connecting*the*dots

(originally uploaded by Indignico)

Classic.

Not bedroom decor, but classic nonetheless.

Let’s hope the rumors are nothing more than that.

UPDATE: David is warm to the idea of Disney imagineers coming up with a Downtown Disney fit for Greensboro.

No thanks. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t Disney where I eat.

(direct link to the first pod of the seven part series)

From 2000 to 2003, I lived just down the road from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, first in Park Slope and then Gowanis.

As consistently penetrating as the New York City media is, not once did I even hear a whisper about the toxic issues my former neighbors in Williamsburg have been dealing with for decades now.

Instead, I reveled in the culture. Now I’m thinking, at what cost?

Gotta love that “self-interest” angle of capitalism, eh?

UPDATE: I’m currently watching part 6 of this 7 part series. Be sure to watch it all. It’s beyond disturbing. Greensboro residents are worried about strip clubs? Try living next to Radiac Research Corporation — a nuclear storage facility, where the radiation level can be pick up from a geiger counter flipped on at the front door.

It also resides across the street from an elementary school.

Scary stuff and great reporting.

(originally uploaded by Richard Liriano)

Russel Simmons responding to criticism of Hip hop lyrics on 4/16/2007:

“My response to Sen. Obama is that you have to talk about the poverty and ignorance that creates such a climate that the poets can talk like that. People who are angry, uneducated and come from tremendous struggle, they have poetic license and they say things that offend you,” Simmons told ABC News. “You have to talk about the conditions that create those kinds of lyrics. When you are talking about a privileged man who has a mainstream vehicle and mainstream support and is on a radio station like that you have to deal with them differently.”

Russel Simmons responding to criticism of Hip hop lyrics on 4/23/07:

“We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words ‘bitch’ and ‘ho’ and the racially offensive word ‘nigger’,” Simmons and Benjamin Chavis, co-chairmen of the advocacy group Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, said in a statement.

“These three words should be considered with the same objections to obscenity as ‘extreme curse words’ “

Russell Simmons spotlighted in BusinessWeek on 10/27/03:

“Any company that wants to tap into the youth market today has to pay attention to Russell,” says Frank Cooper, the head of multicultural market development at Pepsi. “He is one of the principal architects of hip-hop culture. It’s a market that is massive and that is global.”

Enough with the corporate perspective; let’s hear from a Hip hop head:

Not all Hip hop artists play the industry to make their dough, so an all out ban on particular language is senseless — it truly is all about context.

So maybe a good place to start would be applying pressure in the signing process of record industry itself, where A&R people tend look for the next hotness explicitly in terms of whether it’ll sell or not.

If these folks were actually held to a standard beyond simply bringing in artists that will sell in the current market, we wouldn’t have this problem — misogynous and degrading rap would fall back to indie distribution models… at best.

But it’s not like Hip hop culture hasn’t been aware of this problem for a long time now:

[…] My optic presentation sizzles the retina.
How far must I go to gain respect? Um.
Well, it’s kind of simple, just remain your own
Or you’ll be crazy sad and alone.
Industry rule number four thousand and eighty,
record company people are shady.
So kids watch your back ’cause I think they smoke crack,
I don’t doubt it. Look at how they act.
Off to better things like a hip-hop forum. […]

(originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes)

Question: Who’s the man in the above picture?

I admit the visual reference might not be enough for anyone that isn’t a Hip hop head, so I’ll give you even more of a hint:

Sorry for the set-up; I wouldn’t expect many people to know that he’s Boots Riley from The Coup.

I also wouldn’t expect many people to know the depth of the man and his music.

Or even that Boots blogs.

I’m using Boots as just one example of someone who represents one particular slice of a culture, Hip hop, that most people don’t know anything about — no matter what they think.

More on Boots and his colleagues in a bit.

What You Hear Is Not A Test

Today, Ed Cone ventured into a pretty lightweight deconstruction of “rap” lyrics, and only after numerous people and media outlets — local and from afar — made a stink about Don Imus catching flak for his pointed remarks a few weeks back, arguing that African-Americans and/or “rappers” actually drive the use of this harmful language.

Ed’s introduction to his column:

[…] “For my newspaper column, I listened to the lyrics of Billboard’s top ten rap tracks and tried to contextualize the Imus affair.” […]

I can’t remember the last time someone in Hip hop, out-of-the-blue, verbally assaulted a specific group of innocent people like the Rutger’s Women’s Basketball team. Admittedly, I’m not twisting the context of the offense to the use of a particular word or phrase and instead, keeping it focused on the nature of the attack from a broadcaster.

Along those lines, IMO, it would be more productive to review the context of Imus’ bile by looking at the rest of the shock-jock industry, like this gem from Neil Bortz:

Boortz: For instance, or for goodness sakes, jump in and I’m gonna say — I’m gonna start out with something controversial. I saw Cynthia McKinney’s new hair-do. Have you seen it, Belinda?

Skelton: No.

Boortz: She looks like a ghetto slut.

Skelton: Well, how is it?

Boortz: It’s just — it’s hideous.

Skelton: Is it braided? Or –

Boortz: No, it’s not braided. It just flies away from her head in every conceivable direction. It looks like an explosion in a Brillo pad factory. It’s just hideous. To me, that hairstyle just shows contempt for — no, it’s not an Afro. I mean, no, it just shows contempt for the position that she holds and the body that she serves in. And, I’m sorry, there’s just no other way to — it’s just a hideous and horrible looking –

Marshall: It looks better than the braids she was wearing.

Boortz: No, the braids had some dignity. They had some class.

Marshall: The braids had dignity?

Boortz: They had more class than this thing.

Marshall: This says, you know, kinda 2000s, you know, stepping up to the plate. Contemporary look, you know?

Boortz: She looks like Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence.

Pam has great context for those of you who might think of these comments as harmless.

But the point of this post isn’t about Don Imus, nor is it about those people out there that are obfuscating the context of his comment. There’s a whole other angle of misinformation in Ed’s post, based more in ignorance than intent, that I wish to dissect.

I’m One Of A Kind And I’ll Shock Your Mind

Whether he knows it or not, Ed made a bunch of generalizations in his column. This particular paragraph stood out the most to me:

[…] “I’m bothered not just by what rappers say but why they say it. The lyrics and the popularity of the genre aren’t happening in a vacuum; they reflect something about the realities of a larger culture that is coarse, consumerist and often violent. Public Enemy’s Chuck D famously said that rap is like “CNN for black people.” Maybe part of the problem is that these days, the best-known member of the socially conscious Public Enemy is Flava Flav, who once rapped about the harsh reality of life in poor neighborhoods but now does clownish “reality” shows on corporate television.” […]

People like to talk about Hip hop as if they know everything about anything, so I’m not surprised by Ed’s perspective — even with him being alive during The Sugarhill Gang’s debut.

How Ed jumps from “a larger culture that is coarse, consumerist and often violent” to Public Enemy — without pause for at least a paragraph on the current administration of the Executive Branch — is beyond me.

You know, it wasn’t Flavor Flav that told America to go out and buy shit just a few days after the towers went down on 9/11.

I’ll play along for shits and giggles, though.

So, Flav has become the king of reality tv, but as the de facto hype man in the carefully orchestrated membership of Public Enemy — something that would take another post entirely to detail — that shouldn’t shock anyone.

Flav was never the point man of PE, the guy “rapping about the harsh reality of life in poor neighborhoods.” For every 911’s A Joke, there are a hundred songs with Flav explicitly playin’ his role in the group as comic relief while shadowing Chuck.

So how does that play out 20 years beyond the zenith of Public Enemy’s career?

While Flav does his reality tv and flashes his grill, Chuck D does his speaking gigs and radio shows covering everything from anti-DRM to politics. The whole of Public Enemy prospers from their individual focuses — which draw in new audiences from distinct demographics — far more than simply being a sum of its parts.

But if you’ve seen any of the Flavor of Love shows, you know that he doesn’t represent himself as a foul-mouthed “rapper.” I honestly don’t see how Flav acting like Flav with a viking cap and oversized clock necklace and sunglasses has anything to do with the topic at hand — except for serving as a convenient segue from the bridge of the CNN line.

All that said, Ed is pretty much on point when he ruminates over “rap” lyrics and the ills of a larger culture.

The point begging to be made about this particular element — the crux of his column — is that he doesn’t realize to what degree and how narrow of a focus that truly is within the culture of Hip hop.

What we need is the Teacher to break this down to a digestible format:

More KRS-One:

(by thecnote)

[…] “ ‘Hip hop has nothing to do with rap. Rap is an element. There is a consciousness that makes you rap, graffiti or break, for example.’

KRS-One talked a great deal about the importance of being one’s own self, the most essential part of Hip hop culture. ‘Hip hop begins with the courage to be yourself. Being you has consequences,’ KRS-One said.

Want to find out if you’re Hip hop? You know you are if ‘you gravitate toward it. You see graffiti art and you try to make out the words, you see breaking and you say, ‘Man, I could do that,’ KRS-One said.

And, of course, one should know the proper way to actually identify the culture. Hip hop is a culture; therefore, it should function as a proper noun. Hip hop is the music, and referring to the culture in the hyphenated form, KRS-One claimed, is degrading. The rapper’s explanations of the technicalities of the Hip hop world could have left audience member confused; if Hip hop is not the music, what is?

Listeners were enlightened about the differences between Hip hop and rap. ‘Hip hop is not rap music,’ KRS-One said. ‘Rap is controlled by corporations. A rapper rhymes for corporations, and an emcee rhymes for culture. A rapper talks about himself, what he has. An emcee talks about what’s already on your mind. An emcee raps about what you need, not about fantasy.‘ Ultimately, a point stressed heavily throughout the night, Hip hop is something that is lived, a consciousness of the world around us.” […]

That’s a much more expansive description of Hip hop than “rappers” being misogynistic and foul-mouthed, but culture can’t be locked down to one set of definitions either — passing the mic back to Boots Riley, from a long, lost interview at Davey D’s spot:

(by bagelradio)

[…] “When the first Sugarhill Gang record came out and it was on the radio I was already living in Oakland then but there were people who had recently moved out here from the mid west and the south and I remember us saying they had a hambone record out on the radio. My whole thing with that is there’s a lot of elements of hip hop… like the four elements of hip hop is really just a commercialization and a way to commodify things because you have to put things into easy categories in order to sell it. It’s a lot easier to sell as an invention that kind of slipped and fell together by a series of events that happened in one place than it is to tell it as a history of a people. So that’s something that I feel is left out of hip hop. That was my first connection to rapping [hamboning]. Another more obvious one is beatboxing. That was something that was very much a part of hip hop. I first started hearing the four elements maybe from the early 90s. I don’t know who started that but it’s full of shit to me.” […]

Contradicting, yet accentuating points of view within a culture — a hell of a lot deeper than “bitch” and “ho” framed within the bullshit corporate constructs of a genre.

The CNN For ALL People Who Care To Tune-In

If all this isn’t new to you, glad to have you in my digs. To those of you who are learning something new, you might just dig checking out a few CTD alumni.

One bit of advice: focus on the message, the intent and the wordplay — leave the curse count for Tipper Gore.

• De La Soul
• Immortal Technique
• The Roots
• Public Enemy / Paris
• The Coup
• Brand Nubian / Common
• Rage Against The Machine
• KRS-One
• Talib Kweli
• DJ Danger Mouse
• Chuck D
• Mos Def

Thank God their standards for speaking truth to power and shedding light are higher than CNN.

Hip Hop is a global culture and overseas, especially in poor regions, the majority of its sound and image hasn’t been corralled into becoming a product of a corporate marketing agenda; it truly is an expressive and political vehicle for people on the street pumping culture shifting vibe back into their own communities.

As Kurt Shaw writes, “…Hip Hop can at the same time teach kids and transform the world.”

With the fervor of Web 2.0 and social networking, it’s only a matter of time before Hip Hop culture — the original mashed-up, shared expression of culture and politics — organizes across the globe, and on levels we haven’t even dreamed possible.

Big shout to ChicanoBlogs and cuauhtli, who turned me on to clips from the documentary, Resistencia: Hip Hop in Colombia:

Click To Play (by Tao Ruspoli)

alright, i’m definitely not down on that vibe
red devil barbecue grills within the suburban tribe
manicured lawns, thirty piece china sets
garbage disposal units and non-allergic pets
two cars parked in a freshly paved drive
an overly friendly postman to keep the conversation live
neighborhood watchers to keep trespassers away
tree lined roads without a glimpse of decay
i don’t know
it all sounds too perfect to me
give me the cultured grit of urbania
that’s my living philosophy
stumbling outside on a thursday night
running into a mixed couple just might
kick off a discussion on world events
or maybe just lead the proceedings to the park with live band tents
a subway ride away live van goghs and monets
across town you can find the son seals and robert crays
straight downtown is juniors famous cheesecake
all access, all day
no matter what kind of cheese you make
ok, so i navigate around the homeless population
and sometimes the pace can cause exasperation
but when i lie down at night
and think about what will come tomorrow
i know i won’t be left bored in the dark
because the city constantly calls for me to borrow
a ride
block by block
tick tock goes the clock
neighborhoods change faces
new storefronts
new races
all in a blink of an eye
why ask why?
all you can do is gear up and hold on for the ride
there’s nothing like this man made rip tide
life in the city ain’t a pity
give me a metrocard and 24 hours
i’ll come back with found knowledge and flowers
for you