Here’s a classic performance from the ‘original gangsta of rap’ Just-Ice… This is how he got down at the recent 37th Zulu Nation Anniversary. His song spits a lot of history which is one reason why I’ll always love this culture. You can listen to a song and tell a lot about a place, time and the people. This video comes courtesy of my man Giuseppe Pipitone who is working on a book the Latin Quarter and Hip Hop’s Golden Age.
Search Results for: origin of hip hop
Classic Performance from Original Gangsta of Rap-Just-Ice
December 1, 2010 By
Hip-Hop Elitism: Why Soulja Boy is More Hip Hop Than You (via Davey D’s Archived Essential Hip Hop Articles)
October 23, 2010 By
This is a throwback article from a couple of years back.. I wanted folks to re-read this and see how things have progressed or re-gressed…
Jeff Chang: The Influence Street Gangs Had on the Evolution of Hip Hop
October 12, 2010 By
Author Jeff Chang
Straight from the Davey D Archives, we pull out an interview we did with author Jeff Chang back in August of 2008 at the National Political Hip Hop Convention about his book ‘Can’t Stop Won’t Stop‘. Here we sit down and talk about his perspective on street gangs and how they influenced Hip Hop culture.
Chang talks to us about the culture of abandonment in the late 60s and early 70s when many whites fled the Bronx in what we call ‘white flight’. This left many of the areas impoverished with its decreased tax base. This in turn led to what Chang described as chaos which led to the explosions of gangs who attempted to create and enforce some sort of order.
The gangs grew in size and began to war against one another until it reached a critical point where folks reached a fork in the road. Should they make peace and transform the neighborhoods or continue down a path of destruction. In 1971 the gangs of the Bronx got together and forged a Peace Treaty. The cult movie Warriors was inspired by this Peace Treaty.
Chang noted the 71 peace Treaty paved the way for Hip Hop as it allowed folks from all over to go in various neighborhoods and artistically express themselves via dance, emceeing and deejaying. The birth of Park Jam came about. You can peep our interview below…Chang is currently working on a book about race and multi-culturlism as a follow-up to his excellent book.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU0lINPtCb0
In our interview I made reference to the 40th anniversary of the Notorious Black Spades who was the largest gang in new York during those early days. The Spades eventually morphed into the Organization and later the Mighty Zulu Nation under the leadership of Afrika Bambaataa who at the time was a key warlord.
Karate Charlie of the Ghetto Brothers and Bam Bam of the Black Spades
We decided to include the videos to that gathering so you can get a richer understanding about the influence.. Included in these clips are members of the Ghetto Brothers who Chang writes extensively about in his book. We also see Black Spade leader Bam Bam. He was the one who gave Afrika Bambaataa permission to use the name.. In these clips you see Bam address younger gangsters in the most intense ways..
We also hear from Hip Hop legend Popmaster Fabel of Rocksteady Crew and Zulu Nation who is working on a documentary about the early gangs called The Apache Line. In fact he was filming that day. We also hear from original B-Boy and Zulu nation member Charlie Rock who talks about the White Gangs called Greasers who roamed the Bronx and were mortal enemies to the large Black and Puerto Rican gangs. he explains how Hip Hop emerged from the chaos underscoring Chang’s earlier points..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nwsdYU4yKM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGYTeRUWK5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ufPt8g617I&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycREFrL6-RA&feature=channel
Return to Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner
The Root: Oakland’s Marriage to Hip Hop & Politics
October 8, 2010 By
The Root has been doing a series on our beloved city of Oakland.. One of the topics they tackled dealt with the long marriage between Hip Hop and political activism. Now of course an entire book could be written on this.. LOL I damn near wrote one when writing this.. The original article I penned for this series was around 5000 words , which was way too long and just too much to read in one sitting, But hopefully folks get a small taste of what goes on out our way…
-Davey D-
Boots Riley of the Coup
One of the hallmarks of Oakland, Calif, is its activism and politics and its longtime alignment with hip-hop culture. When I say “aligned,” I’m not talking about a rapper doing a song where he spits a couple of cool verses with a socially relevant message. Don’t get me wrong; that’s important, too, but that’s just surface stuff. Political involvement requires much more. As a radio journalist, writer and activist who’s been living in Oakland for the past 22 years, I feel privileged to live in a city where hip-hop and political activism are so closely linked.
The attitude in Oakland is that everything is political. Even being apolitical is political. Folks understand that politics is a rough-and-tumble sport; a closed mouth doesn’t get fed. Here, the end goal is not just getting the chosen one elected into office. Holding folks accountable is paramount, and going beyond the limits of electoral politics is how many see the political landscape. Voting is a tool, but not the only tool to bring about change. Hip-hop is another tool, a potent way to communicate with the masses.
continue reading article HERE at The Root
Hip Hop Pioneer Too Short Forms a New Band-Talks About the Legacy & Influence of Funk
September 10, 2010 By
Bay Area Hip Hop Pioneers Richie Rich & Too Short talk about the importance of musicianship & live bands within Hip Hop
When we talk about Hip Hop, its important to note that every city and region has its own unique histories and pioneering figures. In New York we give props to Hip Hop’s forefathers, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. They did the first parties, formed the first groups and developed the first techniques throughout the 1970s that laid the groundwork for those who came after. Here out west, 3000 miles away in the San Francisco Bay Area, we pay homage to pioneering figures Todd Shaw aka Too Short, Richie Rich, Freddy B and E-40 to name a few. Like their New York predecessors they too did the first parties, formed the first groups and developed some of the first techniques throughout the 80s that would influence future generations both nationally and around the world.
One of their signature contributions was laying down important blueprints on creating, recording and distributing music independently. The other important contribution from these pioneering artists was the how they used funk music and live instruments to develop the early West Coast sound.
Yesterday we caught up with Too Short at a barbershop around the corner from Mexicali Rose restaurant on 7th and Clay in downtown Oakland. Here he, explained that from the very beginning West Coast Hip Hop had live instrumentation. He noted that when he did his first recordings at 75 Girls record label, like everyone else they had a drum machine but it was complimented with someone playing keyboards, guitars or bass. There was no such thing as sampling for many of the early artists, Short asserted.
Short noted that he was in the tradition of many of his fellow artists and producers like E-40, Digital Underground and pioneering producers Khayree, Al Eaton, Studio Tone, Tommy Foster & Danny McElroy, and Ant Banks to name a few, in the sense that they all played in high school or college bands. Short went on to explain that he started out as a drummer who played in the band at Fremont High School. He said he was also a pretty good ‘one finger expert’ when it came to keyboards and guitar. He named off a string of records including Freaky Tales, Dope Fiend Beat and I Ain’t Tripping where he played the background instruments.
Short added that the use of live instruments allowed early artists to maintain a funk sound that was desired by those who came up either listening or being directly involved in the hundreds of 3-4 man garage bands that existed prior to Hip Hop showing up in the Bay Area. “It was all about musicianship”, he said. Short pointed out that within every Bay Area Hip Hop group there is someone in the fold who can really throw down on the musician tip. It’s part of Bay Area/West Coast culture and our legacy. Short talked about the influence that groups like Tower of Power and Sly and the Family Stone had on early Hip Hop in the Bay.
Shock G of Digital Underground started his group as a full fledge band with a drummer and him playing piano photo credit: ani yapundzhyan
If folks really look closely at Bay Area rap groups you will find that many of them deeply rooted in band culture. I recall early Digital Underground shows where DJ Fuze would battle long time drummer Chopmaster J while Shock G also an accomplished musician would rock the keyboards as one of his alter ego ‘Piano man‘.
MC Hammer had a lot of early production done by Felton Pilate of Con Funk Shun. Later he would have huge bands at his live shows which included the original horn players from Earth Wind and Fire.
Before Paris also an accomplished musician made his mark as a political rapper, he started out as an artist who was moving in the direction of Prince.
Today artists like Boots Riley of the Coup not only have their own band, but recently teamed up with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine to form Street Sweeper Social Club.
Again Bay Area Hip Hop is derived from the funk bands that proceeded them.
This was a point that was re-emphasized by Richie Rich. He said that even though he doesn’t play instruments, he considers himself a musician because as an emcee he uses his voice and flows to play along with live instruments. He went on to add, that over the years he’s come to prefer rhyming with a live band because it allows him a lot of freedom to express himself and also be felt.
We spoke with both Too Short and Richie Rich about the new music venture that’s emerging from their camp. For those who don’t know, Too Short has teamed up with popular accomplished musicians Kev Choice and Martin Luther formerly of the Roots to form a band that has no official name as of yet. Also in the group is Silk E who many know as one of the Bay Area’s dope emcees, who often performs with Tony Toni Tone but as Short noted, she’s also an incredible singer.
During our interview Short talked about how the group has been able to bring such divergent sounds together and make it work. He pointed out Martin Luther‘s soul/neo sou/ and rock backgrounds. He talked about Kev Choice being a classically trained jazz musician who can ‘freestyle endlessly’.
‘He’s the exact opposite of me in the sense that he has super positive rhymes and spits rhymes about current events’ Short noted. But that’s what makes the group work.
Silk E rounds out the group with her unique sound and approach
Dubbed Towne Business, their debut performance is scheduled this Saturday September 11th at the Mezzanine in San Francisco. Short noted this will be the first of many shows they plan to do in the Bay Area before taking it on the road.
Here our interviews with both Too Short & Richie Rich-click the links below
The Rise of America’s Prison Empire: The Relationship Between Texas Prisons & Slavery
August 25, 2010 By
The Austin Chronicle has an excellent article that deals with the prison system and its relationship to slavery.. Apparently the prison system in Texas is the basis for all US prisons…. Some of this is not surprising, buit its always disturbing when its in your face..Here’s an excerpt from his book Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire:
“Just as New York dominates finance and California the film industry, Texas reigns supreme in the punishment business. … By almost any measure, Texas stands out. The state’s per capita imprisonment rate (691 per 100,000 residents) is second only to Louisiana’s and three times higher than the Islamic Republic of Iran’s. Although Texas ranks fiftieth among states in the amount of money it spends on indigent criminal defense, it ranks first in prison growth, first in for-profit imprisonment, first in supermax lockdown, first in total number of adults under criminal justice supervision, and a resounding first in executions. When it comes to imprisonment, writes Joseph Hallinan, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Texas is ‘where it’s happening.'”
Grim History
Author traces Texas prison system from its roots in plantation slavery
BY MICHAEL KING
Earlier this year, historian Robert Perkinson published Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire (Henry Holt and Company, 496 pp., $35), in which he traces the history of American prisons through the prism of the “retributive mode” of the Texas system. Perkinson, an associate professor of American studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, has been studying Texas prisons since the late 1990s, when he wrote his doctoral dissertation on “convict leasing,” the privatized, for-profit system that replaced plantation slavery after the Civil War and survived into the 20th century. The book’s title is a quote from Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst – “There’s tough. And then there’s Texas tough.” – advocating broader application of the death penalty. Perkinson’s thesis is that harsh Texas prisons, perfecting punishment trends established throughout the South, have become a model for much of the country. Texas Tough is a broad historical survey, a detailed history of Texas prisons, and in the end a scholarly polemic about the state of American prisons in general.
Perkinson has spent his summers over the last decade visiting and researching the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and he says that on the whole, the TDCJ was very helpful in helping him do the research and providing current statistical information. The book is also informed by numerous interviews and correspondence with prison officials, inmates, and others with knowledge of the lengthy and complex history of prisons in Texas.
Perkinson has also met with state representatives and officials working on prison reform and is hopeful that Texas and the U.S. are, as he writes, “about to embark on another era of humanitarian criminal justice experimentation.” We spoke recently about his book and his tentative sense that this could be a moment of opportunity for reform. “The good news,” he told me, “is that [the book] could be kind of an obituary for a moment that could be passing. It’s too early to tell.”
The following is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
Austin Chronicle: How did you come to the conclusion that the Texas system became the model for U.S. imprisonment?
Robert Perkinson: If you look at almost any book on prison history, they start in the Northeast with these reform-oriented institutions, around the period of the Revolution, that were meant to rehabilitate criminals. They never worked out so well, but the standard story that’s told is this “narrative of halting progress”: They try one thing to rehabilitate criminals, and that might not work, it degenerates into scandal, and then they try another. But there’s always been this counter-tradition of criminal punishment that just hasn’t received as much attention from historians but is just as prominent in the records. And that’s a hard-fisted retributionist model, tied up with racial stratification, and that’s always been more powerful in the South.
So I found that with a little more sober eyes, if you look at the whole history of American punishment, there are really two traditions: the reformatory tradition that traces to the Northeast, and the retributionist, racially discriminatory model that traces back to slavery. In Texas and other Southern states, those connections are more stark than in other places. Until very recently, until the Eighties, Texas’ entire prison infrastructure was centered in the same counties that were the predominant slave counties before emancipation, and the properties were all former slave plantations that were then converted to private prison plantations, until 1912, and then were taken over as state plantations. So the personnel, the daily rhythms of life, the work expectations, the disciplinary traditions were all kind of passed down from slavery to convict leasing, then to the state. To a certain extent, that fell apart with the federal litigation in the 1980s but in some ways still is with us.
Texas Prison Board from 1930s
AC: The popular mythology of Texas doesn’t acknowledge the plantation history. It’s all about big, wide-open spaces and cattle ranches, and to the extent it recognizes the bloody historical record at all, it’s all about fighting off the American Indians and the Mexicans.
RP: Texas is funny, because it’s both a Southern state and a Western state, and it’s become an urban state. … The history of criminal justice and law enforcement is tied to that Western frontier experience. If you look back at the early history of the Texas Rangers, they were not engaged in what we think of as law enforcement but really involved in what the best recent history calls ethnic cleansing against Mexicans and Indians. That’s the origins of law enforcement, and slave patrollers were the other origins of law enforcement. In Texas, all white men were required to serve on slave patrols in the antebellum period, so that was a state-imposed way of imposing order. But the prison system really has its origins in the Southern history of Texas.
continue reading this article here…
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A1070701
DJ Kuttin Kandi: Why Fat Beats Matter to Hip Hop
August 19, 2010 By
WHY FAT BEATS MATTERS TO HIP-HOP
by DJ Kuttin Kandi
Fat Beats recently announced that they will be closing their legendary Fat Beats Record store in Los Angeles and New York City in early September (New York: Sept 4, Los Angeles: September 18th). Upon hearing this sad news many things came to mind, but first my emotions got the best of me. My heart stopped breathing and I felt as though I was going to choke. It was like the world suddenly ended. I felt like I lost a best friend and a big part of my identity. That’s simply because Fat Beats was truly like a best friend to me. But even more so, Fat Beats had much to do with my identity. Like many Hip-Hop heads I pride myself in stating the words of KRS One – “I AM Hip-Hop”. And like many true Hip-Hop heads know, Fat Beats IS Hip-Hop and Hip-Hop IS Fat Beats. So, it’s only natural when a Hip-Hop head like myself hears the news that the world famous Hip-Hop store is closing they know that it’s like losing a big chunk of Hip-Hop. Suddenly the words of “I AM Hip-Hop” can’t seem to ring true anymore when Fat Beats closes.
For those that are just now learning of what Fat Beats are I am saddened that you are just learning about Fat Beats now and that you won’t be witnessing the Fat Beats that many of us once knew and loved to heart. I will do the best that I can to give honor to the store that paved the way for all of us.
Fat Beats is a place for which many of us call “underground Hip-Hop” or “real Hip-Hop”. As much as many of us don’t like to divide Hip-Hop, the truth is the mainstream music industry creates those rifts where independent Hip-Hop just don’t get the opportunity to have mainstream airplay. The co-optation of Hip-Hop culture of big corporations many of which are record labels and etc. controlling and monopolizing mainstream airwaves, many of whom don’t know a lot about Hip-Hop history or culture, play a huge factor as to why many independent artists are never heard. So, many of those great legends in Hip-Hop and dope Hip-Hop top-notch-ill-lyricist who can actually rhyme, you might not ever get a chance to know about unless you went to Fat Beats or were part of that “underground Hip-Hop” scene in which Fat Beats played a huge role.
Before I even get into how Fat Beats played a huge role in Hip-Hop, let me start how it played a huge role in my life. Memories of Fat Beats are starting to play like a needle to the groove as I reminisce my earlier days in the scene. The year was 1995, and DJ Roli Rho and I walked throughout the Greenwich Village of New York City, looking for the record store we had heard about from other friends. The original store was located in a basement and if you were a regular passerby you probably would never notice it was there unless you were intentionally looking for the spot. The minute Roli and I walked in we were mesmerized. We knew we walked into a paradise of not just records, but pure, original, organic, and true Hip-Hop. That was the day we also met Joe Abajian aka DJ Jab, the owner of Fat Beats. When we left Fat Beats that day, Roli and I, like little kids who found a secret stash of candy, swore to each other to keep the place secret and to only show people who were worthy. I know, right? What the heck? Lol, why so secret? Well, quite honestly, we knew we found something so valuable. We knew it was a treasure we felt we had to keep safe. We had to protect Hip-Hop. Eventually, we couldn’t be that selfish. We knew we had to share it amongst folks and deepen the knowledge for others who were looking for really good music.
It was from that point on that my world changed. Through Fat Beats, I’ve met some of my greatest friends as well as some of my idols, inspirations and mentors. Fat Beats introduced me to a whole world of true Hip-Hop. They’ve introduced me to my crew the 5th Platoon. I probably would have never met my all-female-crew Anomolies had it not been for Fat Beats. So many moments, so many memories, so many people. People we all grew up together with in this culture Hip-Hop we loved so much… Arsonists, Non-Phixion, Stronghold, Percee P i’ll never forget you chillin there! I mean, i can’t name everybody, but we all were there. Visitors all over the world, comin through to the tiny spot that moved to upstairs ave of america’s. We moved on up! Fat Beats was the place to be, the place to go to find out all the underground Hip-hop events. It was the place where I met Gangstar, and had it not been for that moment of truth time Guru (rest in peace) and I might not have been longtime friends. Fat Beats had seen me grow as a DJ, has helped me to become a DJ. They sold my mixtapes. Then when I proved my skills, Fat Beats invited me on stage to perform with legends. One of them being in 1995, our very first Fifth Platoon show for Fat Beats Anniversary and for GrandMaster Roc Raida’s (rest in peace) birthday. That was the day I also made my debut. Fat Beats developed my name – Kuttin Kandi – could not have existed without Fat Beats. And right now, as I am 3000 miles away from Fat Beats NY, our 5th Platoon signed picture still hangs on their ceiling till Fat Beats closes.
Memories, so many of them. And I am sure it is not just me reminiscing….
Long before twitter, facebook, and blogging ever existed – people relied on fliers, word of mouth and real contact with people. Fat Beats was the place to find out all the upcoming Hip-Hop events, where’s the next open mic spot, who’s the next artist. You had to go to Fat Beats because there was going to be an MC Battle, a record release, a DJ Battle. You had to go to Fat Beats because they were going to tell you the newest artist. You knew they were going to be the first to play the artist before they blew up. You were going to see cats outside of Fat Beats selling you their CDs. There were going to be lines outside of Fat Beats. Tickets to the hottest Hip-Hop event were going to be sold at Fat Beats. They promoted our events. They pushed and moved our careers. They’ve seen us come up and make it. And they kept the buzz going. But most of all Fat Beats kept true to keeping vinyl alive. Even as I’m sure vinyl sales went down over the years and the rent on avenue on the america’s were going up, Fat Beats still kept trying to go on. I’m surprised it stood ground for this long, but then again I’m not that surprised because they knew how important the music and the culture was to all of us. And because Hip-Hop knew how important Fat Beats was to keeping true Hip-Hop alive.
So what does this mean for Hip-Hop? Well, the good news is that Fat Beats will still continue on with their website, retail and their wholesale distribution. Of course, on our ends will need to continue supporting Fat Beats. But while it’s a good thing that Fat Beats will continue online and etc, I am still saddened. Having a space for Hip-Hop heads to gravitate to is so important for the culture. Sure, I know we’ve got our open mic spots and other little spots. And i know we’ll survive this just as we survived when the Stretch and Bobbito show ended. Even recently good long-time friend dope ill battle MC Sara Kana from Grind Time reminded me and told me that, “We Are this Underground Hip-Hop”.
But this is big, at least this is big for me… having a record store may not be the full representation of Hip-Hop but it definitely plays a huge role in bringing us together.
Let’s bring this to the perspective of community.
Starbucks, and other coffee spots, a fairly known place, has been labeled a “third space”. “Third Space”, is a popularized coined term created by urban sociologist, Ray Oldenburg which is used to label spaces created by businesses that create an “anchor of community” to have conversation, dialogue and discussion. While I often enjoy a good latte once in a blue, hanging out starbucks will never be my “place to be” nor are folks from my community really chillin there. I don’t consider the “third space” of starbucks a place where I find a sense of community. And again, it’s not my community. Nor do I want it ever to be my community.
Fat Beats is that third space for me, and for many of us, particularly for us, people-of-color (and our allies) who love real Hip-Hop. Fat Beats is that independent store we love to support, because they support independent Hip-Hop artists. They support people-of-color. They support our communities. They support our history, our culture, our passion, our friends, our music. And I am sad, that we lost this third space. Where and when will we have that space again? A space where we can be truly who we are… where we can get down.. listen to what we love… and not conform to the mainstream status quo. Where will we have that space for us again?
While I love the fact that the internet has opened up doors, bridged some divides, and actually helps independent artists, it has also closed a few doors for us.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I still support newer technology. Serato has made things easier in my life, at the same time there is still a loss. Everything is so accessible to us now. We no longer have to dig in the crates and search for a record. It’s just with a stroke of a key that we can get that joint. You don’t even need to memorize the color of the label no more, because you just enter the title and the song comes up. Record shopping created relationships and friendships. Crate diggers know this, especially all of you who are true classic collectors. And I’m sure you all still do this in whatever record store still remains in your city. But losing Fat Beats is a sign for us to find ways to stay connected. It’s a sign for us to not lose ourselves completely to technology. We are losing human connection. While we connect with people, more than we can imagine, via the internet… we are still losing the human touch. We need to walk out the door, go to a record store, meet that lifelong friend who knows exactly how you feel when you put the needle to the groove. Listen to the music together at the record store. Nod your head. Bboy, Bgirl… cut it up… because it connects you to Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop connects you to your community. This is what Fat Beats taught us throughout the years.
Thank you for believing in me and thank you for supporting me all of these years. Thank you Joe and for all the staff throughout the years (DJ Boo, Lalena, Max Glazer, and so many others), especially the legendary DJ Eclipse for holding it down all these years. You will never be forgotten!
Thank you Fat Beats for a lifetime of memories, music, love, hope, independence, vinyl and true Hip-Hop.
With love,
DJ Kuttin Kandi
5th Platoon, Anomolies, Guerrilla Words, R.E.A.C.Hip-Hop
DJ, Poet, Writer, Activist
For more articles and videos on Fat Beats read here:
http://www.audibletreats.com/pr/fatbeats_pr6.html
Hip Hop Group Native Guns Re-Unite & Release Brand New song About Oscar Grant
July 8, 2010 By
Hip-Hop Revolutionaries Brings it Again!
Bambu & Kiwi Reunite as Native Guns Showing Solidarity for Oscar Grant
On my last blog essay, I expressed my thoughts on the trial of Officer Mehserle for the Execution of Oscar Grant. I also wrote the need for solidarity amongst all of our communities. Well, as though it was almost an answer to what I was looking for – Hip-Hop MC’s, Bambu & Kiwi along with DJ Phatrick have reunited as their original duo group Native Guns to release their latest song, “Handcuffs”.
I remember when Native Guns broke up, I literally cried. I cried not only because they were dear friends of mine who I cared about tremendously but also I cried because of what they represented to many of us. Native Guns was not just an important voice of the Hip-Hop community but specifically the Filipino-American community. Native Guns are Filipino-American’s who are Hip-Hop MC’s amongst many others (so many to mention), who speak conscious political rhymes and voice the historical and present injustices against Filipino people. Native Guns, as many Hip-Hop MC’s, are community organizers and often make connections of our struggles to the struggles of other communities. It’s been four years since Native Guns released a song/album but here they are bringing it again, with that same connectedness and using their wise organizing skills by utilizing Hip-Hop to inspire the masses. The lyrics are witty, intelligently woven together and the beat got that ill hip-hop funky baseline and drumbeat (produced by Six Fingers). Together, they are showing that the solidarity lies amongst all of us.
Click HERE to download new Native Guns Son on Oscar Grant
The song couldn’t have come at a better time, at a time when it seems like folks are looking for something of inspiration to uplift and give hope. It’s coming at a time when many around us are trying to find ways to express our feelings but need to see positive ways of expressing those feelings. It’s also coming at the perfect time to show the media that we’re not just angry activists, but we’re activists that have a long history in this movement and we have a right to be angry.
Kiwi opens it up bringing his lyrical skills and dope flow, expressing the very views of not just activists but thousands of people who are tired of what is going on in their communities:
“fire on the streets/i can feel the smoke and the heat
the whole city on lock/got no where to eat
A shot heard around town/so the people won’t sleep
another brother taken down/by the fuckin police
We’re sick of just yelling/No Justice! No Peace!”
My last essay, also spoke about all issues being connected to what’s happening in Arizona to other issues around the world. Native Guns also make the same connections with Bambu’s line, “To the pig from Oakland/to a life getting stolen/from a pig in Gaza/To the pig who killed Ayana” and “It’s Arizona to Watts/Philippines to Iraq” and Kiwi’s lines “same bullets, same tank, used on the West Bank.”
Just when you think the verses were truth with fire, the hook itself spoke the truth and inspires me to want to walk with the masses the day the verdict goes down:
(Handcuffs) we are not afraid we are mad
(Native Guns) Take it to the streets just like that
(Handcuffs) Its bigger than the block we on
(Native Guns) All power to the masses homes
(Handcuffs) bottom to the top school up
(Native Guns) linkin all for that money/getting cut up
(Handcuffs) Meet me at the Fruitvale BART
(Native Guns) Shake the system/Rip the setup apart
(Handcuffs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP3W4LnX92g&feature=player_embedded
Bambu, also sharply makes a strong point with lines like “the issues are bigger than one murderous cop”, which brings it to the point that the issues are big, that we are dealing with a large entity, a system that is connected to other systems which Kiwi illustrates, “less money for city college or healthcare/more people unemployed no welfare/the same people on all the streets trying to get theirs/politicians, corporations like (handcuffs) hell yeah/”
The song is fire, speaks truth to power and I am proud to know that my brothers Native Guns came together for such an important song. Thank you, thank you, thank you and bless you.
Download the song here: http://24kmilky.com/7203/native-guns-handcuffs
(i’m also posting it on my wall so you can hear it before downloading if you wish) But please Post it everywhere And Let this be a call-to-action for all of our communities to come together. Express yourselves with a song, a beat, a dance and organize with our communities, come out when the verdict goes down, express yourself!
All I know is, we got to be together…
Peace, love, and unity
Kuttin Kandi
p.s. to read my last essay on Oscar Grant go here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/kuttin-kandi/no-independence-day-in-unity-struggle-till-we-are-all-free-for-oscar-grant/409911133373
How and Why Hip Hop Has Always Been Political-But Will That Continue to Be the Case?
June 16, 2010 By
Whenever we talk about Hip Hop and Politics it’s always done from the stand point with us going to the ballot box as the ultimate goal. Don’t get me wrong, voting and participating in the electoral arena are important, but Hip Hop is so much bigger and so is politics.
For many of us politics is more than us voting for a particular candidate or having a catchy slogan that everyone chants at a rally. At its core, politics is about Empowerment. It’s the social, economic and political control of our communities with voting and political education being among the important steps we take to reach that goal.
Hip Hop is more than a ‘Hot 16‘, ‘fresh new gear‘ or ‘swagger devoid of substance‘. At the end of the day Hip Hop like politics is also about Empowerment. It’s about giving voice to the voiceless and helping remove both ourselves and the community from a position of being maligned and irrelevant with respect to the larger society. Like voting, knowledge and understanding of self and our communities is critical.
It’s important for us to have a firm understanding about the political and social conditions that existed at the dawn of Hip Hop’s birth in the early 70s. It’s important to note that our communities were under serious attack and the expressions associated with Hip Hop was one way in which we responded and ultimately coped.
The pioneers to this culture came up seeing how the FBI under the leadership of J Edgar Hoover and his Cointel Program, went all out to destroy the symbols of resistence and liberation from earlier generations including; Malcolm X who was killed, Martin Luther King who was killed and the Black Panther Party which was destroyed with many of its members jailed. Among those incarcerated during the dawning of Hip Hop was Afeni Shakur and the mother of Tupac. She along with her Panther comrades known as the New York 21. were jailed in 1971 while she was pregnant with Pac
The Free Speech and Anti-War Movements were under attack with then President Nixon declaring an all out war on radical youth. Hippies and Yippies were two components of youth culture caught up in the cross hairs as were Black and Brown organizations like SNCC, the Young Lords and the Brown Berets.
During Hip Hop’s dawning, New York City was enduring serious financial hardship as it teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. That calamity was avoided when city leaders decided to keep the cops, the firemen and garbage workers and instead fired 15 thousand school teachers leaving many of us without after-school programs, extracurricular classes like music and art and our overall education, shortchanged on many levels.
All this was exasperated by greedy landlords in the South Bronx who were burning down tenement buildings almost every other day and collecting the insurance money. Their actions put an already stressed community into an economic tail spin as the Bronx became the worldwide symbol of urban decay.
While all this was going on, the NYPD seemingly working in tandem with President Nixon’s War on Youth had launched an all out war on the gangs that were starting to emerge in the Bronx. They even had a special gang division who were just as brutal back in the days as they are now. Compounding this war by the police, was the fact that many Black and Brown gangs formed because they found themselves under attack by white greaser gangs who didn’t take too kindly to the Bronx neighborhoods expanding its Black and Puerto Rican populations. Hence there was serious racial tension.
It was in this climate that Hip Hop emerged.
Charlie Rock an original Zulu Nation member and former Black Spade which was the largest gang in New York gives a run down of the political and social climate at the dawning of Hip Hop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycREFrL6-RA
The Spirit of Resistence: Hip Hop Has Always Been Political
Resistence-It’s a facet in Hip Hop that is not fully appreciated and reflected upon.
So again let me repeat… Hip Hop is resistence…It was us fighting back, standing up to and flipping the script on oppressive forces. Bootom line Hip Hop was always POLITICAL.
Afrika Bambaataa
It was political when Afrika Bambaataa a former Black Spade warlord while attending Stevenson High School in the Bronx sought to escape gang life and formed the Organization which he later turned into the Mighty Zulu Nation. This was Hip Hop’s first organization which had among its goals to be a youth movement.
It was political when you went to hear Bambaataa spin at a park jam and he would rock Malcolm X speeches over breakbeats, reminding us what our political ideology should be.
It was political when Bam took the name ‘Zulu’ for his new organization after being inspired by the movie of the same name that depicted the South African Zulus fighting European colonizers. As the Zulu Nation grew, Bambaataa sought to instill pride and bring out the best positive attributes from the people around him. He did this by referring to Zulu members as ‘Kings’ and ‘Queens’. Bam once told me he did this to help raise people’s self esteem with the hopes that they would live up to the lofty titles he bestowed.
It was political when Bambaataa and other artists including Kurtis Blow, Kool Herc, Mele-Mel, Run DMC and the Fat Boys all participated in the Artist United Against Apartheid project where they recorded several songs for the Sun City album. Later Bambaattaa would tour Europe doing concerts to raise money for the ANC (African National Congress).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joYTCwNMdq8
What was even more remarkable and definitely ‘political’ about Afrika Bambaataa who was dubbed the Master of Records, was his goal to turn his former gang comrades into a positive force. Bam has often remarked how and he and others would spend lots of time working and building with folks. He said it took a ‘whole lot of meetings and whole lot of patience‘ but eventually folks grew and got it together.
When he started touring Bam took many of the folks from his Bronx River neighborhood with him. He gave them jobs as roadies or as security. He did whatever it took to get them into new environments to help expand their horizons. He was essentially doing a prison to work program years before the city was doing one. If that isn’t political I don’t know what is..
Years later we would see a number of other Hip Hop artists, most notably MC Hammer a former High Street Bank Boy out of Oakland, do similar things. Hammer spent hundreds of thousands of dollars creating jobs within his company in to help facilitate the transition friends and people in his neighborhood would have to make when returning home from the pen.
Hammer took his desire to transform lives to another level when he approached local Bay Area urban radio station KMEL in the early 90s and convinced them to let him air a radio show he created called Street Soldiers. The show was designed to give folks who were ‘in the life’ (gangs drugs etc) an opportunity to get out. Gang members would call in and talk about the challenges they were facing and get feedback from their peers and community experts who would help them turn their lives around. Hammer hosted the show for the first several months and then turned it over to current hosts Joe Marshall and Margret Norris of the Omega Boys club.
The Geto Boys
In a similar vein we have the Geto Boys out of Houston. Everyone is familiar with many of their politically charged rap songs that dealt with everything from crooked police to shady DEA Agents to a President and his quest for war. We’re also familiar with the fact that Willie D used to do a political talk show on Houston radio.
However, what many people didn’t know was that the GB spent quite a bit of money paying legal fees and other court costs trying to get innocent people out of jail. Bushwick Bill and Scarface talked about this in great detail a few years ago when they came on our daily Hard Knock Radio show to protest the state of Texas executing Shaka Sankofa. If I recall correctly, Bushwick said they spent at least 200-250 thousand dollars in their efforts. That was another example of Hip Hop’s spirit of resistence.
Hip Hop Has Always Addressed Electoral Politics
Melle-Mel recorded a song called 'Jesse' praising Rev Jesse Jackson-It one of the earliest rap songs encouraging folks to Get Out and Vote
Moving into the arena of the Ballot Box, Hip Hop has been a participant in some form or fashion going all the way back to 1984 when Melle-Mel of Grand Master Flash & the Furious 5 recorded a song called ‘Jesse’ which highlighted Reverand Jesse Jackson‘s historic run for the White House. The song also encouraged everyone to ‘Get out and Vote‘ while at the same time taking then President Ronald Reagan to task for the economic harm he was causing poor people around the country.
See Ronald Reagan speaking on TV, smiling like everything’s fine and dandy
Sounded real good when he tried to give a pep talk to over 30 million poor people like me
How can we say we got to stick it out when his belly is full and his future is sunny?
I don’t need his jive advice but I sure do need his jive time money
The dream is a nightmare in disguise (Let’s talk about Jesse)
Red tape and lies fill your for spacious skies (Let’s talk about Jesse)
But don’t think that DC just did it first (Let’s talk about Jesse)
There’s a lot of DC’s all over this universe (His name is Jesse)
Later in the song, Melle-Mel smashes on the former President for his initial refusal to meet with Jesse Jackson after he offered to go to Syria and help secure the release of Navy Lt. Robert O. Goodman Jr. who was being hostage after his plane was shot down when he ‘accidently’ flew into their airspace. Ironically even though the song was popular in clubs and at rallies, many urban station never played the record. Jackson himself, told me he didn’t hear the record until the some 10 years after it was recorded. Talk about a disconnect between generations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROZllkxVshM
In 1988 Luther Campbell aka Uncle Luke of the 2 Live Crew teamed up with one of his artists Anquette to back former US Attorney General Janet Reno who at the time was a Dade County (Miami) District Attorney vying for another term.
Anquette did this incredible James Brown inspired song called Janet Reno where she praised Reno for her legal prowess and for going after dead beat dads. The song helped Reno win the election which in turn angered her opponent a lawyer by the name of Jack Thompson.
Thompson sought revenge on Campbell and launched a campaign where he pressured officials throughout the state including Governor Bob Martinez and Broward County sheriff Nick Navarro to go after the 2 live Crew for violating state obscenity laws. Eventually Navarro won a ruling that deemed the group’s album As Nasty As They Wanna Be as obscene.
Local record store owners were warned not to sell the album or they would be arrested. Many shop owners protested but didn’t dare test Navarro. Things came to a head when 2 of the 2 Live Crew members were arrested for performing songs off the album. This is turn set off a huge legal firestorm around first amendment rights.
Campbell, fought this case all the way to the Supreme Court where Harvard Professor Henry Louis ‘Skip’ Gates testified on behalf of the 2Live Crew. He noted that the salacious material they recorded was rooted in the oral/song traditions of African-Americans. The ruling of obscenity were overturned. Again, all this legal drama was caused by Luke’s subversive efforts and Anquette’s song which help turn the tide in an election.
Now we could do an entire book on Hip Hop and Elections where we’d have to cover everyone from Diddy‘s Vote or Die efforts to Russell Simmons Hip Hop Summit Action Network to the Hip Hop Political Conventions that took place in 04, 06 and 08. We’d also have to talk about the formation of Hip Hop Congress and the work they do on campuses around the country, the introduction of Rap Sessions and the political town halls they hold around the country, The League of Young Voters who put out Hip Hop oriented voting guides and recently has been doing work around the census and we’d have to cover Washington based Hip Hop Caucus that routinely engages elected officials on Capitol Hill and did the Respect My Vote Campaign in 08.
We would also have to talk about the recent victory of artist/activist Ras Baraka to the City Council in Newark. He used to serve as deputy mayor. We’d have to talk about the Honorable George Martinez who is currently serving as cultural Envoy, Hip-Hop Ambassador at U.S. State Department. Prior to him serving that position well known Brooklyn based freestyle artist Toni Blackman was this country’s Hip Hop Ambassador. I believe Martinez who also once served on the New York State Democratic Committee is currently running for Congress in NY’s 12th district.
Also running for Congressional office is author/ activist Kevin Powell. This is his second attempt and from the looks of things he stands a really good chance of beating the 28 year incumbent Edolphus Towns. The battle ground is in New York’s 10th district in Brooklyn
Lastly we’d have to talk about Dr Jared Ball out of Maryland who is best known for his political mix tapes ‘Freemix radio‘ ran for Green Party nomination for president in in 08 and long time activist Rosa Clemente who made history by securing the vice presidential nomination for the Green Party. She and former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney had their name on the ballots in all 50 states and garnered impressive numbers even though their historic bid was overshadowed by Barack Obama’s run for the White House which definitely brought out and politicized many in the Hip Hop generation.
From Paris to Brazil Fear of a Politicized Hip Hop
Never in our wildest dreams did marginalized Black and Brown ghetto youth living in the South Bronx, one of the poorest most dilapidated regions of the country ever think this culture of music, dance and oratory expressions we call Hip Hop would mean so much to so many people all over the world. From the slums of Nairobi, Kenya to the streets of Paris, France to the favelas in Rio, Brazil to the hoods in Detroit, to the streets in Gaza, Hip Hop’s presence is not only felt, but has been a driving cultural force in resistence movements especially amongst the young, poor and oppressed. Much of this was inspired by seminal artists like Public Enemy, KRS-One, dead prez , X-Clan and 2Pac to name a few who embodied this spirit of resistence.
For those who think this is far-fetched, think back to 2005 when Paris erupted in riots and over 200 French politicians signed a petition calling for legal action against Hip Hop acts and their aggressive lyrics which they said incited the riots. Acts like Monsieur R and Sniper became the main targets and were actually brought up on charges and faced lawsuits because of their songs that encouraged resistence to the police and government oppression.
Although there were no government petitions signed, in the late 80s, the FBI’s assistant director Milt Ahlerich saw fit to shoot off a letter to Priority Records expressing outrage over the song ‘Fuck tha Police’ which was put out by NWA. In the letter he noted that “advocating violence and assault is wrong and we in the law enforcement community take exception to such action“. Over the years NWA found themselves not being allowed to perform that song at many of the venues because of police pressure. The one time they did in Detroit, 20 plain clothes officers rushed the stage to shut the group down.
MV Bill is an artist we should all know
Several years ago in 2004 a corporate MTV-like 2 day Hip Hop festival called Hip Hop Manifest featuring Snoop and Ja Rule was boycotted by a coalition of Brazilian artists including the enormously popular MV Bill who stated in a Stress magazine article “The organizers are not interested in our issues, or what we rhyme about, they just want to buy our legitimacy, and I have a moral commitment to uphold the history that has created hip-hop. I pity the black man who sells our history for a price.”
What was at stake was these corporate media promoters refused to reinvest the profits into the poor communities in the area and lower ticket prices to make the event more accessible. Many of the Brazilian artists gave up hefty paychecks and a chance to get serious international spotlight, but they felt strongly about the issue and held their ground. They also put a call out to Snoop and Ja Rule and other American rappers to recognize the injustice they were fighting and invited them to come spend time in the poor communities.
“We cannot allow ourselves to be seen simply as idols. Ever since I began creating hip hop, my dream was to show Black people that we could be free and break the shackles.” Snoop, isn’t this beautiful?”, is the question Sao Paulo rap star LF posted to Snoop in an open letter.
M-1 of dead prez who recently went to Gaza always represents for the people
These are just a few of the dozens of examples that could easily be cited to show the resistence and political nature within Hip Hop. From the anti-police brutality albums, put together by artists like Mos Def and Talib Kweli, to the legendary voter registration rallies in Harlem once put on by Sista Souljah to the Stop the Violence Movement started by KRS-One, to the Orphanage recently opened by Immortal Technique in Afghanistan to M1 of dead prez making a trip to Gaza to the anti-police brutality work done by groups like One Hood in Pittsburgh or Hip Hop Against Police Brutality in Texas, to Knaan having his song Raise the Flag be used in the World Cup to Invincible and Finale using their song Locust to make a full fledge documentary about gentrification in Detroit, Hip Hop doesnt give lip service to politics.
From the anti-war efforts put forth by numerous artists (over 200 songs have been recorded at last count) to the efforts around the Jena 6 with artist like Jasiri X doing a theme song. tireless work put forth by artists like David Banner, Nelly, and others in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the recent efforts put forth by artists like Wyclef Jean, NY Oil, Mystic and many others to help bring relief to victims of the earthquake in Haiti, Hip Hop artists have proven to be a responsive. Pick a subject, Immigration, Domestic Violence, Gulf Oil Spill, you name it and Hip Hop has and is there. The reason being because there are always people in our communities who will resist and are down to fight for Freedom no matter what.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Web707z2oB0
Currently, Hip Hop’s biggest challenge is to resist all the attempts to dilute and redirect its potential to spark meaningful social and political change in the face of oppression. This especially true for Hip Hop that makes its way into corporate backed mainstream enclaves. The corporate agenda is to reduce Hip Hop down to a meaningless disposable song and to reduce politics to a voting over catchy phrase or sensationalistic headline and scandal.
It’s no mistake that much of what I’ve written about has not been highlighted, celebrated, shown on TV or played on the radio. It’s not because people won’t find these acts interesting, newsworthy or popular. The end game is to lessen the influence of an artist and dumb down the audience so game can be run on us. That game of course is to sell us product and complacent ideology. The end game is to get Hip Hop to be used as a tool to drive consumerism vs activism and make the music and our people disposable entities to be discarded or conquered.
Trials of a Hip Hop Educator: Promoting Proper Education in Our Communities
April 2, 2010 By
Trials of a Hip Hop Educator: Promoting Proper Education in Our Communities
By Bro. Tony Muhammad
Now let me tell you folks just exactly what I mean
The way they try to lower, the black man’s self esteem
Put us in their schools and I call em mental graves
When they teach us bout ourselves, all we learn that we were slaves
It amazes me that it was almost 18 years ago that Grand Puba of the legendary Hip Hop group Brand Nubian uttered these lyrics in the song Proper Education. Despite the growth in the development of Black, Latino, Native American, Asian and other cultural history curricula throughout the country, if we take a look at the current state of education and how it affects our youth, we can safely say that we are in the same state that we were back then, if not worse. Yes, there are now classes in high schools all throughout the country that have been developed specifically for the instruction of African and African American History, Latin American History, etc. Yet, we have truly not experienced significant advances in the overall consciousness of our communities. The youth and hence grown adults continue to confuse or lack even the vague notions of critical recent events in our history (i.e. Confusing The Civil Rights Movement and The Civil War because they both contain the word “civil” and The March on Washington with The Million Man March because they both took place in the nation’s capital). In truth, those of us that are most aware of this problem are no longer in a position where we can simply blame the system for not properly teaching our true history in a public school setting because we have even taken for granted the value of teaching our history itself. The process very intricately involves the cultivation and nourishment of the self-esteem of our youth of color, but it is not merely limited to this. KRS-One put it best 22 years ago in the song You Must Learn:
I believe that if you’re teaching history
Filled with straight up facts no mystery
Teach the student what needs to be taught
‘Cause Black and White kids both take shorts
When one doesn’t know about the other ones’ culture
Ignorance swoops down like a vulture
Emphatically, as a Social Studies educator who has made the decision to play a role in shaping young minds in an inner-city public high school for over 10 years, I will say that we can no longer expect the system to do for us what we can do for ourselves and our local communities. Signs of this critical hour are found in the manner in which cultural curricula is treated in two principle states that play a strong role in the development of textbooks; Texas and Florida.
Hiphopdx.com (and a host of other websites including Daveyd.com and TheSouthernShift.com) recently ran an article entitled “Texas Board Of Education Declare Hip Hop Is Not A Cultural Movement.” In the article it states that Members of the Texas State Board of Education have given preliminary approval to eliminate significant areas of the curriculum pertaining to Civil Rights and global politics and replace them with “conservative historical figures and beliefs.” These conservative forces also “approved to have a sociological focus on institutional racism and its presence in American society banned from the books,” in addition to removing references to important Latino contributions throughout history – this is in a state that contains over 8.9 million Latinos (roughly 37% of the population). In addition, Hip Hop History which is filled with many stories of personalities playing integral roles in working to eliminate violence in communities by way of the arts will also be deleted from the curriculum. A final vote on this measure will take place sometime in May after conscientious voices in the community have had the opportunity to voice their opinions. What I will say in short about this is that what the Texas School Board is attempting to do is eliminate any ray of light from the past that may serve to inspire the hope for change in the lives of poor Black, Latino and even White youth. By eliminating such critical elements of history from the curriculum is contributing to factors that will land more of our youth in Texas in prison.
In Florida, African and African American History is a state mandate which requires school systems throughout the state to implement it throughout the curriculum. While it has been a state law since the early 1990s, the mandate and the seat that oversees its implementation has continued to be unfunded by the state and it has been proven time and time again that there is no true penalty for school systems that are not in accords with its guidelines. In February I had the opportunity to be the only educator present at a meeting between curriculum specialists representing three of the largest school districts in Florida, which are regarded as “exemplary” in their implementation of African and African American History; Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade. I was invited because of my work in reforming the African American Voices Curriculum for Miami-Dade County. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss how the three school districts can work together so that we can more successfully educate students in the area of African and African American History.
While engaged in this dialogue, there was an attempt on the part of two White curriculum specialists from Broward to derail the focus of the meeting and turn it into a plead for more funding from the state for the purpose of increasing professional development for teachers. I commented in response that while more funding is definitely needed, ultimately “Enthusiasm is not determined by funding.” I said in the presence of a state education official in that very room that if the state has not adequately funded the African and African American History mandate as of yet, it is not going to be doing it in these troubled economic times.
The state of Florida has proven that it does not really consider the African and African American History mandate a priority, but rather keeps it as a law as an attempt to keep conscientious voices quiet. I proposed as a strategy instead to scope out enthusiastic teachers in schools throughout the three counties to become advocates not just to teach classes in Black History, but to transform the whole school culture through programs oriented in Black History. The two White curriculum specialists interrupted me and accused me of proposing a “pep rallying” agenda. I closed the meeting by saying that the need for proper implementation of Black History goes far beyond teaching a class and goes far beyond mere pep rallying around its content, but in essence, it is about instilling a sense of responsibility in the hearts and minds of the youth that it is being taught to so that they can become effective community leaders when they grow up and are in a position to give back and serve the community. In truth, it has been Black people in the history of this country (and I will also say this world) that have been the prime catalysts for change and inspiring change whenever it has been deemed necessary for a change to take place. If Black History (and really any history) is not taken and put to heart in this manner, we end up ineffective in what we seek to accomplish educationally.
As educators that hold certified degrees in the field as well as those among us that do not hold certified degrees in the field, the solution does not lie fully in state educational mandates, but in the level of responsibility that we are willing to fill our hearts with and the level of sacrifice we are willing to commit to in providing service to our communities, especially in respects to the next generations that are coming up under us. The process must involve proper role modeling and a thorough teaching of our true history, for, as Marcus Garvey put it himself “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” In truth, no school systems have any real power to determine what knowledge is best for our youth to learn for their growth and development. As conscientious communities we hold that right!
As a note, while the work that will be required to impact a significant change in consciousness a reality may entail much volunteerism, let us bear in mind that no good work is ever left unrewarded. Our first reward comes in the form of us actually witnessing the transformative effect of our work. If worked in a proper way through networking and the pooling of our resources, it will guarantee opportunities that will garner further success for many of us.
More discussion on this very soon through the will of God!
Tony Muhammad teaches Social Studies at an inner-city high school in Miami and is currently involved in The MIA (Music Is Alive) Campaign for the development of the National Hip Hop Day of Service on August 11th . Tony is most noted for his work as publisher of Urban America Newspaper (2003 – 2007) and co-organizer of the Organic Hip Hop Conference. He is also a member of Difference Makers, Inc. and FLASC (Florida Africana Studies Consortium).
www.facebook.com/tony.muhammad