Does Macklemore represent an Eminem/Elvis situation for Seattle hip-hop?

Sir Mix a Lot

Sir Mix a Lot

When Sir Mix-A-Lot reached number one on the Billboard chart and won the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Solo Rap Performance with his song “Baby Got Back,” Seattle hip-hop was placed on the national and international stage in a way that few places outside of New York and California had been to that point. With this accomplishment came questions, and some assumptions, about who would be the next figure in Seattle hip-hop to receive this kind of mainstream recognition. Given the immense power of the Seattle music scene as a whole at that moment, few would have guessed that it would be nearly 20 years before someone from the 206 would approach Mix-A-Lot’s prop levels.

Fast forward to 2012, the release of the album The Heist by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and the song “Thrift Shop.”  In terms of popularity, “Thrift Shop” had the necessary universal thematic and sonic ingredients to compare favorably with “Baby Got Back’s” ability to make an impression on the mainstream.  In terms of theme, “Thrift Shop” touched upon the increasingly popular concept of pushing back against designer clothing labels and supporting second hand stores like Goodwill and Value Village.  Sound-wise a catchy, looping saxophone melody made the sound of “Thrift Shop” easy to bob your head to and remember.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reTx5sqvVJ4

Almost exactly in between these two book-end Seattle songs, Eminem emerged from Detroit, Michigan.  His wave of success in the early 2000s revived a discussion about the white MC that had been essentially tabled since Vanilla Ice’s brief run in the early 1990s.  However, the key difference between Eminem and Vanilla Ice was that Eminem was recognized as a highly skilled rhymer.

Eminem

Eminem

This was certainly not the case with Vanilla Ice, even by 1990s standards.  With millions of records sold, a handful of Grammy Awards and even an Oscar for the song “Lose Yourself” off the soundtrack from his film 8 Mile, talk began to swirl around Eminem’s place in hip-hop history.  With this discussion came the inevitable comparisons to Elvis Presley.

After following in the footsteps of and borrowing liberally from pioneers like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Elvis used movies and music to eventually become acknowledged by the mainstream as ‘the king’ of rock and roll.  These comparisons were not lost on Eminem, who in his song “Without Me” noted:

I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, to do Black Music so selfishly
and use it to get myself wealthy (Hey)
there’s a concept that works 20 million other white rappers emerge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVkUvmDQ3HY

From its beginnings in New York City hip-hop culture has always been much more multiracial than mainstream media gave it credit for.  However, as a descendent of the legacy of privilege, power and oppression that led to the creation of hip-hop in the first place, the white male MC has always occupied a complex space in the culture.  This is in large part due what Charles Aaron, in his article “What the White Boy Means When He Says Yo,” describes as black people’s suspicion of “whites who identify too closely with African-American culture, primarily because those same whites often want to boost the culture wholesale.”

Traditionally this suspicion has taken two forms; the previously mentioned “Elvis Syndrome” and what Aaron refers to as the “White Negro Problem,” a Norman Mailer idea from the 1960s, or culture appropriating ‘wiggers’ as they have been renamed in hip-hop terms.

Macklemore

Macklemore

Although it is true that in the time between Mix-A-Lot and Macklemore the Seattle hip-hop scene has produced a variety of impact players who reflect the diversity of the greater metro area, its the lily white image and population percentage of Seattle that brings an added element to this dynamic.

In some ways, questions around the likes of Eminem and Macklemore begin to center around the status of the subculture of white hip-hop.  For example, in a larger historical context think of the cultural beginnings of the United States.  On certain levels early American culture was essentially a subculture of British culture until at some point, U.S. culture matured and stood on its own.  Similarly, hip-hop culture began as a subculture of African-American culture until, probably sometime in the late 1980s, it became a culture unto itself.  Have we reached a point where white hip-hop culture has begun to stand on its own?  If the answer is yes then what, if anything, does that mean?

In the 20 years since “Baby Got Back” was released, the song has been elevated to the rarified air of iconic pop cultural status.  The white girl saying, “Oh my God Becky, look at her butt!” at the beginning is one of the most repeated lines in recent music history.  The continued appeal and relevance of the song over the years is clear as it continues to make appearances in various form of popular media such as commercials for Burger King, Charmin Bathroom Tissue and Target as well as in movies like the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez bomb Gigli, Scary Movie 4, and probably most famously danced to by Cameron Diaz in Charlie’s Angels.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCAvWd_53Xw

With the video for “Thrift Shop” at well over 400 million views on YouTube and the song and video nominated for all types of awards, this song appears well on its way down the path of “Baby Got Back.”  But with this, how will the various media elements document the history of hip-hop in Seattle in the post “Thrift Shop” era?

The ‘newest, latest is the greatest thing ever’ crowd who frequently populate social media could certainly have the potential to reduce over 30 years of history to essentially ‘the Macklemore show.’  However, Macklemore himself does not come across as the type who would approve of this approach having thoroughly acknowledged the richness of this history in 2009’s “The Town.”  In addition, the fact that the beginning scenes for the “Thrift Shop” video take place in front of the Northwest African American Museum is significant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes

With songs like “Thrift Shop” and “Same Love,” Macklemore has risen to massive prop levels by going directly against two of the most well established norms in mainstream rap, namely bling and homophobia.  While it took longer than some may have thought for the city’s next hip-hop superstar to arrive, Macklemore is a great representation to the world of what Seattle hip-hop was and is, though not the only one by far.

written by Dr  Daudi Abe

Dr. Abe teaches at Hip-Hop Theory & Culture at Seattle Central Community College and is author of the book ‘6 N the Morning which chronicles West Coast Hip Hop History‘  Email:  daudi.abe@seattlecolleges.edu

6NtheMorning-Cover

 

How Can Hip Hop Save the World? Lessons from a Seattle Youth Service Scandal

On March 3rd, I was invited to speak at an intimate panel at Seattle University called “How Can Hip Hop Save the World?” The gathering, brought together by SU’s Mary Pauline Diaz, featured Mako Fitts, Ready C from my crew Alpha P, and myself, as well as about 10 student participants. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was inspired by the topic, ensuing conversation, and current events to write this article up.

(Photo: Kool Herc, founder of Hip Hop, currently fighting the American healthcare system.)

Before addressing how Hip Hop can save the world, you first have to determine whether it can, and what “Hip Hop” means to begin with. Now although we could debate cultural memory, nommo, and collective experience all day, the truth is that the only thing that brings most of us together under the umbrella of “Hip Hop” is that we, as artists, engage in the artistic practices deemed by Afrika Bambaataa to be the elements of Hip Hop: bboy/girling, emceeing, graffiti, Djing, beat-making, etc. Of course cultural production in Hip Hop is not just limited to that, it also includes secondary extensions of this. For example, independent media/websites/shows such as Seaspot, Flava News, Coolout Network, Untappedmuzik, All Power to the Positive, Seattle Hip Hop Street Fights, Street Sounds, Boombox FM, She Ready Radio, and Zulu Radio are included here as well as bloggers like those at Raindrophustla, Chul Gugich from 206up, Hugh from Blogsiswatching.com, and Miss Casey Carter, writers like Marian Liu and Jonathan Cunningham, even online forum mafiosos like the habitue of 206Proof are Hip Hop cultural producers. Promoters/venues/functions are also hugely important to Hip Hop cultural production (think Dope Emporium, UmojaFest, Obese Productions, an institution like Stop Biting at Lofi (shouts to Introcut), or Ladies First, formally at Hidmo, etc.) Extending even farther out, we can include fashion (think Mint Factory Clothing or CrisisNW Gear), photography (like Ruf Top Productions, and Jennifer Mary), and a plethora of others. Through this lens, Hip Hop CREATES communities around these artistic practices and acts of cultural production. The question then shifts from “Can Hip Hop save the world?” to “Can communities save the world?” and of course, the answer here is yes. But what role does Hip Hop have in this?

As an artist, and like a lot of artists and cultural producers out here in the Northwest Hip Hop scene, I believe in community accountability to the youth. We do not just understand and create art about issues of gentrification, poverty/job creation, educational reform, healthcare, and youth violence prevention, we organize and mobilize for positive changes within our spheres of influence around these issues, for their benefit. I’ve worked with organizations who turn crack houses into community centers and throw Hip Hop Leadership Conferences (Seattle Hip Hop Youth Council & Umojafest P.E.A.C.E. Center), organizations who connect artists with schools, play cafeterias and gymnasiums, and organize city-wide Youth Summits (206 Zulu), collectives who throw multi-day free all-ages Hip Hop festivals with youth showcases (Dope Emporium), business owners who turn their restaurants into activists hubs and performance spaces, who launch community empowerment projects (Hidmo), and I’ve been blessed to connect with other collectives, organizations, and crews in cities across the country who share the same priorities and mission in this work. (Shouts to DeBug in San Jose, W.I.T in Kentucky, J.U.I.C.E and GorillaMic in Los Angeles, IMAN & Coalition to Protect Public Housing in Chicago, B Girl Be in Minneapolis, W.E.A.P in Oakland, and all trues in the PPEHRC, UZN, HHC networks). There’s power in this groundswell.

Through my travels, connecting with “Hip Hop” communities across the country, I’ve also learned that the national policies and initiatives enacted locally on a state, county, & city level have created common struggles & challenges for us. Broadening our perspective on these issues to include the struggles of communities outside our scene allows us to see how these issues manifest in different cities, and facilitates better understanding on how we can enact change in Seattle. One example of this is HUD Block Grants that wiped out public housing in virtually every urban community across the country, shrouding the reality of gentrification and urban economic displacement under the guise of “private-public partnerships”. Another very recent example is the Youth Violence Prevention Initiative (YVPI). Most don’t know that at the time this was launched in Seattle two years ago, former Mayor Nickels was the President of the National Council of Mayors, and it’s not a stretch to say his decision to entrust the Seattle Urban League with a no-bid multi-million dollar grant for executing the project locally was in no small part due to the “New Deal” partnership for the Conference of Mayors and the National Urban League announced at their centennial celebration.

Two years ago, at the time this happened, I was working with Umojafest P.E.A.C.E Center, Mother’s Outreach Movement, Hip Hop Congress, and a collective of over 20 other local Hip Hop and youth advocacy organizations in the Unite for Youth Coalition, who were very much in the trenches of youth violence prevention work. The coalition members were also very concerned with the city’s move to hand these desperately needed funds over to the Urban League, an organization with questionable leadership, a history of unsavory community appropriation, and virtually no track record of notable violence prevention work. Plus at the same time, the city of Seattle was proposing to build a $110 million dollar jail, and the new Seattle School District Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson (who was just fired March 3rd by the school board over the recent scandal) was proposing to shut down six schools. We organized, and began contacting people in the mayor’s office, on the school board, and in the Urban League, and our concern only grew. As community organizers and youth service workers, we were uncomfortable with 1) the disconnect of these conversations 2) the Seattle School District’s questionable management of public funds and their inability to keep schools open 3) the lack of transparency, really the shroud of secrecy over the Urban League’s plans for the violence prevention money. Two years ago, we staged demonstrations, put out articles on the issue, and did our best to engage our communities in the conversation, for the interest of the youth. Were we successful in raising awareness and asking questions? Yes. Were we able to prevent the scandalous debacle that ensued? No.

Today, two years later, after at least four schools are closed, the Seattle Times front page is riddled with stories about the Seattle School District’s financial scandal, how over a million dollars was handed over to vendors that never did anything but get the money, and how the single largest recipient of that money was the Seattle Urban League. This all came out after the Urban League quietly lost the YVPI contract in January, after they spent $900,000 with little to show for it. (Here’s the city’s performance evaluation for the larger half of that amount). I’d be interested to hear how this played out in other cities.

Despite all this, ours was not a lost battle. Quite the contrary, the pressure and spotlight put on Former Mayor Nickels and his administration came right before elections season. Hip Hop ran its own candidate, Wyking Garrett, for the purposes of putting these and other critical issues on the table, and coalitions of urban youth organizations like the Young Voter’s League were hosting their own candidate forums at which Nickels was virtually absent. Although Wyking lost in primaries, the face time we bought with other candidates won us a huge platform to educate others on what was going on in the community, and it was out of these conversations that Mayor McGinn surfaced as a favored pick among young voters. It is the presence of this new mayor which has eventually lead to the space for transparency in the YVPI, as well as for new leadership to emerge from the community. We should not forget or downplay this victory, even if it did take some time, but we should also strive to mobilize quicker, stronger, and more effectively next time by taking key lessons from what went down in our own backyard:

1) Be proactive in creating and/or contributing to the growth of institutional alternatives to the status quo. (Instead of trying to use the master’s tools to dismantle the plantation. This applies to the dying music industry & corporate media model as well as activism and youth service.)

2) Leverage the political process by running our own Hip Hop candidates who will put our issues and interests into the forefront. (Instead of raking up election year funding by remaining operatives for existing political parties.)

3) Keep building Hip Hop as an effective medium for community education and mobilization.
(Think unionizing teaching artists and Hip Hop youth service workers, building coalitions between our businesses, collectives, and organizations, and creating “rapid response” networks on youth policy issues among our independent media outlets.)

Hip Hop is a vast & powerful network. We should not shy away from being active in changing the world from the ground up. The above is only one example of the small atrocities committed daily, and the role our community of cultural producers can and needs to play in intervening and recreating. Even here in our seemingly isolated, burgeoning scene, we are a part of a larger movement with larger aspirations, and there are many reminders of this. (Take our comrades in the Hip Hop communities of North Africa for example). There’s a lot of answers to the question “How Can Hip Hop Save the World?”, but the most important answer is in the alignment of all our efforts and the clarity of our collective vision.

Julie C is a teacher, cultural advocate, and emcee. Her upcoming E.P Sliding Scale is dropping May 2011 from the indy label B Girl Media. Email her at Juliec@hiphopcongress.com, and comment on this story and others at www.Julie-C.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg2T48VyKQQ

Breakdown FM: The Knox Fam-Destroy to Build

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The Knox Fam consists of Seattle Hip Hop mainstays, Julie C, and Jermz from the super group Alpha P and well known producer DJ B-Girl. They came together to not only drop a nice album, but to also add to a serious community movement that the city’s Hip hop community has been sparking.

Breakdown FM: The Knox Fam-Destroy to Build

by Davey D

Click Link below to Listen to Knox Fam interview 

Listen to Breakdown FM Interview of the Knox Fam

The Knox Fam

The Knox Fam

The Knox Fam consists of Seattle Hip Hop mainstays, Julie C, and Jermz from the super group Alpha P and well known producer DJ B-Girl. They came together to not only drop a nice album, but to also add to a serious community movement that the city’s Hip hop community has been sparking.

In other words Knox Fam are not simply rappers who are looking for commercial airplay or BET love. Sure, they’ll take it if offered. And they are more than talented to deserve it. However, what stands out first and foremost for the group is that they are community activists and organizers who are part of a larger more vibrant scene. Its not good enough to just flow on the mic. Nowadays many of the city’s heads are knee deep involved with some sort of organization or project. Maybe its 206 Zulu which has one of the larger and more exciting annual celebrations. Maybe its Hip Hop Congress which has Seattle as it the site of its conference later this year (July 29-Aug2). Maybe its community outlets like Umojafest Peace Center or B-Girl Bench. Whatever the case for many in Seattle, Hip Hop is beyond music and the Knox Fam personifies that.

DJ B-Girl

DJ B-Girl

During our interview we kicked things off by talking with DJ B-Girl about the Seattle sound which has come along long ways since the early Sir Mix-A-Lot days. She explained that her production skillz and the Knox Fam has added to the underground sound as defined by stellar names like Vitamin D, Jake One, Blue Scholars and Gabriel Tedros to name a few.

We spoke with Jermz about the influence his two female counterparts Julie C and B-Girl have had on him. In an industry that is often criticized for being too male dominated, Jermz explained that the two forced him to step up his game and become more polished. He also talked about how he has built upon life experiences and reflect them in his rhymes. You’re not likely to hear him rhyming for the sake of riddling.

Later in the interview Julie C and B-Girl spoke about the strong presence of women in the Seattle scene. Julie C noted that many, including herself had been flowing and getting busy long before it became a trendy thing to focus on.. DJ B-Girl rattled off a long list of female emcees ranging from Canary Sing to Beloved One to Toni Hill who is featured on the Knox Fam Ep. There were so many names of people who who are putting out dope material there’s no excuse to not have a female on the ticket of any Hip Hop show. If you can’t find someone go to Seattle cause they rolling extra deep.

During the interview Julie C expanded upon the community projects that the group is committed to including the Hip Hop Congress Goes Platinum project which is a innovative fund raising tool for the organization.

JulieC-225She also talked about the concept behind the groups’ name Knox Fam. She said it was inspired by the movie Natural Born Killers and that the Knox Fam understands they have to Destroy to Build. In this case they are about breaking the chains and challenging the long held notions and paradigms that in many ways has stifled Hip Hop and communities in general.

For example, we talked about the fact that the album took more than a year to make… Once upon a time that was the norm. People took their time and perfected their craft. Nowadays in the days of instant gratification, people step in a studio literally freestyle an album in 10 minutes and put out half ass material. DJ B-Girl noted it was important to take time to do things right. For her its not just producing and editing, but also getting the business aspect correct. The Knox Fam is on an independent B-Girl media label.

Julie C added that the group did not want to compromise or shortchange their community activities. In fact if anything the community involvement helped make the group and album more accountable to the communities they wanna speak to..

All in all the Knox Fam EP is just a the start of great things to come from this talented trio from the Emerald City. Currently they are on tour and in keeping true to their words, their tour involvedthem connecting and building with local community centers. Julie C described it as a homecoming of sorts..

Click Link Below  to listen to Knox Fam Interview

Listen to Breakdown FM Interview of the Knox Fam

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