The Soundtrack of Revolution
Saturday, December 15, 2007
"Music of the 1960s was characteristic of the revolution that was going
on during the decade. It was a time of rebellion and counter-culture
in which the younger people were questioning everything, including authority, corporations, the government, and other
aspects of everyday life. It was essentially a revolution of the status quo. This gave
rise to the Civil Rights Movement of the decade along with other movements that affected the rights
of society as a whole."
Some
might think this type of inspired political music has waned since the turmoil of the 1960's. But the times are no less
in turmoil and indeed songs of dissent are still fueling those with revolutionary minds.
However
with the influx of an ever increasing amount of form over substance, one must wonder if it's the people
being intentionally denied the music for nefarious purposes. It's either that or the masses are truly slower than
molasses. I find it hard to believe people enjoy the prepackaged boy and girl bands, American idols, and superficial rap and
rock carbon copies anymore than they would enjoy something more intellectual if it was promoted to the same extent.
The
soundtrack of revolution, or perhaps at times the mirage thereof, heard in the 1960's transformed in the 1970's
spawning a favorite of mine and arguably the most political form of rock and roll ever, punk rock. An audible art form of
dissent taken to the extreme and pushing the status quo harder than its former incarnation.
Punk rock; declared dead is still kicking with artists like Bad Religion who keep pressing
for truth and justice with lyrically focused music enriching and sparking the minds of their listeners. As singer Gregg Grafin
states in "Punk Rock Song"...
"This
is just a punk rock
song written for the people who can see something's wrong."
The world of hip-hop since its conception could see something was definitely wrong. It was an exciting
and inciting musical outlet many times aimed at the status quo, speaking truth to power in rhyme form and reaching
people in ways before undreamed of. Social and economic boundaries were truly being crossed, some might say shattered.
The
sad thing about it is a strong argument can be made that the dumbing down of the art form today has been an external problem as
much as from within.
It's
a sad thing to see beauty destroyed by design.
Activist
rapper KRS-ONE makes the point in the documentary film Letter to the President, narrated by Snoop Dogg, that radio stations are not supposed to play three
rappers like Jay-Z in a row because commentary would come essentially by three pimps. The point is simply that this is
not balanced and therefore not a complete picture of the face of hip-hop.
If it
is simply a matter of what sells as to why the radio waves are so permeated with mindless fluff then we must
ignore the past success of groups like Public Enemy that the art form manifested. The bottom line has been proven to be able
to be met by music with a message. And even if an artist doesn't focus on social
issues many rappers at least have some tracks in their repertoire concerned with the state
of affairs in the world. Rap
artist Xzibit for example put out a song mocking president Bush called State of the Union. The song was featured on the activist media website PrisonPlanet.com who ran
a caption under the song that pointed
out...
"Almost every hip-hop and rap artist has written a song on the subjects we cover but MTV always
seems to give the ones about drugs, money and permissive sexuality the most airplay. I wonder why that is?"
Why
indeed. Why? is the very thing that fans of underground political rap, often dubbed with the term conscious are asking.
Why does music focus on superficial things such as the glimmer of diamonds...
"You
know the wrist frost bit, minus two degrees/about as blue as the sea"-Jay Z
"Every
time I come around your city "Bling Bling" - Pinky ring worth about 50 "Bling Bling"-Hot Boyz
"I
don't like it if it don't gleam-gleam/ and the hell with the price tag cause money ain't a thing"-Jermaine Dupri
These
songs are catchy but so are the songs of recording artist Paris of GuerillaFunk.com. The website of Paris and Guerilla Funk Recordings features in depth politically
minded content as well as artists. An article pre-dating Leonardo Decaprio's film Blood Diamond was featured on the site that also exposed the human sacrifice too often offered up in addition to
the hefty price tag of shining jewels. And this example of hip-hop culture having its finger on the pulse of important
and veiled political subjects is far from an isolated one.
As
ConsciousRap.org states...
"Today,
hip hop music has become mainstream, with most of it unfortunately glorifying negative values such as crime, violence, materialism,
misogyny.
The
roots of rap, however, contained meaningful, positive, socially aware, political or educational messages.
Now,
the media promotes primarily gangsta rap. This leads to the young audience taking studio gangsters as a model, or to people
dismissing rap as a whole because of commercial artists' negativity.
Conscious
rap tracks have become more rare, and while they are still being made, their audience is largely underground."
Again
the question of why arises. As Heff Chang the author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
wrote in an article for TheNation.com...
"Today, the most cursory glance at the Billboard charts or video shows on Viacom-owned MTV and BET suggests
rap has been given over to cocaine-cooking, cartoon-watching, Rakim-quoting, gold-rims-coveting, death-worshiping young 'uns.
One might even ask whether rap has abandoned the revolution."
He
goes on to state that...
"Political
rap" has been repackaged by record companies as merely "conscious," retooled for a smaller niche as an alternative. "
and
that...
"To
be a "political rapper" in the music industry these days is to be condemned to
preach to a very small choir"
And
finally in a statement that I think is a over sized piece of the puzzle he states...
"Even
as the marketing dollars flowed into youth of color communities, major labels searched for ways to capture the authenticity
without the militancy."
However
sometimes the mainstream does toy with hardcore political issues. As was the case with mainstream rapper Jadakiss
who in his song "Why?" aked "Why Did Bush Knock Down The Towers?" The line in the song was explained in a July 7th 2004 Reuters article...
"Referring to the events of September 11, Jadakiss says: "That's why I put it in there like that. A lot
of my people felt that he had something to do with it."-http://patriotsquestion911.com/media.html
The
line was for a time edited out by some radio stations and caught flack from Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. The result was
that...
"Jadakiss later backed
away from his original position in an interview with the Washington
Post. This was after Bill O’Reilly had called the
song an “atrocity” and Jadakiss a “smear merchant.” -http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/231204hiphop911.htm
A new explanation
from the rapper about the line ran in a July 16, 2004 article on http://www.freemuse.org that stated...
"Jadakiss
doesn't really believe Bush ordered the towers destroyed - he says the line is a metaphor, and that Bush should take the blame
for the terrorist attack because his administration didn't do enough to stop it."
So
after catching some censorship and some flack for his tune, his tune changed a bit. The apparent second explanation of Jadakiss
leaves something to be desired in contrast to his first statement of "A lot of my people felt that he had something
to do with it."
The
fact that the line was even edited out for a short period of time speaks volumes of the political atmosphere of fear
which permeates all aspects of society with music being no exception.
But
as come to be the case the underground rap scene was coming in search of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
As
an article by freelance journalist Michael Kane entitled Hip-Hop and the 9/11 Truth Movement pointed out...
'Politics
in hip-hop is nothing new, and some argue it is the
fifth, or sixth, element of hip-hop – depending
on where you place the art of beat
boxing.Whether it’s the hard tones of
Chuck D in Public Enemy,
the streetwise prose of the
Intelligent Hoodlum, the unapologetic words of N.W.A.,
or KRS 1’s “edutainment,” hip-hop
has a long political tradition that is experiencing
a revival from the bottom up.
That revival has found a home in the self-described
9/11 Truth Movement."
Those
calling the official events of 9/11 into question were facing an uphill battle due to a fact the mainstream media
was being almost as silent as mainstream music. The Jim
Marr's book The Terror Conspiracy notes research conducted in 2005 by Project
Censored.org in which they found the board members of 10 major media organizations
consisted of "a mere 118 people sitting on 288 different American and international boards."
In the face of such odds many truth seekers were finding solace
in the fact that a soundtrack to their press for truth was being provided by underground
hip-hop artists like Immortal Technique.
Born in Peru and raised in Harlem NY, Felipe Cornel, AKA Immortal Technique, later found his words
immortalized (pun intended) on the website PatriotsQuestion9/11 on which the following lyrics appear...
