than the other communities?' — that would be profound,'" said Kitwana.—Melanie Sims Yahoo News

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Read A Book - Get Crunk about Reading  /  Read A Book (Cartoon)  / An interview from CNN

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Lead singer Falis Abdi and Quincy "Q. Rap" Brian record in their makeshift studio in Nairobi's "Little Mogadishu Hip-hop group Waayaha Cusub, or 'New Era' is gaining the ear of Somalis from as far away as the US and Europe, but their controversial message challenges traditional norms and is attracting threats of violence.

Waayaha Cusub: Practicing what they rhyme—The group's lead rapper, Quincy Brian – who goes by the name Q. Rap and attempts an American-accented "How ya doin'?" with the appropriate rapper-style head-nod followed by a shy smile – came to Kenya years ago as a political refugee from his native Ethiopia, a bitter historic enemy of Somalia. Q. Rap says he gets hassled by Ethiopians for "selling out his country" by making music about peace with Somalis.And after Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December to root out Islamists who had taken over wide swaths of the country, the Somali band members faced increased pressure to kick Q. Rap out. But they never gave in.

"They showed me love, even though I'm Ethiopian," he says, after horsing around with one of the band's Somali female members. "The youth can learn from us." The lead singer, Falis Abdi, who fled Somalia for Kenya in 2003, says she doesn't only educate people about peace and HIV/AIDS: "I tell them how love goes," she says. One of the group's hits songs stars Ms. Adbi singing about how a woman should choose whom she wants to love, rather than being forced by parents or society to be with someone because of wealth or clan identity. For her, the song is personal, because her mother chased away the boy she loved. But now, Abdi is forced to walk the streets of Little Mogadishu with a head scarf and veil. Christian Science Monitor

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Bill Moyers Interview of Melissa Harris Lacewell

Well, I think that hip-hop has the insurgent possibilities and capabilities. Now there's a little bit of a problem with hip-hop, and that is it's a commodity that's bought and sold. And any time you're a commodity that's bought and sold, you have at least one aspect of your culture that can sort of go in a profit motivation.

But I will say that hip-hop music like Gospel music, like Blues music, like jazz music is the voice of a generation. And it has within it the insurgent capacity, the capacity to say, "Look, I'm not happy here, this is not enough, I expect more, I'm worthy of more." And over and over again in hip-hop from the mid-1970's until today, there's a strain of it that is saying that. . . .

So there's a couple of reasons why Imus could not have been quoting hip-hop. First—it wasn't as though hip-hop taught America how to degrade women or particularly how to degrade black women. America had figured that out long, long, long before hip-hop. Secondly, although hip-hop often uses the word "ho," it rarely ever calls someone a "nappy-headed ho." So we talked a lot about "ho." But we haven't talked much about "nappy-headed." And "nappy-headed" is a way of saying you, black woman, in your natural, physical state in, who you are—are unacceptable, ugly, valueless. Now, that's not hip-hop.

Actually hip-hop tends to dress up black women in long, straight wigs, much more likely than it is to go to this place which is a very old place around, slavery, around Jim Crow that says, "Your physical self is an unacceptable, sort of orientation of blackness. I can see that you're black from across the room, and that's unacceptable to me."—Melissa Harris Lacewell

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Rapper ‘Nas': Dive Into My Dumpster and Say the Magic Word—Thou shall not steal. In the meantime, that same industry markets albums that showcase Nas advocating killing on his CD: "Really it's papers I'm addicted to,wasn't for rap then I'll be stickin you" But don't bootleg Method Man can warble for hours about coveting your neighbor's things: "Yeah, I got to have that mansion and the yacht the room to park the phantom on the yacht... "I got to have the fast car, the crash bar, place to stash the heaters In the dash bar, and then I need no limits on that black car. This is just a few of them things that I ("got to have") hell yeah..." But don't bootleg. And Common can dishonor every child's mother until his tongue gets tired: "I make righteous bitches get low"   the hip hop industry wants us to follow all ten of the commandments.  While they only have to adhere to one half of one - Thou shall not steal - my stuff. Is this an advocacy for stealing?  I don't think so.  But the hip hop industry should really, really, reconsider their current position.  Why should the public protect their interests when they have so little regard for ours?  We should not have to soil our minds to get to our truths or a little bit of poetry. And if that is too hard - if it is too hard for the industry to climb out of the dumpster, then tell the whole truth. Nas and others like him want to say what they want, when they want it and get paid big to say it. That is the truth. — Black Agenda Report

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the problem is us, not the form  

the real problem is the state of our people not the form of expression. why you think i mentioned the lack of national black media? i believe you are right that "analogies in general are problematical" but the limitations of any analogy does not make the analogy wrong. the blues is a major foundational element of all contemporary black music. period. rap is a blues manifestation, especially given it’s rootedness in the masses, it’s folk poetry of language (those dazzling displays of verbal acrobatics are unmatched in anything else happening in music today, it’s a way with words and with the sound of words that is astounding, if you can hear it). as for the moral/ethical center that’s a whole other discussion that requires us to ask whose/what morals, whose/what ethics. there is no easy answer.

the commercialization of rap is both the attraction of it for today’s youth and the destruction of it in terms of what you, Rudy, identify as "minstrelsy." the blues musicians you revere and hold up as examples are the top of the line, we both know there were more than two jokers in the blues deck, there were a bunch of minstrels in the blues, it’s just when we reference, we reference by the best, and if we choose the best of rap, we won’t be talking about the minstrels. thanks for your comments. and, oh yeah, one more thing, i prefer the blues-based/funk-based jb, which is to say, i prefer all of pre-eighties jb, because afterwards he became just the sort of minstrel that you characterize and chastise rappers about. we may not want to see it, but who refers to jb’s post "living in america" as great recordings? — kalamu

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Black Jazz in the Digital Age—Once during an interview with Wynton Marsalis he asked me what quantifiable musical relationship I could conceivably hear between jazz and hiphop. My first answer, besides the obvious rhythmic one, was the timbre and tonality of the voices, the male voices in particular. Even Wynton didn’t find anything to argue with in that. Developing that idea even further I'd say the great MCs of hiphop and the great players in jazz share the characteristic of having unmistakable tones, tones one can identify in sometimes one or two notes, and certainly within 8 bars. The sonic, rhythmic, lyrical organization of ideas of Trane, Wayne and Joe Henderson are immediately distinguishable to the serious listener from those of Ornette, Dolphy, and David Murray—as those of Biggie, Rakim and Chuck D are distinguishable from the flows of Q Tip, Ghostface Killa, and Trick Daddy. The problem with most jazz-hiphop hybrids to date is they proceed as if that riddle can be resolved by beats and technology when really the most remarkable, memorable, dramatic musical events in hiphop are the ones which derive from the form's most human elements, its mighty mouthed “pearls and gems of wisdom” dropping MCs and its superhuman beatboxers, like the one and only Rahzel who can somehow make the back of his Afro-Tuvan throat sound like two squabbling turntables and a light saber battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker at the same time. What would happen, I've wondered, if Rahzel was given, say, Trane's Meditations to extrapolate upon or Sun Ra's Atlantis: sounds like we'd never heard in our life, no doubt, at least not from the body of one human being. But in what context today would such an experimental collaborative foray between Black avant-gardes take place—on whose watch and under whose willpower? Greg Tate

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The Hip Hop community and the present Hip Hop generation may continue to revere and embrace Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls as young, super bad Niggas!  But can we as wise, intelligent and critical thinking African elders view the following ancestors:  Marcus Garvey, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLoud Bethune, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Paul Robeson, Fredrick Douglass, Martin Delany, Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser, Paul Cuffe, Denmark Vesey, and James Baldwin as Negars, Niggers or Niggas? Professor Gershom Williams

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Stereotypes and Degradation—"I respect the First Amendment, but rights without responsibility is anarchy, and that's much of what we have now," he said. "It's time for responsible people to stand up and accept responsibility." Despite its focus on Hip-Hop, other media will be face scrutiny at the hearing, which is being held by the subcommittee. "I want to engage not just the music industry but the entertainment industry at large to be part of a solution," said Rush. Witnesses for the hearing include Philippe Dauman of Viacom, Doug Morris of Universal Music Group and Edgar Bronfman Jr. of Warner Music Group. "I want to talk to executives at these conglomerates who've never taken a public position on what they produce," said Rush, who added that it was "surprisingly very difficult to get them to commit to appearing." Despite the struggle to get leaders and artists to commit to the hearing, Rush has received confirmation from one artist, Percy "Master P" Miller. The rap mogul, who started out as a gangsta rapper, has recently made news for his new focus on creating positive images and message in his music.  Chris Richburg. Congress To Hold Hearings On Hip-Hop Lyrics.  All Hip Hop

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Cuba’s hip hop movement keeps on recording music that goes to the heart of the country’s troubles—As well as providing immediate social commentary, Cuban rap calls on people to think, poses historic themes anew, and attacks red-hot problems like homophobia and racism. "From a reality-based viewpoint, it is setting forth proposals, but people haven’t learned to see and recognise what hip hop is proposing," González said.

The aggressive gestures and lyrics of hip hop are one reason why this music style has been criticised in Cuba. "If (rappers) are aggressive on stage, it’s because they’ve been downtrodden for 500 years, and because they live on a small plot, in a house that’s falling down, and have no chance of recording a disc," said Carmen González, a poet and independent researcher.

According to González, the racial equality that was decreed after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution has not been effective because of the "five centuries of social disadvantage" suffered by black people, who comprise the majority of hip hop movement artists.
—Dalia Acosta. MUSIC-CUBA: Rap Calls for ‘Revolution Within the Revolution’  

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Hip-Hop Entrepreneurs—Jay-Z banked an estimated $34 million in 2006, earning him the top spot on Forbes' first-ever list of hip-hop Cash Kings. . . . Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, who nabbed the No. 2 spot on the list, presides over G-Unit, a diverse portfolio of businesses that includes apparel, ringtones, video games and even a line of fiction. . . . At No. 3 is impresario Sean  "Diddy" Combs, formerly known as "Puff Daddy," who lords over Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group. . . . Generally, the most successful "hip-hopreneurs" run their own labels, taking a cut from the artists they sign. Both Eminem ($18 million) and Dr. Dre ($20 million) boast Interscope-backed imprints; both helped produce and release 50 Cent's last two albums, which have sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Fifty owns his own G-Unit label which produces artists like Young Buck and Lloyd Banks, among others.  Other lucrative businesses: producing tracks and beats for other artists. Listers like Timbaland ($21 million), Scott Storch ($17 million) and Pharrell Williams ($17 million) are among the most sought after—and pricey—producers on the planet. Rappers like Snoop Dogg ($17 million) collect massive fees for cameos on other artists' tracks. Last year, in addition to releasing Tha Blue Carpet Treatment, his eighth studio album, Snoop Dogg ($17 million) made guest appearances on hit singles by Akon, Mariah Carey and the Pussycat Dolls.—Lea Goldman. Hip-Hop Cash Kings Forbes

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Hip-hop is dead--Data from the "Black Youth Project" indicated that while 58 percent of blacks between ages 15 and 25 listen to hip-hop daily, most are dissatisfied with it. They find the subject matter is too violent, and women too often portrayed in offensive ways. Such feelings hint at a dirty little secret of the music business: Blacks are used largely to validate musical themes being marketed to the white mainstream. In other words, while 90 percent of commercial rap artists on TV and radio are black, the target audience lies outside the black community. Paul Porter, a longtime industry veteran and former music programmer at BET and Radio One, is now with the watchdog organization Industryears.com. He says the University of Chicago findings offer proof positive that commercial hip-hop has become the ultimate minstrel show, and rap artists are pushed by the industry to remain perpetual adolescents. As a result, we watch Diddy, Cam'ron, DMX and others brag about wealth and throw bills at a camera while bikini-clad women gyrate in the background. Should these artists attempt to break out of the mold, they'd risk having their work questioned by record and radio executives.

—DaveyD, “Commerce is killing the true spirit of hip-hop.” Mercury News

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Nowhere is the performance of black masculinity more prevalent than in hip-hop culture, which is where the most palpable form of homophobia in American culture currently resides.

—Kenyon Farrow. Is Gay Marriage Anti Black??

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I love Hip-Hop. It is and has always been sacred to me.

—Taalam Acey, Notes on "An Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey"

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Our love affair with gangsterism and the denigration of women is not rooted in Hip Hop.

—Saul Williams, "An Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey"

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They need to study music. I played in several bands before I began my career as a poet. There’s a big difference between putting words over some music, and blending those same words into the music. There’s not a lot of humor. They use a lot of slang and colloquialisms, and you don’t really see inside the person. Instead, you just get a lot of posturing.

—Gil on rap in the 90s

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rap is a blues manifestation, especially given it’s rootedness in the masses, it’s folk poetry of language (those dazzling displays of verbal acrobatics are unmatched in anything else happening in music today, it’s a way with words and with the sound of words that is astounding, if you can hear it). as for the moral/ethical center that’s a whole other discussion that requires us to ask whose/what morals, whose/what ethics. there is no easy answer.

the commercialization of rap is both the attraction of it for today’s youth and the destruction of it in terms of what you, Rudy, identify as "minstrelsy." the blues musicians you revere and hold up as examples are the top of the line, we both know there were more than two jokers in the blues deck, there were a bunch of minstrels in the blues, it’s just when we reference, we reference by the best, and if we choose the best of rap, we won’t be talking about the minstrels. thanks for your comments. and, oh yeah, one more thing, i prefer the blues-based/funk-based jb, which is to say, i prefer all of pre-eighties jb, because afterwards he became just the sort of minstrel that you characterize and chastise rappers about. we may not want to see it, but who refers to jb’s post "living in america" as great recordings?

—Kalamu ya Salaam

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Many of the young rappers got disconnected from a tradition of protest and decided to rap about mayhem in order to get paid.

—Weldon Irvine

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NWA, with its booming beats and harsh lyrics, put LA and the west on the map and got Cali some acceptance. This was a big incentive for folks out here to overlook their own morals and common sense and get behind those gangsta groups that knocked the doors down. Personally, despite doing some of NWA's first interviews, I felt uncomfortable calling what they did revolutionary because I recall both Cube and Eazy telling me they were cursing up a storm as a way to initially be funny and that they enjoyed seeing the shocked look on people's faces. They weren't doing it because they really felt that way (as many like to romanticize). Look at some of the old articles on them and you'll see them admitting to that.

During one landmark interview, Cube spoke passionately about his desire to change and be more political, and even talked about the internal debates he and his group were having about being responsible. It wasn't that long after that that he left the group, and much of what he talked about soon surfaced on his Amerikkka's Most Wanted album.

Ironically the NWA boycott was broken by white deejays who felt like the group's material, and material like it, should be heard, and that NWA was somehow more authentic and real then groups like X-Clan and Public Enemy.

—Davey D This Gangsta Stuff & Russell's Call For Change

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Historically (as well as now), there has been a fear of Black (especially Black male) sexuality. This irrational and racist fear was repeatedly used in the countless lynchings of Black men in the history of this nation (which often included castration as well). Black equals dangerous; Black equals savage; Black equals barbaric; Black equals forbidden, infected and inferior. Therefore hip-hop, like Blackness, is something that society should be, must be, protected from. It is from this context that ALL things Black have been realized and it is from this context that white female sexual explicitness has been sanitized.

—Dr. Edward Rhymes, A 'Ho' By Any Other Color: The History and Economics of Black Female Sexual Exploitation

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Without the blues, Hip-Hop will always stand outside of the aesthetics of African-American creativity. This may be why so many so-called Hip-Hop scholars hold a somewhat disrespectful attitude toward the Civil Rights Movement. It was this movement, more than any other, in American history, which stood for the transformation of grief and anger into conscious creativity. Perhaps, when faced with such creativity, the Hip-Hop generation sees one of their shortcomings.

—Amin Sharif

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And finally, we must applaud the imagination of the hip hop generation that has created a world youth culture, that has made more millionaires than ever before in our history, and made billions for the record, film and fashion industry. Hip hop has its detractors but the glass is clearly half full rather than half empty. Hip hop need only let its voice of consciousness rise again to the top, and this generation will astound the world, for in consciousness it is in synch with the ancestors and the radical tradition of defiance and resistance until victory. When hip hop consciously reconnects with its elders, the circle will be complete, for the family shall be able to reason together again with respect, no matter the contradictions of the elders or the youth. Issues can be resolved at the table while sharing a holistic version of soul food.

—Dr. Marvin X, Beaufort, South Carolina

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I looked at the Fortune Magazine’s list of 40 richest people under 40 and Master P, Michael Jordan, Will Smith, and P Diddy were on the list. Most of these African Americans are connected to hip hop, and this is very significant. You have a number of people with that much money and power connected to hip hop. This is a new black ruling class.

—Lee Hubbard interviews Todd Boyd

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In a world where poetry is a contest at best and a competition at worst, where the importance of a painting is gauged by the price it can be sold for—we are to be counted among the lost. And so when I say that we need leaders and that those leaders must come from our youth, it is no idle statement. We need our young people because without their dreams to guide us we will have only cable TV and grain alcohol for succor.

—Walter Mosley, A New Black Power

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Most important thing [is] the rhythm, the beat. They (white folks) have been trying to get to our rhythm and our beat forever. That's one of the basic things about Hip Hop; even if I hear some nasty words on a funny TV Show, it's the beat. Some of these kids are making beats that are really out of sight -- I've got to give them that. . . .We used to have hops or dances back in the day. We all used to go to them in the schools, churches, and dance halls. If we went to a hop that was really fun and afterwards we talked about it saying 'that was really a hip hop we had last night.'

—Umar Bin Hassan

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if there was no digital technology, there would be no rap as we know it today. yes, i understand that rap started with analog equipment and the human voice, but that’s not what it is today. the rap that dominates musical culture worldwide is produced via digital equipment. rap is the electronic enhancement of words. machines turned to drums under the wit and wisdom of human speech. the digital revolution is all in our face but many of us don’t see it because it doesn’t have a white face, a ph.d. face, a technical "you-got-to-be-highly-educated-to-do-this" face. the truth is that brothers and sisters at the street level have completely revolutionized the making of music, indeed, revolutionized the very definition of music.

—Kalamu ya Salaam, WORDS: A Neo-Griot Manifesto

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Remember that when rap first jumped off, many people did not even consider rap a form of music. There was no harmony and very little melody in the then traditional sense of melody. Among music critics and in the mainstream media of the early 20^th century there was a similar perception that jazz was not real music. But just as jazz prevailed and completely altered the world conception of music, rap has prevailed and initiated an aesthetic revolution in terms of what defines “music.”

—Kalamu ya Salaam,  Digital Technology

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Bill Moyers Interviews Douglass A. Blackmon

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06202008/watch2.html

Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (2008)

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One cares for the tribal soul by monitoring it through its cultural products, contributing what it needs to balance out its weaknesses and emphasize its strengths. Minimizing the dysfunctional components and emphasizing the transformational. The battles over gangster rap and mercenary literature are battles for the control of our cultural traits. Of our Destiny. Our Fa.

—Arthur Flowers, Rootwork and the Prophetic Impulse

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Hip Hop music was created as an escape for the woes of the ghetto that's why it was created. It wasn't created to say , who is the nicest, who has the most jewelry, that only came about when it was discovered Hip Hop was worth something. We have been robbed again of our creative juices, abilities and you know who I want to thank for allowing this stick up to go down, you. (pointing at the audience) I don't mean just you in this room I mean everybody that looks like you because people have forgotten about developing themselves as artists.

—Freddie Foxx, Spits Truth At Hip Hop 101

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Unconscious rap derives from the animal plane and must advance to the divine or spiritual plane if it is to be beneficial to our people. I must admit that I appreciate Christian rap in spite of lyrics based on juvenile mythology glorifying the after life and suggesting Jesus is God. If Jesus is God who was God before Jesus was born?

At least Christian rap is better than raps on the pussy and dick theme, glorifying crass materialism that reveals poverty consciousness—people who have money don't flash. How can anyone in their right mind glorify diamonds and gold that Africans died to procure for De Beers and others, Africans who had their arms and hands cut off in wars for filthy diamond merchants in Europe, Israel and New York?

Yes, better to rap about Jesus and pie in the sky than sista got a big ole butt. In the words of ancestor Paul Robeson, rappers must become artistic freedom fighters or give up the game, for rather than pimps, they are whores for the record industry, the filthy capitalist bloodsuckers of the poor. Muslim rappers know their duty is to teach the uncivilized. They know they shall suffer a severe chastisement if they fail to perform their duty.

—Marvin X, Rap and Spirituality

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Walk in any Black barber shop and you will see four generations of Black men. . . . The fourth generation is the black teenagers. If they live in a city like Baltimore, seventy percent will drop out of school before they reach 18. They may have never applied for a job, more than likely already have been in jail, and may already be teen fathers. They listen to hip-hop and wonder if they have a future at all. They are cynical and have every right to be so. These are the first children of post-industrialism.

—Amin Sharif, The World to Come

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Hip Hop Profanity Misogyny and Violence—Hip Hop music is also a product, produced by giant corporations for mass distribution to a carefully targeted and cultivated demographic market. Corporate executives map out multi-year campaigns to increase their share of the targeted market, hiring and firing subordinates—the men and women of Artists and Recordings (A&R) departments—whose job is to find the raw material for the product (artists), and shape it into the package upper management has decreed is most marketable (the artist's public persona, image, style and behavior). It is a corporate process at every stage of artist "development," one that was in place long before the artist was "discovered" or signed to the corporate label. What the public sees, hears and consumes is the end product of a process that is integral to the business model crafted by top corporate executives.  The artist, the song, the presentation—all of it is a corporate product.

—Glen Ford

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Dreamers Die Young; Dreams Die Eventually—Pimps, we should recall, are themselves pimped by systems. “The popularity of thug culture” Tucker claims, “is among the most serious of modern-day threats to black America, far more dangerous than any lingering institutional racism.” In this sentence, the weakness of Tucker’s informal analysis erupts like a boil.

Institutional racism is the very backbone of the industry that champions and valorizes thug culture. That some presumably intelligent African Americans should be gears in the machinery of institutional racism is not astonishing. They have embraced the current version of the American Dream. After all, they have no obligations under the laws of brute economy to be more noble than Africans who sold other Africans to Europeans.

—Jerry Ward, Jr.

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Interview I—Rap is economically driven. BAM was politically driven. Moreover, the economics driving rap is global capitalism. In that regard there is a definitive difference between rap and BAM. On the other hand, rap is responsible for the current resurgence of poetry. Period. Worldwide. Rap is a form of poetry. Rap is the strongest commercial current in music. Prose is no where near as influential as rap. In fact, after rap, comes cinema/video. . . . The roots of rap are in Africa via Jamaica, which is the direct influence for the dj-ing that is the hallmark of rap music. Hear me now. Go back and listen to Big Youth, and cats like that. What you are objecting to is the commodification and commercialization of the culture, even though you may think that there is an antagonism between competitiveness and communalism, there actually is not. African communalism embraces competitiveness, in fact, the communal essence defuses the antagonisms of competitiveness. 

—Kalamu.

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Trademarking N-Word—The use of the word nigga seems to be sharply divided by generations. Those over 40 were absolutely against it a . . . period. Referring to the historical wrong of the root word, nigger. Those under 20 saw no harm in it, arguing the word is redefined and is spoken with entirely different contextual meaning. Those between 25 and 40 (including me) seemed largely indifferent; able to understand the perspectives on both sides and mostly admitting to using the word ourselves … even if just on occasion.

Of course, hip-hop was heavily referred to as the agent for making the word so popular amongst the youth. Personally, I think we as a collective society blame far too many things on music. I’m not saying that hip-hop is not in some way responsible for a resurgence and popularity of  self-identified niggas but how many children hear their parents use that word before they ever listen to a hip-hop album? Probably more than folks want to admit too.

—Ro Deezy, Damon Wayans

African Vibes a new black cultural expression mixing the deep african roots heritage with urban flow and attitude. On an intrumental recorded in Kingston with the biggest name of Jamaïcan music (sly&robbie, Earl chinal smith, donnald dennis...) under the direction of Philips "Fatis" Burrell: take this new vibe with an international Hip Hop connexion. Militant artists from three continents give their talents for a new vision of Africa for African descendants. DEAD PREZ (USA) / LA RUMEUR (FRANCE) / MBEGANE NDOUR(SENEGAL) 

—African Consciences project YouTube /  fnacmusic  / FNAC Music  / African Consciences- la Rumeur d'une R / L'ombre sur la mesure

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It is time to understand that the emancipation of the African people must be written into a world order. The consequences of our history must be a universal concern, because this civilization has been built on the blood and the suffering of the African people. The emancipation and liberation of this people concerns all the peoples of the world, but it is our own responsibility to take the first step by affirming loud and clear our will to freedom. We invite all people of good faith to take this step towards a real African conscience. And we invite the enemies of freedom to try to stop this march towards African unity if they dare.

—Africanhiphop

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Since they hit the world stage with their chart bursting album, "Ya Down with OPP"... in the early 1990s, Naughty By Nature has over the years grown to join the group of musicians who are seen as the unofficial spokespersons of the youths and the unheard. theirs is street poetry that reflects not only a particular world view, but the temperament of a generation struggling to assert itself. What more, hip-hop is a black thing which has gained a universal appeal that has transcended colour or race. According to Treach, one of the two artistes that make up the group, "our kind of music is universal for everybody, black or white, no matter who you are; old or young. It is danceable at all occasions; it brings rare life to you as you listen and dance to it."

—Naughty by Nature in Nigeria

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Cuban Rappers Discuss National Hip Hop Movement—"In this third symposium on Cuban Hip Hop we hope to encourage cultural institutions to take greater interest in this music," said Roberto Rosell, member of the La Fabrik (The Factory) community project, the main organizer of the event. Rosell, who is also a member of the Hermanazos rap band, added, "It is still hard to pull together the event, although it should be acknowledged that the new leadership of the Cuban Rap Agency has helped us a lot." "There is a lot of energy among the true rappers, who have continuously demonstrated the value of our national Hip Hop, despite other musical phenomena that, to a certain degree, distort the essence of our movement," noted Rosell. "This time we are trying to look inside, to be better human beings and creators, to improve the lyrics to show our most revolutionary profile," said Rosell.

—Walter Lippmann, .

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“Is Rap Occupying Its Rightful Place in Life?”—It can be truthfully said that, yes today, there is a rap philosopher and this person is Rensoli (“Poet, promoter of rap festivals in Cuba” as his colleagues call him). A person of sound judgment, analytical, of jongleur oratory, but inquisitive, almost scientific, with a curious origin as a career officer who later took to promoting performances. Finally, this artist has become one of the main activists of the rap genre in the country, to such a point that he directs one of the main promotional mechanisms, the GRUPOUNO. This mechanism was brewed in 1995 during the First Rap Festival in Cuba, conceived by him and, certainly became the great systematic institutional impact in the country and whose organized festivals, held during the half of every year, continue to date.

—Antonio Paneque Brizuela,  Walter Lippmann.com

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Women’s first challenge within hip hop was to confront a ‘machista’ patriarchal society, which gave them a role even within their marginalisation," poet and freelance researcher Carmen González, who is writing a book about what women rappers are saying on this Caribbean island, told IPS. . . .  Rapping is at the core of the hip hop movement, which also finds expression in graffiti and breakdancing. A disc jockey provides an electronic mix of music, over which the rapper recites the lyrics. Cuban women rappers are articulating "a very clear discourse on gender and race," said González, who is also editor of the magazine Movimiento, devoted to hip hop in Cuba, where it emerged in the early 1990s. In her view, the problems of black women in Cuba have been neglected in studies of sexism and racism.

"When they talk about women, it’s always about white women, and when they talk about racism, it’s about how it affects men," she said.

"Rapping I’m a woman / not some bitch for you to bite / not some thing for your delight," go the words to a song by Las Krudas, a group with overtly lesbian identity, which has introduced lyrics about respect for diversity, and has equated sexism with the slavery imposed on their black women ancestors.

"If (women) rebel / they will be condemned / to family exile / to moral exile / outside their circle of friends / outside the land of good feelings / that you didn’t get any more, / you made the decision / to go against the norm / you got a passion for the forbidden / or you didn’t repeat / what those who don’t love you any more / once taught you," goes another song.

The women’s lyrics include the prostitute, "forced to do what she doesn’t want / because poverty and want’s / got an ugly face / believe it or not," in the song "They call her a whore" by Magia López; and the woman who "isn’t just / breasts and butt," because she also has a brain and feelings, say Las Krudas, and she is "resisting as a fatty, as a black woman, as a guerrilla."

Without any precedents in Cuban music and very few reference points, these young women "are starting out with a revolutionary, emancipating discourse" constructed "on the basis of themselves and their life stories," said González.
—Dalia Acosta. CUBA Black Women Rap Against Discrimination http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38873

Banning Saggy Pants is the Wrong Conversation—"It's a profoundly backward idea," according to Dr. Jared Ball, a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, and a candidate for the presidential nomination of the Green Party.  "It's really legislative malpractice, that targets and criminalizes young black males who consume a cultural message conveyed to them by BET, by MTV, by black commercial radio and other corporate for-profit media.  Local lawmakers who want to address the nihilism, the self-hatred and the disrespect spread by corporate media should instead zero in on the corporate media that make billions of dollars every year spreading those messages, instead of aiming the police, fines and jail at those who consume the messages."

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Bill Moyers Interviews Douglass A. Blackmon

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06202008/watch2.html

Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (2008)

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