Vibrations Magazine...Boycotted in Brazil

Hip Hop: Is It Gaining Ground?

During late 2003, news reports stated that for the first time, African American music groups, many labelled hip hop, filled all ten of the top ten slots for popular music. Surely, global purchase totals went up higher. I suppose that some people, mainly the corporations, are pleased to no end, counting the money. And there are bound to be those African Americans that assert that there is a positive to this-it has never been done before, money is being made, and all of the usual American myths.

If there was such an item as a music industry that is based on artistic talent rising to the top and garnering the most money because the woman or man is the most talented, I could see what ratings truly mean. But that is a fantasy.

The business of music is a part of racist capitalism. This means that people who are not White are the most oppressed in money making, if they can make any at all. It has always been that way, from the 1800s America to the present. And now untold billions are made worldwide. From Whites painting themselves black, destroying the human image of Africans or paying big bucks to 21st century clowns acting out racist dehumanizing behavior, it's all very profitable.

How could peoples' land, mineral resources, their bodies, be taken and put through terrible abuse for the purpose of making profits, what we know today as capitalism, but not their cultures?

Rap Trap

A lot of people may not like me saying this. And so, let the troubles of some of New York City's finest rap artists of the 1980s,Eric B. & Rakim, tell the story. They have never been paid one penny for their ironically named groundbreaking 1987 hit, Paid in Full. The original vinyl record sold by the truckload for years and now there is a double CD, re-mastered, including remixes being released in 2004.

It's been almost twenty years since Eric Barrier and Rakim, (nephew of Ruth Brown, 50s soulful singer) gold chains and medallions draped around their necks, helped rap and hip hop onto Wall Street. On 14 January 2004 they filed a lawsuit in a New York court against Russell Simmons, Island Def Jam head Lyor Cohen, Universal Music Enterprises and assorted companies for undisclosed amounts of money.

"I approached them to settle this dispute 9 months ago, they have been exploiting these masters for years" Eric B. told the New American newspaper in 2003."

The rapper, now in his thirties, said in the same article, "I told Russell I never received a dime. He said to me, 'Oh my god Eric, I can't believe it.' Russell said out of his own mouth, 'they must owe you 60-70 million dollars.' "

This amount is for the one album, which contained "Eric B. is President", a 1986 single that put the duo on the map with Kool Moe Dee, KRS One and Public Enemy. Four Albums followed to great success, but their tandem output ended with 1992's Don't Sweat The Technique. Years in court followed as they had been dumped by the label MCA. Even separating to be solo artists was a court matter, and risky.

Moneybags & Bodybags

The cruelly curious heart of the matter is that corporations and a few capitalists of the African persuasion get rich, while the impoverished creators of a legitimate art form are snuffed out.

It could be that the artist, pushing a demo into the hands of an shark minded promoter or record label rep, is ultimately ignorant of the ways of profit exploitation. In a sense, rap and hip hop had beginnings as a wider known cultural birth in the early 80s when cassette tapes were shopped at radio stations or parties. Many youth rightfully are searching for a career. And telling their street stories is no less honorable than, for instance, becoming a part of the dismal corporate media, or risking your life guarding a supermarket for seven dollars an hour.

But in the end, countless see this as their only way out, and the pain ripping through their souls has never been addressed. Can they be blamed? It wasn't a foregone conclusion that Biggie Smalls had to die, that Tupac Shakur, Scott LaRock, Big L and many lesser known women and men would meet violent ends?

The social conditions that these talented artists managed to begin telling the world of were there before their births, and even before their grandparents were born. Who addresses this?

And how is it that in the end, a machine like industry marches mechanically on, even making more money on box sets and "tribute" CDs of the American slaughterhouse society they had lived in?

Abiodun Oyewole, one of the Last Poets speaks on Hip Hop and Rap today:

"We parented to the hip-hop generation. I can't deny that. I worked with a lot of them and they have the same rage and I understand that. There was a movement back then with the Panthers and other organizations, trying to secure human rights for the community. We had these guidelines and guard rails. These kids don't have these guard rails. The rage is going every which way. It's self-destructive.
Look at Tupac- he was a genius. His writing skills were good. His delivery was good. He had a look. Just like James Dean, he's gone. Rebel without a cause. There is a cause and we know that. The cause is a place that will allow us to grow without this rage eating us up inside. It's been dominating our existence as opposed to us being able to direct it."

His experience with FBI harassment:

"We were all harassed. I even had my own special FBI agent come to see me in prison. He asked me about a murder that I had no knowledge about. I said 'if you've been following me, you know that.' He knew all these details about me. I got out of Harlem because I was being harassed. I felt uncomfortable and when they said there was a warrant out for my arrest, I went down to Carolina and stayed there for a while. They just really wanted me out of here because they thought I was causing trouble."

Horizontal Aggression

Despite the high profits and massive promotion of Africans in/from America as successful multimillionaires, the actual situation is that the exploitation is the only thing that is phenomenal.

Glossy corporate, or private media, for that matter, religiously ignore the dehumanizing effect on the people that the music industry chews up and spits out. Eric B. & Rakim's situation bears this out, as did Harlem's Big L's. He said in his last interview, (Oxgyen FM) given from Amsterdam, Holland in 1998:

"Right now I'm putting out my own records because right now that's the best thing for me to do... to make major labels to respect me as an artist, y'know, to let them know that I really don't need y'all like that. I'm looking for a deal... not a deal, the deal. 'Cos anybody can get a deal. If I don't get the deal, then I'll continue to put my own music out, and make my own money, until they give me the deal I need, the deal that's gonna blow Big L up as an artist"

Big L was gunned down, shot in the face and chest nine times. A victim of what has been termed horizontal aggression by progressive hip hop producer, Dr. Mutulu Shakur.

Columbia had dropped Big L, even after a successful album. His tribute CD sold 75,000 copies in one week in 1999. Today, somebody, some company makes more money than Big L ever saw. The first posthumous single burned up cash registers and five years later, Big L's memory is part of the annual a dead hip hop and rap Mother's event. Volletta Wallace, mother of Biggie shows up, as do others, like the family members of Jam Master Jay and of Run DMC, who was a high profile murder victim in recent years.

This could be a wake up call for the world.

The response was, that consumers trained like Pavlov's dogs, from Moscow to Soweto, want to rhyme to video images of dead Africans in America. Some prefer the antics of Outkast, Ludacris, 50 Cent and others glorifying the pimping of African women.

Some women perform as if they are these crazed men's fantasy, to get a paycheck and their face and bodies on screen. Other women make a living chastising men or other women in video shoots.

Probably most bizarre is an industry of media 'hip hop' critics and interviewers-who never challenge the insanity. Then they wouldn't have jobs....

Where does it end?

Actually, it can, like capitalism itself, only go so far.

Critical voices

In one case solid hip hop men and women, a number imprisoned, answered with CDs like "Dare To Struggle", A tribute to Tupac Amaru Shakur from behind the walls. (link)

Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a doctor of acupuncture illegally held in US prisons for his political belief. He was the political dad to Tupac Shakur from his birth. Dr. Shakur says:

" We must review whether Hip-Hop is being singled out as a sub culture of America that is responsible for the base cause of crimes and therefore justifying the disproportionate level of the New African/Blacks that are incarcerated as opposed to this culture being a tool of the oppressed, relaying a natural and national expression of one's environmental condition."

Storm's End

In early 2004, in Brazil, the entourage of Snoop Dogg and Ja Rule were met with some strong opposition:

"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."

So said MV Bill, a major hip hop artist in the strife ridden nation. He was joined by other popular artist there, a festival committee and an entire internet campaign. There was sudden shock for the US loved homeboys-there is a militant stand against corporate sponsorship and White dominated industry forces. In Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paolo (26 million in the metro area) and other cities in the giant country, hip hop and rap are another story. Expensive cars and champagne and jewelry aren't known to many impoverished people.

Summing up the view of many artists there, LF, from Sao Paolo expressed something that Africans in the US can use for this new 21st century:

"...we fight against injustice, and 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."

When this is realized, then the awards can be handed out in celebration to the former entertainers. They will be cultural workers.

The storm that comes will be a peoples' demand for better, and when it is over there will be sunshine. Fresh and truly a morning that has never dawned in America.

ExiledOne
"Vibrations" - The Magazine of the Soulful Expression

12 March 2004

Glasgow, Scotland