How the US Government Stokes Racial Tensions in Cuba and Around the World

By Alan Macleod

Republished from Mint Press News.

“A Black uprising is shaking Cuba’s Communist regime,” read The Washington Post ’sheadline on the recent unrest on the Caribbean island. “Afro-Cubans Come Out In Droves To Protest Government,” wrote NPR .Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal went with “Cuba’s Black Communities Bear the Brunt of Regime’s Crackdown” as a title.

These were examples of a slew of coverage in the nation’s top outlets, which presented what amounted to one day of U.S.-backed protests in July as a nationwide insurrection led by the country’s Black population — in effect, Cuba’s Black Lives Matter moment.

Apart from dramatically playing up the size and scope of the demonstrations, the coverage tended to rely on Cuban emigres or other similarly biased sources. One noteworthy example of this was Slate ,which interviewed a political exile turned Ivy League professor presenting herself as a spokesperson for young Black working class Cubans. Professor Amalia Dache explicitly linked the struggles of people in Ferguson, Missouri with that of Black Cuban groups. “We’re silenced and we’re erased on both fronts, in Cuba and the United States, across racial lines, across political lines,” she said.

Dache’s academic work — including “Rise Up! Activism as Education” and “Ferguson’s Black radical imagination and the cyborgs of community-student resistance,” — shows how seemingly radical academic work can be made to dovetail with naked U.S. imperialism. From her social media postings ,Dache appears to believe there is an impending genocide in Cuba. Slate even had the gall to title the article “Fear of a Black Cuban Planet” — a reference to the militant hip-hop band Public Enemy, even though its leader, Chuck D, has made many statements critical of U.S. intervention in Cuba.

Perhaps more worryingly, the line of selling a U.S.-backed color revolution as a progressive event even permeated more radical leftist publications. NACLA — the North American Congress on Latin America, an academic journal dedicated, in its own words, to ensuring “the nations and peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean are free from oppression and injustice, and enjoy a relationship with the United States based on mutual respect, free from economic and political subordination” — published a number of highly questionable articles on the subject.

One, written by Bryan Campbell Romero, was entitled “Have You Heard, Comrade? The Socialist Revolution Is Racist Too,” and described the protests as “the anger, legitimate dissatisfaction, and cry for freedom of many in Cuba,” against a “racist and homophobic” government that is unquestionably “the most conservative force in Cuban society.”

Campbell Romero described the government’s response as a “ruthless … crackdown” that “displayed an uncommon disdain for life on July 11.” The only evidence he gave for what he termed “brutal repression” was a link to a Miami-based CBS affiliate, which merely stated that, “Cuban police forcibly detained dozens of protesters. Video captured police beating demonstrators,” although, again, it did not provide evidence for this.

Campbell Romero excoriated American racial justice organizations like Black Lives Matter and The Black Alliance for Peace that sympathized with the Cuban government, demanding they support “the people in Cuba who are fighting for the same things they’re fighting for in the United States.”

“Those of us who are the oppressed working-class in the actual Global South — colonized people building the socialist project that others like to brag about — feel lonely when our natural allies prioritize domestic political fights instead of showing basic moral support,” he added. Campbell Romero is a market research and risk analyst who works for The Economist. Moreover, this oppressed working class Cuban proudly notes that his career development has been financially sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

Cuban government critic Bryan Campbell Romero proudly touts his US State Department-funded education

Unfortunately, the blatant gaslighting of U.S. progressives did not end there. The journal also translated and printed the essay of an academic living in Mexico that lamented that the all-powerful “Cuban media machine” had contributed to “the Left’s ongoing voluntary blindness.” Lionizing U.S.-funded groups like the San Isidro movement and explicitly downplaying the U.S. blockade, the author again appointed herself a spokesperson for her island, noting “we, as Cubans” are ruled over by a “military bourgeoisie” that has “criminaliz[ed] dissent.” Such radical, even Marxist rhetoric is odd for someone who is perhaps best known for their role as a consultant to a Danish school for entrepreneurship.

NACLA’s reporting received harsh criticism from some. “This absurd propaganda at coup-supporting website NACLA shows how imperialists cynically weaponize identity politics against the left,” reacted Nicaragua-based journalist Ben Norton .“This anti-Cuba disinfo was written by a right-wing corporate consultant who does ‘market research’ for corporations and was cultivated by U.S. NGOs,” he continued, noting the journal’s less than stellar record of opposing recent coups and American regime change operations in the region. In fairness to NACLA, it also published far more nuanced opinions on Cuba — including some that openly criticized previous articles — and has a long track record of publishing valuable research.

“The radlib academics at @NACLA supported the violent US-backed right-wing coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018, numerous US coup attempts in Venezuela, and now a US regime-change operation in Cuba.

NACLA is basically an arm of the US State Department https://t.co/xxFvxMemxo”

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) August 12, 2021

BLM Refuses to Play Ball

The framing of the protests as a Black uprising against a conservative, authoritarian, racist government was dealt a serious blow by Black Lives Matter itself, which quickly released a statement in solidarity with Cuba, presenting the demonstrations as a consequence of U.S. aggression. As the organization wrote:

The people of Cuba are being punished by the U.S. government because the country has maintained its commitment to sovereignty and self-determination. United States leaders have tried to crush this Revolution for decades.

Such a big and important organization coming out in unqualified defense of the Cuban government seriously undermined the case that was being whipped up, and the fact that Black Lives Matter would not toe Washington’s line sparked outrage among the U.S. elite, leading to a storm of condemnation in corporate media. “Cubans can’t breathe either. Black Cuban lives also matter; the freedom of all Cubans should matter,” The Atlantic seethed. Meanwhile, Fox News contributor and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, Marc A. Thiessen claimed in The Washington Post that “Black Lives Matter is supporting the exploitation of Cuban workers” by supporting a “brutal regime” that enslaves its population, repeating the dubious Trump administration claim that Cuban doctors who travel the world are actually slaves being trafficked.

Despite the gaslighting, BLM stood firm, and other Black organizations joined them, effectively ending any hopes for a credible shot at intersectional imperialist intervention. “The moral hypocrisy and historic myopia of U.S. liberals and conservatives, who have unfairly attacked BLM’s statement on Cuba, is breathtaking,” read a statement from the Black Alliance for Peace.

Trying to Create a Cuban BLM

What none of the articles lauding the anti-government Afro-Cubans mention is that for decades the U.S. government has been actively stoking racial resentment on the island, pouring tens of millions of dollars into astroturfed organizations promoting regime change under the banner of racial justice.

Reading through the grants databases for Cuba from U.S. government organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, it immediately becomes clear that Washington has for years chosen to target young people, particularly Afro-Cubans, and exploit real racial inequalities on the island, turning them into a wedge issue to spark unrest, and, ultimately, an insurrection.

For instance, a 2020 NED project,  entitled “Promoting Inclusion of Marginalized Populations in Cuba,” notes that the U.S. is attempting to “strengthen a network of on-island partners” and help them to interact and organize with one another.

A second mission,  this time from 2016, was called “promoting racial integration.” But even from the short blurb publicly advertising what it was doing, it is clear that the intent was the opposite. The NED sought to “promote greater discussion about the challenges minorities face in Cuba,” and publish media about the issues affecting youth, Afro-Cubans and the LGBTI community in an attempt to foster unrest.

A 2016 NED grant targets hides hawkish US policy goals behind altruistic language like “promoting racial integration”

Meanwhile, at the time of the protests, USAID was offering $2 million worth of funding to organizations that could “strengthen and facilitate the creation of issue-based and cross-sectoral networks to support marginalized and vulnerable populations, including but not limited to youth, women, LGBTQI+, religious leaders, artists, musicians, and individuals of Afro-Cuban descent.” The document proudly asserts that the United States stands with “Afro-Cubans demand[ing] better living conditions in their communities,” and makes clear it sees their future as one without a Communist government.

The document also explicitly references the song “Patria y Vida,” by the San Isidro movement and Cuban emigre rapper Yotuel, as a touchstone it would like to see more of. Although the U.S. never discloses who exactly it is funding and what they are doing with the money, it seems extremely likely that San Isidro and Yotuel are on their payroll.

“Such an interesting look at the new generation of young people in #Cuba & how they are pushing back against govt repression. A group of artists channeled their frustrations into a wildly popular new song that the government is now desperate to suppress.” https://t.co/47RGc9ORuR

— Samantha Power (@SamanthaJPower) February 24, 2021

Only days after “Patria y Vida” was released, there appeared to be a concerted effort among high American officials to promote the track, with powerful figures such as head of USAID Samantha Power sharing it on social media. Yotuel participates in public Zoom calls with U.S. government officials while San Isidro members fly into Washington to glad-hand with senior politicians or pose for photos with American marines inside the U.S. Embassy in Havana. One San Isidro member said he would “give [his] life for Trump” and beseeched him to tighten the blockade of his island, an illegal action that has already cost Cuba well over $1 trillion,  according to the United Nations. Almost immediately after the protests began, San Isidro and Yotuel appointed themselves leaders of the demonstrations, the latter heading a large sympathy demonstration in Miami.

“The whole point of the San Isidro movement and the artists around it is to reframe those protests as a cry for freedom and to make inroads into progressive circles in the U.S.,” said Max Blumenthal, a journalist who has investigated the group’s background.

Rap As A Weapon

From its origins in the 1970s, hip hop was always a political medium. Early acts like Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, KRS One, and Public Enemy spoke about the effect of drugs on Black communities, police violence, and building movements to challenge power.

By the late 1990s, hip hop as an art form was gaining traction in Cuba as well, as local Black artists helped bring to the fore many previously under-discussed topics, such as structural racism.

Afro-Cubans certainly are at a financial disadvantage. Because the large majority of Cubans who have left the island are white, those receiving hard currency in the form of remittances are also white, meaning that they enjoy far greater purchasing power. Afro-Cubans are also often overlooked for jobs in the lucrative tourism industry, as there is a belief that foreigners prefer to interact with those with lighter skin. This means that their access to foreign currency in the cash-poor Caribbean nation is severely hampered. Blacks are also underrepresented in influential positions in business or education and more likely to be unemployed than their white counterparts. In recent times, the government has tried to take an activist position, passing a number of anti-racism laws. Nevertheless, common attitudes about what constitutes beauty and inter-racial relationships prove that the society is far from a racially egalitarian one where Black people face little or no discrimination.

The new blockade on remittances, married with the pandemic-induced crash in tourism, has hit the local economy extremely hard, with unemployment especially high and new shortages of some basic goods. Thus, it is certainly plausible that the nationwide demonstrations that started in a small town on the west side of the island were entirely organic to begin with. However, they were also unquestionably signal-boosted by Cuban expats, celebrities and politicians in the United States, who all encouraged people out on the streets, insisting that they enjoyed the full support of the world’s only superpower.

However, it should be remembered that Cuba as a nation was crucial in bringing about the end of apartheid in South Africa, sending tens of thousands of troops to Africa to defeat the racist apartheid forces, a move that spelled the end for the system. To the last day, the U.S. government backed the white government.

Washington saw local rappers’ biting critiques of inequality as a wedge issue they could exploit, and attempted to recruit them into their ranks, although it is far from clear how far they got in this endeavor, as their idea of change rarely aligned with what rappers wanted for their country.

Sujatha Fernandes, a sociologist at the University of Sydney and an expert in Cuban hip hop told MintPress:

"For many years, under the banner of regime change, organizations like USAID have tried to infiltrate Cuban rap groups and fund covert operations to provoke youth protests. These programs have involved a frightening level of manipulation of Cuban artists, have put Cubans at risk, and threatened a closure of the critical spaces of artistic dialogue many worked hard to build.”

In 2009, the U.S. government paid for a project whereby it sent music promoter and color-revolution expert Rajko Bozic to the island. Bozic set about establishing contacts with local rappers, attempting to bribe them into joining his project. The Serbian found a handful of artists willing to participate in the project and immediately began aggressively promoting them, using his employers’ influence to get their music played on radio stations. He also paid big Latino music stars to allow the rappers to open up for them at their gigs, thus buying them extra credibility and exposure. The project only ended after it was uncovered, leading to a USAID official being caught and jailed inside Cuba.

Despite the bad publicity and many missteps, U.S. infiltration of Cuban hip hop continues to this day. A 2020 NED project entitled “Empowering Cuban Hip-Hop Artists as Leaders in Society” states that its goal is to “promote citizen participation and social change” and to “raise awareness about the role hip-hop artists have in strengthening democracy in the region.” Many more target the wider artistic community. For instance, a recent scheme called “Promoting Freedom of Expression of Cuba’s Independent Artists” claimed that it was “empower[ing] independent Cuban artists to promote democratic values.”

Of course, for the U.S. government, “democracy” in Cuba is synonymous with regime change. The latest House Appropriations Bill allocates $20 million to the island, but explicitly stipulates that “none of the funds made available under such paragraph may be used for assistance for the Government of Cuba.” The U.S. Agency for Global Media has also allotted between $20 and $25 million for media projects this year targeting Cubans.

BLM For Me, Not For Thee

What is especially ironic about the situation is that many of the same organizations promoting the protests in Cuba as a grassroots expression of discontent displayed a profound hostility towards the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, attempting to defame genuine racial justice activists as pawns of a foreign power, namely the Kremlin.

In 2017, for example, CNN released a story claiming that Russia had bought Facebook ads targeting Ferguson and Baltimore, insinuating that the uproar over police murders of Black men was largely fueled by Moscow, and was not a genuine expression of anger. NPR-affiliate WABE smeared black activist Anoa Changa for merely appearing on a Russian-owned radio station. Even Vice President Kamala Harris suggested that the hullabaloo around Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest was largely cooked up in foreign lands.

Meanwhile, at the height of the George Floyd protests in 2020, The New York Times asked Republican Senator Tom Cotton to write an op-ed called “Send in the Troops,” in which he asserted that “an overwhelming show of force” was necessary to quell “anarchy” from “criminal elements” on our streets.

Going further back, Black leaders of the Civil Rights era, such as Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, were continually painted as in bed with Russia, in an attempt to delegitimize their movements. In 1961, Alabama Attorney General MacDonald Gallion said ,“It’s the communists who were behind this integration mess.” During his life, Dr. King was constantly challenged on the idea that his movement was little more than a communist Trojan Horse. On Meet the Press in 1965, for instance, he was asked whether “moderate Negro leaders have feared to point out the degree of communist infiltration in the Civil Rights movement.”

Nicaragua

The U.S. has also been attempting to heighten tensions between the government of Nicaragua and the large population of Miskito people who live primarily on the country’s Atlantic coast. In the 1980s, the U.S. recruited the indigenous group to help in its dirty war against the Sandinistas, who returned to power in 2006. In 2018, the U.S. government designated Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela as belonging to a “troika of tyranny” — a clear reference to the second Bush administration’s Axis of Evil pronouncement.

Washington has both stoked and exaggerated tensions between the Sandinistas and the Miskito, its agencies helping to create a phony hysteria over supposed “conflict beef” — a scandal that seriously hurt the Nicaraguan economy.

The NED and USAID have been active in Nicaragua as well, attempting to animate racial tensions in the Central American nation. For instance, a recent 2020 NED project ,entitled “Defending the Human Rights of Marginalized Communities in Nicaragua,” claims to work with oppressed groups (i.e., the Miskito), attempting to build up “independent media” to highlight human rights violations.

To further understand this phenomenon, MintPress spoke to John Perry, a journalist based in Nicaragua. “What is perhaps unclear is the extent to which the U.S. has been engaged,” he said, continuing:

"There is definitely some engagement because they have funded some of the so-called human rights bodies that exist on the Atlantic coast [where the Miskito live]. Basically, they — the U.S.-funded NGOs — are trying to foment this idea that the indigenous communities in the Atlantic coast are subjected to genocide, which is completely absurd.”

In 2018, the U.S. backed a wave of violent demonstrations across the country aimed at dislodging the Sandinistas from power. The leadership of the Central American color revolution attempted to mobilize the population around any issue they could, including race and gender rights. However, they were hamstrung from the start, as Perry noted:

"The problem the opposition had was that it mobilized young people who had been trained by these U.S.-backed NGOs and they then enrolled younger people disenchanted with the government more generally. To some extent they mobilized on gay rights issues, even though these are not contentious in Nicaragua. But they were compromised because one of their main allies, indeed, one of the main leaders of the opposition movement was the Catholic Church, which is very traditional here.”

U.S. agencies are relatively open that their goal is regime change. NED grants handed out in 2020 discuss the need to “promote greater freedom of expression and strategic thinking and analysis about Nicaragua’s prospects for a democratic transition” and to “strengthen the capacity of pro-democracy players to advocate more effectively for a democratic transition” under the guise of “greater promot[ion of] inclusion and representation” and “strengthen[ing] coordination and dialogue amongst different pro-democracy groups.” Meanwhile, USAID projects are aimed at getting “humanitarian assistance to victims of political repression,” and “provid[ing] institutional support to Nicaraguan groups in exile to strengthen their pro-democracy efforts.” That polls show a large majority of the country supporting the Sandinista government, which is on course for a historic landslide in the November election, does not appear to dampen American convictions that they are on the side of democracy. Perry estimates that the U.S. has trained over 8,000 Nicaraguans in projects designed to ultimately overthrow the Sandinistas.

In Bolivia and Venezuela, however, the U.S. government has opted for exactly the opposite technique; backing the country’s traditional white elite. In both countries, the ruling socialist parties are so associated with their indigenous and/or Black populations and the conservative elite with white nationalism that Washington has apparently deemed the project doomed from the start.

China

Stoking racial and ethnic tension appears to be a ubiquitous U.S. tactic in enemy nations. In China, the Free Tibet movement is being kept alive with a flood of American cash. There have been 66 large NED grants to Tibetan organizations since 2016 alone. The project titles and summaries bear a distinct similarity to Cuban and Nicaraguan undertakings, highlighting the need to train a new generation of leaders to participate in society and bring the country towards a democratic transition, which would necessarily mean a loss of Chinese sovereignty.

Likewise, the NED and other organizations have been pouring money into Hong Kong separatist groups (generally described in corporate media as “pro-democracy activists”). This money encourages tensions between Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese with the goal of weakening Beijing’s influence in Asia and around the world. The NED has also been sending millions to Uyghur nationalist groups.

Intersectional Empire

In Washington’s eyes, the point of funding Black, indigenous, LGBT or other minority groups in enemy countries is not simply to promote tensions there; it is also to create a narrative that will be more likely to convince liberals and leftists in the United States to support American intervention.

Some degree of buy-in, or at least silence, is needed from America’s more anti-war half in order to make things run smoothly. Framing interventions as wars for women’s rights and coup attempts as minority-led protests has this effect. This new intersectional imperialism attempts to manufacture consent for regime change, war or sanctions on foreign countries among progressive audiences who would normally be skeptical of such practices. This is done through adopting the language of liberation and identity politics as window dressing for domestic audiences, although the actual objectives — naked imperialism — remain the same as they ever were.

The irony is that the U.S. government is skeptical, if not openly hostile, to Black liberation at home. The Trump administration made no effort to disguise its opposition to Black Lives Matter and the unprecedented wave of protests in 2020. But the Biden administration’s position is not altogether dissimilar, offering symbolic reforms only. Biden himself merely suggested that police officers shoot their victims in the leg, rather than in the chest.

Thus, the policy of promoting minority rights in enemy countries appears to be little more than a case of “Black Lives Matter for thee, but not for me.” Nonetheless, Cuba, Nicaragua, China and the other targets of this propaganda will have to do more to address their very real problems on these issues in order to dilute the effectiveness of such U.S. attacks.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Black Feminism and the Rap/Hip-Hop Culture: I Don't Want the "D"

By Asha Layne

"I was born to flex (Yes)
Diamonds on my neck
I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex (Woo!)
But nothing in this world that I like more than checks (Money)
All I really wanna see is the (Money)
I don't really need the D, I need the (Money)
All a bad bitch need is the (Money)"

- Cardi B

With the advancement of technology, more specifically social media platforms, the plight of women of color has been widely discussed thanks to the Me Too and Say Her Name movements which challenged and revolutionized the thinking of dominant culture. Of profound importance, the inclusion of Black women and women of color in these social movements contested the sweeping generalizations of 'traditional' feminism. This would later lead to a widespread rejection of popular feminism ideologies, thus making way for a new wave of neo non-conservative ideologies on feminism.

This deviation between traditional and non-traditional feminism can be traced back to the Women's Liberation Movement in the late 1960s. During this period, the conditions and concerns of White middle-class women took center stage and addressed issues that inhibited their (White women) ability to live fully free lives rid from patriarchal oppression. This perspective would continue to serve as the backdrop on a series of feminine-related issues such as equal pay, sexual harassment, sexual violence, and violence against women. Not surprisingly, given the US's racially contentious history, it (Women's Liberation Movement) shamelessly ignored the different culturally-significant spaces that Black women (and women of color) occupied, leaving Black feminists to repeat Sojourner Truth's riveting question: "Ain't I a woman?" This essay explores the evolution of Black feminism through the lens of female rappers, who I argue add to the discourse of feminism, and more specifically Black feminism.

As a theoretical construct, feminist theory claims of being woman-centered historically has ignored the narratives and standpoints of women of color. Despite the popular question, "What about the women?" that has long served as the impetus behind the development of feminist theory, the answers to this question have traditionally focused their attention solely on the experiences of White women. Anchoring this sentiment is the emergence of Black feminism and Black feminist thought, which both sought to place the experiences of Black women at the center of its analysis, therefore offering a starkly different knowledge from that of mainstream feminism. According to Collins (2000), Black women in the United States can stimulate a distinctive consciousness concerning their own experiences. Collins, like other Black feminist scholars, understood that this knowledge produced by the narratives of Black women would transform how feminism is defined and understood by Black women (and women of color). Similarly, Kimberle Crenshaw also understood that the experiences of Black women could not be explained by race and gender alone but should also include the intersecting identities that shape their identity as a Black woman. This is best demonstrated by Black women (and women of color) in the rap/hip-hop industry.

Female rappers have (and continue) to take a melodic stance to verbally disseminate information on social issues and struggles that women of color face, such as: white supremacy, sexism, self-esteem, misogyny, patriarchy, sexual harassment, and gender-based violence. One can hear this in the music of both contemporary and non-contemporary female artists, who by applying Collins's theoretical framework share their narrative through standpoint theorizing. Standpoint theorizing is a sociological feminist framework which explains that knowledge of women's experiences is best understood from their social positions in society. In Yo-Yo's 1991 debut hit, You Can't Play with my Yo-Yo she explores what it means to be a woman in a male-dominated environment. She raps:

"If you touch, you livin in a coffin (word to mother)

I'm in the 90s, you're still in the 80s right

I rock the mic, they say I'm not lady like

But I'ma lady, who will pull a stunt though

I kill suckas, and even hit the block

So what you want to do?"

In listening to the words of female rap/hip-hop artists, the audience is able to recognize the nonconventional form of activism which has added to both the discourse of Black feminism and the music industry. In the above lyrics, Yo-Yo also explains that as a female in a male-dominated industry, gender often takes precedence over race and consequently adds to negative experiences Black female MCs in the industry often grapple with. Women of color in the rap/hip-hop industry have inarguably exemplify Collins's concepts of: standpoint theory, outsider-within, and matrix of domination, sidestepping any mention of scholastic sources or prominent experts in the field. One can easily identify these acts of black female activism in the rap/hip-hop industry in the work of contemporary artist, Cardi B. This is particularly well exemplified in Cardi B's debut album, Invasion of Privacy. In her song Be Careful, which explicitly examines infidelity and the double-standard concerns it raises, she raps, "I could've did what you did to me to you a few times. But if I did decide to slide, find a nigga fuck him, suck his dick, you would've been pissed." In Money, Cardi B colorfully explains that money and not a man's penis will meet her needs. She raps, "I got a baby, I need some money, yeah I need cheese for my egg." This album unapologetically proclaims that despite her (un)popular gender non-normative approach that she will be heard and respected regardless of anyone else's opinion. Therefore, demonstrating that, just like her female rap/hip-hop predecessors, she too unconventionally exemplifies black feminist activism.

Patricia Hill Collins's Black Feminist Thought explains that race, gender, and class are oppressive factors that are bound together. In relation to rappers, the commodification of female rappers in the industry and the hypersexual images of Black female rappers speaks to not only this intersection of race, class, and gender but also to the systemic cultural nature of exploitation that is inherent not only to the industry but also within dominant American culture. In both spaces (the industry and American culture), masculinity is directly related to power and violence, and reminds us of the pervasiveness of the White perspective in social institutions. In White-Washing Race, Brown et al. (2003) explains that the White perspective is not the product of salient characteristics, such as skin color, but of culture and experiences. The lyrical narratives shared by female rap/hip-hop artists demonstrates how women of color actively grapple with the many issues, concerns, and questions they experience culturally, socially, and politically.

Is the emergence of the outspoken, gender-bending, highly independent, and sexy female artist a new phenomenon for women of color? Collins highlights how the role of Black women always contradicted the traditional role of women in mainstream society. Collin states, "if women are allegedly passive and fragile, then why are Black women treated as "mules" and assigned heavy cleaning chores" (2000, p.11)? The placement of Black women as 'objects' and 'tools' for production under capitalism is intrinsic to the social, political, and economic arrangements of power in the United States. Black feminism deconstructs the established systems of knowledge and arrangements of power by showing the masculinist bias that frames these arrangements of power from a cultural lens.

The radical changes exhibited in the bodies of work of contemporary female rappers engenders the thesis of Black feminism through frequent displays of gender non-conforming behaviors while embracing the beauty of being uniquely deviant. No longer are women of color minimizing or editing their unique experiences, behaving in gender-conforming ways, or are ashamed of being labelled a 'bitch' for the sake of being accepted by mainstream culture and appeasing their male counterparts. Contemporary Black female rappers, similar to classic rappers such as MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, and Roxeanne Shante, continue to redefine not only gender identity but Black female identity in patriarchal structures.

Both gender identity and Black female identity are socially constructed through interaction and socialization. Following the tenets of symbolic interaction, gender and racial identities emerge out of social interactions which helps to define an individual's self. The formation of self is unique to women of color because of the location and situation they occupy in many faces of oppression. The marginalization, exploitation, and feelings of powerlessness are all too common in the tropes of women of color. Therefore, the gender-social identification of women of color does not examine solely "doing gender" but instead considers key factors that obfuscates women of color from "doing gender."

Women of color in the rap/hip-hop industry continue to demonstrate the spirit of Black feminism through nonconventional methods. Today, Black female artists (and women of color) have changed the way we define women's empowerment. The popularity of female MCs embodying androgenic characteristics through feminine appeal supports the narratives of many women who have mastered the proverbial quote, "think like a man." To condemn the hypersexual behaviors and language used by Black female artists is to ignore the historical truth that Black women (and women of color) were never defined by the traditional standards of being a 'woman.' Black female MCs have and will always continue to redefine what 'doing gender' is from a cultural standpoint, therefore adding to the Black feminism discourse.

Bibliography

B, Cardi. (2018). The invasion of privacy. CD. New York: New York. Atlantic Records.

Brown, Michael K., Carnoy, Martin, Currie, Elliott, Duster, Troy, Oppenheimer, David. B., Schultz, Marjorie, M., and Wellman, David. 2003. White-washing race: The myth of a color-blind society. Berkley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.

Collins, Patricia Hill. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Yo-Yo. (1991). Make way for the Motherlode. CD. New York: New York. EastWest Records America.

The Pedagogy of Hip Hop: Underground Soundtracks for Dissecting and Confronting the Power Structure

By Colin Jenkins

Disclaimer: The language expressed in this article is an uncensored reflection of the views of the artists as they so chose to speak and express themselves. Censoring their words would do injustice to the freedom of expression and political content this article intends to explore. Therefore, some of the language appearing below may be offensive to personal, cultural, or political sensibilities.

On the 16th track of Immortal Technique's Revolutionary, Volume 2, Mumia Abu-Jamal theorizes on the inherent contradictions between the lived reality of many Americans and the notion of homeland [in]security. In doing so, he explains how the musical phenomenon of hip hop captures these contradictions by displaying "gritty roots" that are bound up in systemic injustice and deep feelings of fear and hatred. These feelings, according to Mumia, engulf entire generations of children who have been betrayed by systems of capitalism and white supremacy, and their intricately constructed school-to-prison pipeline:

"To think about the origins of hip hop in this culture, and also about homeland security, is to see that there are at the very least two worlds in America. One of the well-to-do and another of the struggling. For if ever there was the absence of homeland security, it is seen in the gritty roots of hip hop. For the music arises from a generation that feels, with some justice, that they have been betrayed by those who came before them. That they are at best tolerated in schools, feared on the streets, and almost inevitably destined for the hell holes of prison. They grew up hungry, hated, and unloved. And this is the psychic fuel that generates the anger that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry. One senses very little hope above the personal goals of wealth to climb above the pit of poverty. In the broader society, the opposite is true. For here, more than any other place on earth, wealth is more widespread and so bountiful, that what passes for the middle class in America could pass for the upper class in most of the rest of the world. Their very opulent and relative wealth makes them insecure. And homeland security is a governmental phrase that is as oxymoronic, as crazy as saying military intelligence, or the U.S Department of Justice. They're just words that have very little relationship to reality. And do you feel safer now? Do you think you will anytime soon? Do you think duct tape and Kleenex and color codes will make you safe?"

In his short commentary, Mumia refers specifically to the Black community in the US - a community that has been ravaged from every angle through America's relatively short history: two and a half centuries of chattel slavery followed by various forms of legalized systems of servitude and second-class citizenship, including sharecropping , convict leasing , Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. A history consumed with betrayal after betrayal, complex layers of institutional racism carried out under the guise of legality, and a systematic ghettoization supported by both " white flight" and widespread discriminatory housing and employment practices. Mumia juxtaposes this unique experience to the "broader society," one that is riddled with insecurities stemming from "opulent and relative" wealth, to expose the irony of "homeland security," a term that he views as oxymoronic.

Mumia is correct in characterizing the reactionary temperament of both the American middle and upper classes - sects that both determine and maintain dominant culture. Broader society is molded by this temperament, which is buoyed by small pockets of socioeconomic comfort floating in a vast sea of instability that not only plagues the Black community in its never-ending struggle against both white supremacy and capitalism, but also poor and working-class white communities that have been similarly doomed by their forced reliance on wage labor. Despite what he describes as "bountiful wealth," American society has always been propped up on this hidden base of despair, felt by a majority of the population that exists below the façade. Since the 1980s, this façade has been slowly chiseled away as neoliberalism has successfully funneled wealth to the few at the top while creating a race to the bottom for everyone else, including those once deemed "middle class."

This race to the bottom has exposed the underbelly of instability through its attack on a fast-eroding, mostly-white middle class that now finds itself desperately seeking reasons for its newfound despair. While those of us at the bottom may welcome the company, in hopes that it will bring the critical mass needed to finally confront and bring down the capitalist system, it also signals trying times ahead. In being consistent with similar erosions of "relative and bountiful wealth" throughout history, the American demise brings with it a fairly high probability of a fascist tide. In fact, this tide has already begun to form, largely through millions of white tears dropping from the Tea Party, its Reaganite forerunners, the "alt-right," a surge of neo-Nazism and white nationalism, and Donald Trump's pied piper-like rhetoric that has pooled it all together.

While middle-class America comes crashing down along with the empire, the Black community remains steadfast in its centuries-long defensive posture. Despite facing an acute, structural oppression that is unparalleled in any other modern "industrialized" setting, and in spite of Mumia's sobering analysis, the Black community has in many ways survived and thrived like no other. This survival in the face of intense hatred has been expressed through many musical forms , from the early roots of rock n roll, Blues, and American Jazz to the hip-hop phenomenon that Mumia speaks of. This collective survival is perfectly captured in Tupac's poem,The Rose that Grew from Concrete, which tells the story of

…the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete
Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned how to walk without havin feet
Funny it seems but by keepin its dreams
It learned to breathe fresh air
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
When no one else even cared.

In explaining the meaning of the poem, Pac summed up much of the African-American experience, as well as the reactionary temperament often directed at it from those in more privileged positions:

"You try to plant somethin in the concrete. If it grows, and the rose petal got all kind of scratches and marks, you not gonna say, "Damn, look at all the scratches and marks on the rose that grew from concrete." You gonna be like, "Damn! A rose grew from the concrete?!" Same thing with me… I grew out of all of this. Instead of sayin, "Damn, he did this, he did this," just be like, "Damn! He grew out of that? He came out of that?" That's what they should say… All the trouble to survive and make good out of the dirty, nasty, unbelievable lifestyle they gave me. I'm just tryin to make somethin."

Pac's story also describes that of the entire American working class, as a collection of former slaves, indentured servants, peasants, and poor immigrants set up for failure by a capitalist system designed to exploit us all, collectively. The working-class struggle is tightly intertwined with the Black struggle. The Communist Party knew this long ago. The Industrial Workers of the World did as well. The original Black Panther Party also knew this, as did all those coming from the Black Radical Tradition in America: W.E.B. DuBois, the African Blood Brotherhood, Harry Haywood, the Revolutionary Action Movement, Frances M. Beal, Angela Davis, C.L.R. James, the Combahee River Collective, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the Congress of African People, and so many others.

As this struggle commences and intensifies during what appear to be the end days of American Empire, underground hip hop provides us with a soundtrack that is laced with historical context, deep analysis, and valuable knowledge - all of which should be applied while moving forward. The "psychic fuel" that Mumia points to in his brief commentary, which "generates the anger that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry" is far from misguided, and extends far beyond cathartic release. While in the mainstream, the Black Radical Tradition continues to be tragically mocked by identity politics , activist-celebrity tweeters pimping corporate brands , black liberation-themed credit cards , high-dollar-plate events, non-profit organizations, and the Democratic Party, its torch remains lit through the lyrics burning on underground hip-hop tracks. And this underground reflects the pulse of the streets, where tens of millions experience daily life in the underbelly of instability - not on Twitter, Facebook, or fundraising dinners at the Marriott.

Structural Oppression Under Capitalism

As resistance movements gain momentum in the days of Trump, an understanding of the disastrous effects of capitalism is necessary. Party politics are, as John Dewey once explained, the "shadow cast on society by big business (capitalism)." Politicians from both parties work within this shadow, delivering rhetoric to the masses before and after taking orders from their donors, sponsors, and corporate overlords. Regardless of who is in the highest office, whether it's an eloquent black President or a blustering billionaire, "the attenuation does not change the substance." As a popular Internet meme recently noted, the 'hood under Trump is the same as the 'hood under Obama, which was the same as the 'hood under Bush, which was the same as the 'hood under Clinton. Sadly, this sentiment could go on for as long as Presidents have occupied the white house. Politicians and presidents come and go, and nothing changes for most of us; because, quite frankly, it is not supposed to. Politics serve capitalism; and capitalism does not serve us.

"It's like an open-air prison and it remained packed"

Hip hop serves as historiography in this sense, documenting the conditions of neighborhoods throughout the US for the past four decades, examining the histories behind multi-generational poverty, and seeking ways to address the dire situations many find themselves in. Ironically, the rise of hip hop paralleled the rise of the neoliberal era, a period that has been marked by an intensification of the capitalist system. During this time, things for most have at best remained stagnant, and at worst become increasingly disastrous. The hook in Erykah Badu's The Cell (2008) captures this lived experience in sobering fashion:

We're not well
We're not well
We can't tell

Brenda done died with no name
Nickel bag coke to the brain
Will they ever find the vaccine?
Shitty-damn-damn-baby-bang
Rich man got the double barrel
Po' man got his back to the door
Code white stands for trouble
Shots from the po-po (blah blah)

Jean Grae's Block Party , the 4th track on her 2002 album Attack of the Attacking Things, provides an intimate glimpse into the state of Black communities during this time:

I don't wanna preach or come off bitter, this is a commentary auditory
Editorial, about the state of things, state of mind and state of being
What the fuck is goin on? How the fuck we gonna make it out?
It's hectic, from asbestos filled classrooms
To the stench of death that's still in New York
The air is thick with it, but it reaches further
Like the world murder rate

While illustrating the chronic conditions found in many communities, Grae immediately offers insight into possible solutions rooted in consciousness. Without actually saying it, her lyrics brilliantly dip into a structural analysis that calls for abandoning capitalist culture and realizing the tragic ironies in seeking individual materialistic goals. In doing so, there is an underlying theme to escape values that have been implanted into not only predominantly Black communities, but also working-class communities as a whole:

We need to globalize, further spread on this earth
To appreciate the full value of individual worth
To realize how ridiculous the thought of ownership is
And protectin your turf - that's bullshit man
That's how we got colonized
Missionaries create foreign schools and change the native way & thinkin
So in ten years, we can have a foreign Columbine
In some small village in the Amazon, c'mon man

Grae's second verse masterfully ties together a narrative based in seeking a collective consciousness while avoiding a house-slave mentality that aims to, as she puts it, "chill with rich white folks." Again, while directed toward members of the Black community, Grae's commentary is undeniably relative to the working-class struggle in its entirety, especially in terms of how the "rags-to-riches," so-called "American Dream" is framed strictly within individual pursuits of wealth and hyper-consumerism. Ultimately, as Grae suggests, this mentality must be shed through deeper calls for knowledge, community, and shared struggle:

It's every man for himself
That's why the black community is lackin in wealth, there's no unity
We soon to be chillin with rich white folk
And that means that we made it
Let our kids go hungry before our wardrobe is outdated

…If the system's corrupt, then change it
Fought for the right to vote, don't even use it
Forget electoral winnin
The way the world's goin, we in the ninth inning
Heh, and we still aren't up to bat
Niggas is happy just to have the rights to sit on the bench
Like floor seats is alright, and that's as far as we reach
Materialistic values, not morals, that's what we teach
I see it in the youth, hungry for fame and money
Not for knowledge and pursuit of the truth
Pick up a book or a newspaper
Take a free class in politics or human behavior

Talib Kweli and Rapsody's Every Ghetto , the 2nd track on Kweli's 2015 album Indie 500, echoes Grae's track in addressing the systematic ghettoization of the Black community under the intertwined tandem of capitalism and white supremacy. Crucially, the track challenges the often-mistaken attempt to characterize ghetto life as a monolithic existence, seemingly warning against the fetishization of the black struggle while reflecting Pac's poem of the concrete rose and highlighting the unique struggle and persistence of the Black working class. Kweli's bridge builds on Grae's Block Party narrative, celebrating the communal potential of struggling communities:

I'm good walkin' in every ghetto around the world
The hood often embrace ya when you profound with words
I say the shit they relate to, I keep it down to Earth
Other rappers sound like they hate you, them niggas sound absurd
So when they walk through the ghetto they get their chain snatched
They gotta talk to the ghetto to get their chain back
It's like an open-air prison and it remain packed
Nothin' but straight facts

Kweli's initial verse jumps directly into a layered analysis, with the first bar alone touching on chronic malnourishment, poor education, smothering crime, gentrification, and a culture of anti-consciousness:

Every ghetto, every city, like Ms. Hill
They way too used to the missed meals
Hard to concentrate, hard to sit still
Murder rate permanent place in the top 10
We live here, these hipsters drop in
You hear them barrels cockin'
They say consciousness mean a nigga ain't rugged
Until they get beat within an inch of it

Rapsody closes the track with a powerful verse, filled with structural and cultural critiques all tied to capitalism and white supremacy. Her verse is laced with innuendo in a masterful play on words as she illustrates the lived reality of generations of Black Americans who have been systematically targeted by America's settler-colonial project, pointing to everything from police terror and the destruction of the Black family unit to the false promises of individualized pursuits of wealth.

Indie 5, for the people by the people
Ya-ya, giddy up, who got the juice now?
Snatch it out your kiddies cups
The shit you gave us watered down
This one's for Basquiat
They be brushin' with death, uh
Is this The Art Of War for cops?
We double-dutchin' duckin' shots
Every home ain't got a Pops
Every man ain't sellin' rocks
A different will to win here
Different from switchin' cars
They pray that we switch our bars
To a fiend from a metaphor
Worldstar, Worldstar
Lotta love and this life hard
Keep us prayin' like "oh God"
Illegally thievery think us peelin' off easily
Frustrated we hate it
That's why we scream out "nigga we made it"
It's an odd future they ain't know we was all some creators
Somethin' from nothin' was told Kings walk and man you frontin'
For the people and by the people but them over money
I'm on my Viola Davis here, workin' for justice
How you get away with murder? Be a cop and just kill us
How we supposed to not catch feelings?
Innocent lives, boy we got kids in these buildings
I'm on my Viola Davis, it's what you call a defense
For all the drama they gave us I'm spittin' Shonda Rhimes wit
Too high for you like ganja, that's what Shonda rhyme with
I holla back in the Hamptons, you still black if you rich
Spread love ain't just the Brooklyn way, it's universal
360 and the nine lives, whoa, what a circle

"Keep it movin' on"

While systemic oppression has plagued many generations of working-class Americans, especially non-white (as noted by Grae, Kweli and Rapsody), the middle class has only begun to feel the pressure of the capitalist system. The American middle class is an anomaly in history. Its formation defied the internal mechanics of capitalism, a system that is designed to favor the privileged few who have access to enough capital to own the means of production. This anomaly was beneficial for America's capitalist class, in that it allowed for a slick rebranding of capitalism as a system of "freedom" and "liberty." For decades, the American middle class was held up as the ultimate advertisement for a system that we were told allowed for social mobility through "hard work." These fables became so strong that an entire century was spent trying to shape a benevolent form of capitalism through government intervention (Keynesianism) and a robust Welfare State. Because of its relative success, mainly due to US imperial endeavors abroad, the capitalist system was not only propped up, but it was even sold to the masses as "the only alternative." The era of neoliberalism ended all of that. As capitalism's internal mechanics were unleashed during this period, so too were its natural consequences - capital accumulation for the elites, and mass dispossession for the people.

While mainstream media outlets continue to push a tired narrative, hip hop has shed some light on the real effects of capitalism. Vinnie Paz's 2010 track Keep Movin' On provides insight into these effects, and especially how they relate to the American worker. The first verse informs us in two ways. First, Paz illustrates the workers' role in the capitalist system, which is merely to serve as a tool to be used and exploited until no longer needed. In this role, we are not considered as human beings with families, needs, and inherent rights; we are only valuable as long as we provide owners with an avenue of extracting surplus labor from us for their profit. Second, the verse specifically describes the plight of the American manufacturing worker and the demise of middle-class jobs over the past 40 years due to globalization, corporate offshoring, and free trade agreements - all elements of the proliferation of capitalism in the neoliberal era:

I lost my job at the factory and that's disastrous
They said it's due to regulation and higher taxes
They ain't give me no notice. They knocked me off my axis
I can't pay the electric bill. It's total blackness
I suggested some incentives for innovation
But that was met with resistance like it's a sin of Satan
I'm losing my patience over here. I'm sick of waiting
And I ain't never expect to be in this situation
And the manufacturing jobs are fading fast (Damn)
Can't do nothing else. I should've stayed in class
I have to wait till summertime to cut the blades of grass
I have this little bit of money. Have to make it last
I have children to feed. I have a loving wife
I had a hard time coming that was nothing nice
I keep asking myself what am I doing wrong
And they just look at me and tell me "Keep it movin' on"

"Kill my landlord"

Along with massive unemployment and underemployment, the working class is also constantly faced with insecure housing situations. Landlordism is a natural byproduct of a capitalist system which seeks to commodify basic human needs such as food, clothing, housing, and healthcare for profit. Under this system, the few who can afford to own multiple properties are allowed to exploit the many who can barely afford basic shelter for themselves and their families. Because of this, many of us go our entire lives without ever establishing a stable home environment.

As of 2017, this natural housing crisis has reached a point where it's being labeled an epidemic even by mainstream sources. As rent continues to soar , so do evictions. " As of 2015 , more than 20 million renters-more than half of all renters in the U.S.-were cost burdened, meaning they spent at least at least 30 percent of their income on rent. That's up from almost 15 million in 2001. And while rents have risen 66 percent since 2000, household incomes have only risen 35 percent." In 2015, an estimated 2.7 million Americans faced eviction. Median rent has increased by more than 70% since 1995, while wages have stagnated for almost 30 years, and jobs that pay a living wage have disappeared during this same period. Landlords will go to great lengths to throw families and children out in the streets, sometimes even for falling behind one month on rent. "A landlord can evict tenants through a formal court process," explains Matthew Desmond , "or they can choose cheaper and quicker ways" to boot the families, such as "paying them a couple of hundred dollars to vacate by the end of the week" or even by removing the front door of the home. In order to protect this for-profit housing system from total collapse, the federal government uses numerous programs to assist people, including public housing, rental assistance, and even massive tax subsidies for homeowners. Despite this, many families are cold-heartedly exploited and discarded by landlords who want nothing more than to profit off this forced, human desperation. After living such an existence, The Coup's 1993 track Kill My Landlord , which featured the less-known rap duo Elements of Change, is surely to serve as a long-standing anthem for many:

Overlord of the concrete jungle but I'm humble
As I witness my opponent crumble
Like the shack that I live in the house that I rent from him
Roach infested I'm sure that the rats are nesting
The heat doesn't work he still hasn't checked it
Disrespected me for the last time
I loaded up the nine stepping double time
Bullseye, Another point scored
Right between the eyes of my landlord

All who have relied on rental property to live can certainly relate to the undignified relationship between landlord and tenant. Like bosses, landlords exploit us as resources. And the capitalist system not only allows them the power to do this on mass scale, it actually supports their rights with force if necessary. Our collective desperation is their individual gain. And our forced dependency on them leaves us with no leverage against their power. The second verse of The Coup's classic track reflects on this slave-like existence brought on by capitalism and landlordism:

So me I'm chilling at the table with my family
Hypothetically trying hard to keep my mind off the economy
Yeah I know the reason I find it hard to pass the test
Call me a victim cause I'm another brother jobless
Every day it seems like I'm moving closer to the streets
PG&E repo'ed the lights and my fucking heat
The situation's getting hard for me to handle
Had to trade my Nike's to the store to buy some candles
Last to first and I'm a-hunted and a ho I know
The man is going to come and throw me in the cold
Tears in my eye as I'm thinking of place to stay
While I'm staring at the freebie cheese up in my plate
I heard a bang bang bang knocking at my door
I looked up it was my motherfucking landlord, let him in quick
Followed by the sheriff deputy trying to come in
Every po on my property, staring me down
Mugging hard up in my family's face
While they're sitting at the table trying to say grace
But before I make this one my last meal
Any moves, yeah I'm looking for the damn kill
I said it twice in case he didn't hear me though
Sucker made a move evidently when he hit the floor
So now I'm in cuffs for the crimes I've committed
Maybe I'll go to jail, heh, or maybe I'll get acquitted
But the fact still stands I killed my landlord dead
Now I've got three meals and a roof over my head

In the third verse, Boots Riley connects the inherent injustices of landlordism to not only capitalism, but also to European conquest and the process of primitive accumulation that allowed settler-colonists to create wealth from the Atlantic Slave Trade and Indigenous holocaust. There is an overt racial component to this process, as descendants of former slaves are still forced to depend on descendants of former slave-owners for basic needs. Recognizing the injustices and illegitimacy of this system, and seeking revolutionary change, is crucial. Boots delivers knowledge:

Cash is made in lump sums as street bums eat crumbs
So I defeat scum as I beat drums
Rum-tiddy-tum like the little drummer boy song
Here comes the landlord at the door, ding dong
Is it wrong that my momma sticks a fat-ass thong
Up his anal cavity cause he causes gravity to my family
Says we gotta pay a fee so we can stay and eat
In a house with light and heat
The bastard could get beat, stole the land from Chief Littlefeet
House is built on deceit, got no rent receipt
So I'm living in the street and I'm down now
Don't you know to not fuck with the Mau Mau?
Notice of eviction, four knuckle dental affliction
Friction, oh did I mention
You'll be finger licking as I handicap your diction
And you say you're not a criminal like Tricky Dick Nixon?
While we're fixing to impose rent control
We didn't vote on it, this land wasn't bought or sold
It was stole by your great granddaddy's ganking
Osagyefo said they call it primitive accumulation
Plantations, TV stations wealth is very stationary
I learned the game and I became a revolutionary
Scaring the corporate asses cause the masses are a loaded gun
Killing the world banking and international monetary fund
I'm done, we're done with what you've done
For twenty-five score we've got a battle cry
Kill my, kill my, kill my, kill my
Kill my, kill my, kill my, kill my landlord

While representing a main staple of capitalism, landlordism also mimics the dynamics of settler societies in that settlers gain a disproportionate amount of land ownership at the expense of the mass dispossession of native populations. In many ways, modern landlords in the US represent the traditional colonizer, often buying up property in "foreign" communities for the sole purpose of exploiting masses of renters through dispossession and forced reliance. As in the process of gentrification, landlords dispossess thousands of poor and working-class people in their never-ending pursuit for more and more property to commodify. E-Roc finishes the track strong, calling on a figurative Mau Mau rebellion to "kill" the modern version of colonizers.

I need six hundred dollars by the end of the week
My body is cold, dirty socks on my feet
Not a black sheep, but who's the creep
Trying to put me on the street while I'm trying to sleep?
I wanna kill my landlord, murder in the first degree
If there's something wrong he wants to blame me
Wants to be a threat so he carries a gun
Well I pack a 9 cause I can't trust 911
Son of a gun, I'm the one who cuts the grass
Wash the windows and he still wants me to kiss his ass
But I laugh cause America's not my home
My landlord took me away from where I belong
But it's a sad song so I face reality now
Pick up the phone and now here comes the Mau Mau
To the rescue, down with The Coup
Yo landlord, I've got a little message for you
I'm going cuckoo, fuck a machete or sword
E-Roc is on a mission to kill my landlord

How the Capitalist/Imperialist War Machine Works Against Us

On Track 7 of Immortal Technique's 2005 Bin Laden remix album, Mumia Abu-Jamal once again spits knowledge, this time providing brilliantly poetic commentary framing capitalism and imperialism as " a war versus us all ":

The war against us all
This war in Iraq isn't the end; it's the beginning of Wars to come
All around the world at the whim of the Neo-Cons in the White House
This is the Bush Doctrine come to life; War, war and more war!
War brought to you by the big corporate-masters who run the show
This isn't just a War on Iraqis or Afghanis or Arabs, or even Muslims
It is ultimately a War on us all.
That's because the billions and billions that are being spent on this War
The cost of tanks, rocketry, bullets and yes even salaries
For the 125, 000 plus troops, is money that will never be spent on;
Education, on healthcare, on the reconstruction of crumbling public housing
Or to train and place the millions of workers
Who have lost manufacturing jobs in the past three years alone
The War in Iraq is in reality; a war against the nations' workers and the poor
Who are getting less and less
While the big Defense industries and making a killing, literally.
What's next Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela?
We've already seen the corporate media
Play megaphone to the White House, to build and promote a War based on lies
War is utilized by the imperialists first and foremost, to crush internal enemies
We're seeing the truth of its insight
When we see the sad state of American education
The rush of seniors to buy affordable medications from the Canadians
Because American drugs are just too expensive
The threat of privatization of Social Security
And the wave of repression that comes with an increasing Militarized Police;
This is a War on all of us
And the struggle against War is really a struggle for a better life
For the millions of folks who are in need here in this country!
The fight against the War is really to fight for your own interest
Not the false interests of the Defense Industry
Or the corporate media or the White House
Down with the Wars for empire.

Immortal Technique's subsequent track, Bin Laden , is a masterful critique of US imperialism and the corollary effects of government control on American citizens. Written during the W. Bush administration and the Iraq War, the track touches on the fear-mongering that led to the Patriot Act, the hypocrisy of American politicians, and the CIA's dealings in the Middle East during the 1980s, which created and strengthened groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Tech begins by contrasting the lived realities of most American citizens with the artificial realities disseminated from the power structure and its calls for blind patriotic loyalty:

I pledge no allegiance, fuck the President's speeches!
I'm baptized by America and covered in leeches.
The dirty water that bleaches your soul, and your facial features.
Drowning you in propaganda that they spit through the speakers.
And if you speak about the evil that the government does.
The Patriot Act will track you to the type of your blood.
They try to frame you and say you was trying sell drugs.
And throw a federal indictment on niggas to show you love.
This shit is run by fake Christians, fake politicians.
Look at they mansions, then look at the conditions you live in.

He wraps up the first verse by summarizing US foreign policy during the 1980s, specifically referring to the substantial financial and military aid provided to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during their prolonged war against the Soviet Union. During this time, Osama Bin Laden was a US ally who was a beneficiary of much of this aid, as was Saddam.

All they talk about is terrorism on television.
They tell you to listen.
But they don't really tell you they mission.
They funded al-Qaeda.
And now they blame the Muslim religion.
Even though Bin Laden was a CIA tactician.
They gave him billions of dollars and they funded his purpose.
Fahrenheit 9/11? That's just scratching the surface!

…And of course Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons.
We sold him that shit after Ronald Reagan's election.
Mercenary contractors fighting in a new era
Corporate military banking off the war on terror.

The fact that the US government once supported and funded Bin Laden, the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein is not the main point in Tech's lyrical thesis, but rather the context that leads us into deeper analysis on US foreign policy, the military industrial complex, and the rise of Islamophobia and the War on Terror. By showing how loyalties easily sway, Tech is showing us how the purpose of US interventions abroad are not really about "protecting freedom" or "defending us." Rather, US foreign policy is a chess game played by the capitalist ruling class for the purpose of engineering and maintaining the US Empire , which in essence is serving as the forerunner and protector of the global capitalist system. So-called terrorism and "Muslim extremism" are nothing more than a manufactured fears designed to scare a sizable portion of the American public into supporting these destructive efforts abroad. Samuel Huntington's 1996 book Clash of Civilizations is often looked to as the main driver in this farce of a cultural/religious global war. In supporting Tech's message, Noam Chomsky talks about the obvious contradictions of Huntington's thesis here , as Edward Said further discredits it here . A simple search of stock reports for major weapons manufacturers over the past decade shows how profitable the "war on terror" has been. Understanding geopolitics is often as easy as following the money.

Part of Tech's second verse includes a brilliant critique of state nationalism and patriotism, illustrating how and why government and capitalist interests are not the same as the peoples' interests, despite being advertised as such. While these wars spread and intensify, most of us continue to struggle.

They say the rebels in Iraq still fight for Saddam
But that's bullshit, I'll show you why it's totally wrong
'Cause if another country invaded the hood tonight
It'd be warfare through Harlem and Washington Heights
I wouldn't be fighting for Bush or White America's dream
I'd be fighting for my people's survival and self-esteem
I wouldn't fight for racist churches from the South, my nigga
I'd be fighting to keep the occupation out, my nigga

…. 'Cause innocent people get murdered in the struggle daily
And poor people never get shit and struggle daily

In a remixed version of this track that includes hip-hop vets Chuck D and KRS-One, Tech tweaks the lyrics to this verse in order to show how the "clash of religions" narrative, as highlighted by Chomsky and Said, is falsely perpetrated:

They say that terrorism revolves around the Qur'an
But that's stupid, I'll show you why it's totally wrong
Cause if this country was invaded and crumbled
I'd turn Harlem into a Columbian jungle
And I wouldn't be fighting for a Christian nation
I'd be fighting for survival from extermination
I wouldn't fight for Fox News, them racist niggas
I'd be fighting for the hood, for the faceless niggas

Tech also addresses the hypocrisy of America's fundamentalist Christian sect, which strongly supports the Republican Party, the clash of civilizations/religion narrative, the Israeli Apartheid state, and military interventions abroad. Christian fundamentalism in the US plays an important role as a conduit to white supremacy and class warfare, as seen in its common stance against the interests of both the Black community and the immigrant community, as well as the poor and working-class communities altogether. This conduit has shown itself in the Republican Party's four-decade-long Southern Strategy and the rise of Donald Trump's presidency, which has brought with it overt elements of white supremacy, or as Tech puts it, "devils that run America like 'Birth of a Nation,' a popular white-supremacist propaganda film from 1915:

Government front religious, but their heart is empty
Like a televangelist preaching out of his Bentley
Calling abortion murder in a medical building
But don't give a fuck about bombing Iraqi children
Talking like units in the fucking libretto
Look at their mansions and look at your suburban ghetto
The gulag, the new hood where they send us to live
Cause they don't give a fuck about none of our kids
That's why Blacks and Latinos get the worst education
While devils run America like "Birth of a Nation"
Affirmative action ain't reverse discrimination
That shit is a pathetic excuse for reparations

Fake News, Structural Misinformation, and How the Ruling Class Control Politics

The notion of "fake news" has become a prominent theme in American politics due to Donald Trump's constant use of the term to explain what he views as his unfair treatment and misinterpretation by some media outlets. Ironically, the term is also being used by liberal opponents of Trump to claim that Russia had influenced the Presidential election in Trump's favor. The Washington Post even went as far as publishing a report citing "anonymous groups" to list dozens of online news sources that allegedly served as "instruments of Russian propaganda" during the 2016 Presidential race. Despite some backpedaling on the initial article (to include an editor's note and the removal of some websites from the list), liberal-leaning media outlets like the Washington Post and MSNBC have persisted with this seemingly hysterical and bizarre Russophobic angle to attempt to discredit Trump's presidency. As if Trump's personal history, business dealings, fascist rhetoric, narcissism, constant lies, and hyper-capitalist policy platform are not bad enough.

There are some very interesting points to take from this liberal narrative. One is regarding the corporate media itself, which has both perpetuated the allegations of "fake news" and been accused of delivering it. Ironically, Trump is correct in referring to these news sources as fake. But they are not fake for the reasons he claims they are fake - which is only regarding how they portray things related to him. They are fake because they ceased being news agencies decades ago. They are now part of the entertainment industry. They are concerned with ratings and advertising profit, not with delivering information to the public. Information does not sell, sensationalism does. Fox News knows this just as much as MSNBC and CNN know this. To earn profit, you need ratings. To get ratings, you need people to tune into your channel. To get people to tune into your channel, you need drama, controversy, fear, sex, shock, sensationalism; in other words, entertainment.

Another point is regarding corporate news as a de facto fourth branch of government. Often referred to throughout history as the fourth estate, media and press journalism have long been relied on to provide a valuable fourth branch of checks and balances in the US. However, as time has gone on, rather than uncovering conflicts of interest, exposing backroom deals, and delivering investigative journalism, the media in the US has become both complicit and indifferent in and to government corruption. This was never more evident than in the months leading up to the Iraq War, which according to Australian journalist John Pilger , may have never happened if journalists had done their job of uncovering truths in the face of, and in spite of, power:

"…had journalists done their job, had they questioned and investigated the propaganda instead of amplifying it, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children might be alive today; and millions might not have fled their homes; the sectarian war between Sunni and Shia might not have ignited, and the infamous Islamic State might not now exist."

Media collusion with the power structure has been a central theme to the work of Pilger, who has consistently tied the media's full institutional compliance to what is properly referred to as "the deep state" or "invisible government" through the proliferation of propaganda . This was also the main theme of Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, as well as the subsequent 1992 documentary by the same name. According to Chomsky and Herman, mass media in the US "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship , and without overt coercion." Which is to say that profit-driven news not only seeks to appease popular narratives, but also will toe the government line in return for continued access or exclusive scoops, all of which are determined by government officials.

Immortal Technique's 2003 track, The 4th Branch , fortifies the work of Pilger, Chomsky, and Herman by illustrating how the media and its propaganda serve the ruling-class narrative. Released in the aftermath of 9-11 and during the beginnings of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tech weaves multiple theses into a central theme of propaganda versus reality. The hook sums up the track:

It's like MK-ULTRA, controllin' your brain
Suggestive thinking, causing your perspective to change
They wanna rearrange the whole point of view of the ghetto
The fourth branch of the government, want us to settle
A bandanna full of glittering, generality
Fightin' for freedom and fightin' terror, but what's reality
Read about the history of the place that we live in
And stop letting corporate news tell lies to your children

The opening verse introduces us once again to Huntington's clash-of-civilizations narrative and the role of Evangelical Christians in pushing forth this narrative. Tech focuses on the moral bankruptcy of Christian fundamentalism in the US and how US foreign policy is continuously designed on a base of hypocrisy and misinformation, carried out by agents of the capitalist class:

The voice of racism preachin' the gospel is devilish
A fake church called the prophet Muhammad a terrorist
Forgetting God is not a religion, but a spiritual bond
And Jesus is the most quoted prophet in the Qu'ran
They bombed innocent people, tryin' to murder Saddam
When you gave him those chemical weapons to go to war with Iran
This is the information that they hold back from Peter Jennings
Cause Condoleezza Rice is just a new age Sally Hemings

The remainder of the first verse continues the critique on conservative ideology and Christian fundamentalism, tying them into the ultimate hypocrisies perpetrated in the founding of the United States. The miseducation that most of us are subjected to through years of formal education interplay with Tech's exposure of the public misinformation that disseminates from media sources, all of which combine to produce a hidden history of the US that is a perfectly pliable tool firmly in the hands of the ruling class:

I break it down with critical language and spiritual anguish
The Judas I hang with, the guilt of betraying Christ
You murdered and stole his religion, and painting him white
Translated in psychologically tainted philosophy
Conservative political right wing, ideology
Glued together sloppily, the blasphemy of a nation
Got my back to the wall, cause I'm facin' assassination
Guantanamo Bay, federal incarceration
How could this be, the land of the free, home of the brave
Indigenous holocaust and the home of the slaves
Corporate America, dancin' offbeat to the rhythm
You really think this country, never sponsored terrorism
Human rights violations, we continue the saga
El Savador and the contras in Nicaragua
And on top of that, you still wanna take me to prison
Just cause I won't trade humanity for patriotism

Returning to Vinnie Paz's track, Keep Movin' On, we see the experiences and views of an American soldier, handpicked from the working class to serve in illegal and immoral wars and occupations abroad. The verse touches on everything from the recruitment process and the brainwashing effects of patriotism to the gruesome effects of serving as tools of war for the capitalist ruling class :

I signed up cause they promised me some college money
I ain't the smartest motherfucker but I'm not a dummy
They told me I would be stationed in places hot and sunny
I had a lot of pride. Motherfuckers got it from me
These people over here innocent. They never harmed me
My sergeant tried to convince me that they would try to bomb me
I feel like an outsider stuck inside this army
Everybody brainwashed. American zombies
I ain't realized how much it set me back
Until I lost my leg and then they sent me back
I don't have anything now. I'm left with scraps
From a government who created AIDS, invented crack
People told me not to join. I tried to prove 'em wrong
Now I'm homeless and I'm cold without no food thas' warm
I keep asking myself, "What did I do that's wrong?"
And the government telling me, "Keep it movin' on"

Tech's closing comments on the 4th Branch summarizes the class-component that shapes the military industrial complex, a system designed to create, maintain, and protect private profit. Echoing Paz's verse on the experience of soldiers, Tech illustrates our role in this system while touching on the constant propaganda we are bombarded with, which pushes this narrative of "we," as if "we" have anything in common with the American ruling/capitalist class and their servants in mass media.

The fourth branch of the government AKA the media
Seems to now have a retirement plan for ex-military officials
As if their opinion was at all unbiased
A machine shouldn't speak for men
So shut the fuck up you mindless drone
And you know it's serious
When these same media outfits are spending millions of dollars on a PR campaign
To try to convince you they're fair and balanced
When they're some of the most ignorant, and racist people
Giving that type of mentality a safe haven
We act like we share in the spoils of war that they do
We die in wars, we don't get the contracts to make money off 'em afterwards
We don't get weapons contracts, nigga
We don't get cheap labor for our companies, nigga
We are cheap labor, nigga
Turn off the news and read, nigga
Read... read... read

Tech's final verse is powerfully connected to liberation movements of the past, echoing among other the great Irish socialist, James Connolly, and his call for international, working-class solidarity during the beginnings of World War I. In his A Continental Revolution (1914) , Connolly sums up the profit motive and class-basis of war:

"… [in war] the working class are to be sacrificed that a small clique of rulers and armament makers may sate their lust for power and their greed for wealth. Nations are to be obliterated, progress stopped, and international hatreds erected into deities to be worshipped.

… against the patriotism of capitalism - the patriotism which makes the interest of the capitalist class the supreme test of duty and right - I place the patriotism of the working class, the patriotism which judges every public act by its effect upon the fortunes of those who toil.

To me, therefore, the socialist of another country is a fellow-patriot, as the capitalist of my own country is a natural enemy."

"Fake news" is simply propaganda constructed through ruling-class channels to boost systems and cultures that support the power structure. In other words, it is the status quo. It is nothing new. It happens rather naturally, flowing from concentrations of money and power. Regarding the newfound liberal version of "fake news," the final point to consider relates to the idea of an outside influence on American politics. Long before the Russia hysteria surfaced, the American political system had been bought and sold numerous times over. To suggest that politicians from either major party ever represented the interests of American people is incredibly naïve. Campaign financing and corporate lobbying determine who wins political races and which legislation is introduced and passed in Congress. Long before Russia was accused of influencing elections, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms were proven to influence elections. Long before Trump supposedly got a boost from Putin, official US policy had been directly shaped by Israeli interests in the Middle East.

Access to oil has always determined foreign policy, access to capital for big business has always determined economic policy, and the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision has ensured that the Kochs', Soros', Gates', and Buffetts' of the world will always hold more political weight within the electoral system than 100 million voters combined, if they so choose. Whether it's Goldman Sachs, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Koch brothers, George Soros, or Putin, the American people have never had a say in what the political machine does or doesn't do. This fact renders the Trump-Russia hysteria as moot. Any real sense of US national interests has long been replaced by the global capitalist order, if they ever truly existed at all. In terms of political empowerment and self-determination for the working-class majority within the US, a foreign president is no different than any number of nameless American millionaire hedge-fund donors.

The Seamless Political Machine and the Failures of Identity Politics: From Reagan to Trump

Within electoral politics, lesser-evilism has become the dominant stance for at least half of the American population. For individual voters, the 2-party duopoly has been mostly abandoned as identifications with either party have reached near-historic lows . As of 2015, nearly half of registered voters identify as something other than Republican or Democrat. However, despite this overwhelming rejection of the 2-party system, many of these voters continue to choose what they view as the "lesser evil" in voting for candidates from one of the two major parties.

Since the Reagan administration and introduction of a seamless political machine based in neoliberalism (an intensification of capitalism), presidential administrations regardless of party have been almost indistinguishable. Despite this seamless identity that's emerged, many voters still insist on claiming differences between the two corporate parties, even if it means choosing what they view as the lesser-evil. The fact that some public radical intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Angela Davis have proposed lesser-evilism lends this direction some undue credence. However, when we step back and analyze the big picture, away from the emotions that often emerge in the heat of electoral moments, it is easy to see that lesser-evilism, as an electoral tactic embraced by the Left, has pushed the entire political system to the right over the past 40 years. Clear evidence of this shift can be seen in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, which carried forth Reagan-esque economic policy, while also gutting welfare (Clinton), facilitating mass incarceration of the Black community (Clinton), escalating US bombing campaigns (Obama), pushing historical levels of deportation of immigrants (Obama), and maintaining the attack on civil liberties that began under W. Bush (Obama). Even more evidence is the emergence of Bernie Sanders as a candidate who is viewed as being an outlier of the Democratic Party, despite an ideological identity that is consistent with run-of-the-mill liberalism of old. Yet, when compared to a Democratic Party that has clearly shifted rightward, toward more hard-line capitalist-friendly policies that have characterized the neoliberal era started by Reagan, as well as highly-destructive imperialist missions abroad, Sanders looks like a radical.

Killer Mike's 2012 track, Reagan, brings us to the start of the neoliberal era. In a social context, specifically regarding the treatment of Black communities throughout the country, the Reagan era merely picked up on hundreds of years of oppression. By implementing an official "war on drugs," this era provided the basis for what Michelle Alexander termed The New Jim Crow , in her book with the same title. It also created a new wing of the military industrial complex through the construction of an extensive for-profit prison system and widespread militarization of domestic police forces. Mike's second verse introduces us to the Reagan environment, as experienced by the Black community:

The end of the Reagan Era, I'm like 'leven, twelve, or
Old enough to understand the shit'll change forever
They declared the war on drugs like a war on terror
But what it really did was let the police terrorize whoever
But mostly black boys, but they would call us "niggers"
And lay us on our belly, while they fingers on they triggers
They boots was on our head, they dogs was on our crotches
And they would beat us up if we had diamonds on our watches
And they would take our drugs and money, as they pick our pockets
I guess that that's the privilege of policing for some profit

The intensification of American policing in poor communities of color served a bigger purpose. As Mike explains in the same verse, it bolstered the cornerstone of US economics and capitalism: free labor. As per the 13th amendment of the US Constitution , "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." In other words, the forced free labor of convicts in the US prison system is still legal. And the "war on drugs" helped to create nearly 1.3 million free laborers for mainstream corporations , as the prison population in the US grew from roughly 300,000 in 1980 to over 1.5 million in 2015 . Killer Mike touches on this:

But thanks to Reaganomics, prisons turned to profits
Cause free labor is the cornerstone of US economics
Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison
You think I am bullshitting, then read the 13th Amendment
Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits
That's why they giving drug offenders time in double digits

Mike closes the track by moving the focus from Reagan to the system, telling us that Presidents (and most politicians, for that matter) are nothing more than "employees of the country's real masters," serving capitalist interests rather than the masses of people:

Ronald Reagan was an actor, not at all a factor
Just an employee of the country's real masters
Just like the Bushes, Clinton and Obama
Just another talking head telling lies on teleprompters
If you don't believe the theory, then argue with this logic
Why did Reagan and Obama both go after Gaddafi
We invaded sovereign soil, going after oil
Taking countries is a hobby paid for by the oil lobby
Same as in Iraq, and Afghanistan
And Ahmadinejad say they coming for Iran
They only love the rich, and how they loathe the poor
If I say any more they might be at my door
(Shh..) Who the fuck is that staring in my window
Doing that surveillance on Mr. Michael Render
I'm dropping off the grid before they pump the lead
I leave you with four words: I'm glad Reagan dead

Reagan the man may be dead, but his spirit has survived in symbolic terms through the perpetuation of neoliberalism's capitalist/imperialist order. The actions of our last President, Obama, who may appear to be the polar opposite of Reagan in any superficial analysis, confirms this perpetuation. The 2015 remix, Obamanation 4 , hammers this truth home in magnificent fashion. Opening with excerpts of speeches from Malcolm X, the track sets up a premise of systemic analysis as Malcolm rails against the "international Western power structure (capitalism)," calling upon "anyone, I don't care what color you are, as long as you want to change the miserable conditions on this earth."

Echoing Killer Mike's track, M-1 (from Dead Prez) uses his verse in Obamanation 4 to expose the systemic nature of our political system, illustrating how not only the Democratic Party, but also the first Black President, equal nothing more than cogs in an imperialist machine. His analysis begins by disregarding the propaganda stemming from right-wing sources like Fox News and syndicated radio, all of which claimed Obama represented a diversion from politics-as-usual by having some mythological "radical-left-wing agenda." In reality, Obama's administration continued, and even escalated in some cases, America's imperialist endeavors abroad. M-1 flips this "right-wing propaganda" and puts it back on progressives, rhetorically asking "who you gonna blame" now that the man in charge is no longer a white Republican named Bush:

After you divorce yourself from the right wing propaganda campaign, it's all simple and plain.
America customed the game.
Your President got an African name, now who you gonna blame?
When they drop them bombs out of them planes.
Using depleted uranium, babies looking like two-headed aliens.
Follow the money trail, it leads to the criminal.
Ain't nothing subliminal to it, that's how they do it.

Continuing on this theme, M-1 pinpoints Obama as the new head of the US' global imperialist agenda, even touching on the irony of a Black man carrying out neo-colonialism with white-supremacist underpinnings. M-1's verse is not only insightful in its blanket condemnation of the 2-party machine, but also in its inherent warning about the dangers of a brand of identity politics that seeks to plug folks from historically marginalized groups into the power structure. Ultimately, to M-1, as to all radicals and revolutionaries, it's the system that drives our injustices, not the figureheads chosen to facilitate the system:

See the game they run.
Give a fuck if he's cunning, articulate, and handsome.
Afghanistan held for ransom.
By the hand of this black man, neo-colonial puppet.
White power with a black face, he said fuck it I'll do it.
…. Last stage of imperialism, I ain't kiddin.
In the immortal words of Marvin Gaye 'This ain't living.'

On the same track, Black the Ripper picks up on M-1's analysis, keeping the focus on Obama as nothing more than a figurehead of a system that must be opposed. This particular verse includes a harsh critique, deploying the house-slave mentality in describing Black figures in power, as well as their accomplices:

See it's not where you're from, it's where you're at.
He's sitting in the White House, so who cares if he's black?
And why's there still soldiers out there in Iraq?
Natural resources ain't yours, it's theirs, give it back!
You're just another puppet, but I'm not surprised
Look at Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
They didn't change shit, house nigga's fresh off the slave ship.

The Obamanation remix includes a verse from Lupe Fiasco's track, Words I Never Said. The verse fits the overall narrative perfectly, keeping focus on systemic operations. Lupe takes the analysis even further, touching on various social aspects stemming from capitalism and imperialism, most notably those which keep the American public in line, agreeable, and ignorant through a process of devalued education, fear-mongering, and mind-numbing celebrity gossip. All of this, Lupe suggests, leads to what Chomsky has referred to as "manufactured consent," which he strongly rejects:

I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullshit.
Just a poor excuse for you to use up all your bullets.
How much money does it take to really make a full clip?
9/11, building 7, did they really pull it?
Uh, and a bunch of other coverups.
Your child's future was the first to go with budget cuts.
If you think that hurts, then wait, here comes the uppercut.
The school was garbage in the first place, that's on the up and up.
Keep you at the bottom but tease you with the upper crust.
You get it, then they move it, so you never keeping up enough.
If you turn on TV, all you see's a bunch of "what the fucks."
Dude is dating so and so, blabbering 'bout such and such.
And that ain't Jersey Shore, homey, that's the news.
And these the same people supposedly telling us the truth.
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist.
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say shit.
That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either.
I'm a part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful.
And I believe in the people.

Lowkey concludes the remix with a strong verse on American imperialism, an agenda that has become indistinguishable between various Presidents and both corporate parties. He points to specific missions carried out under the Obama administration, seemingly calling to attention those who continue to portray Obama as a separation from the Bush administration. The verse serves as a prophetic warning about Syria, and nails home M-1's earlier reduction of Obama as just another "neo-colonial puppet" doing the job that every American President is called upon to do, including bombing an African country (Libya) and disposing of a leader (Gaddafi) known for promoting pan-Africanism throughout the continent:

Was the bigger threat from Osama or from Obama?
Military bases from Chagos to Okinawa.
I say things that other rappers won't say.
Cause my mind never closed like Guantanamo Bay.
Hope you didn't build a statue or tattoo your arm.
Cause the drones are still flying over Pashtunistan.
Did he defend the war? No! He extended more.
He even had the time to attempt a coup in Ecuador.
Morales and Chavez, the state's are on a hunt for ya.
Military now stationed on bases in Columbia.
Take a trip to the past and tell em I was right.
Ask Ali Abunimah or Jeremiah Wright.
Drones over Pakistan, Yemen, and Libya.
Is Obama the bomber getting ready for Syria?
First black president, the masses were hungry.
But the same president just bombed an African country.

The false hopes placed in the first Black President highlight the failures and pitfalls of identity politics, a political approach that is grounded in assimilation. This approach to social justice attempts to mold a multicultural, multi-sex, non-gender-descript power elite by simply placing individuals who identify with these hyper-marginalized groups into the existing power structure. Thus, the ultimate goal is more Black bankers, more gay landlords, more transgender politicians, more women Senators, and so on. This approach has led to the creation of what the left-wing publication Black Agenda Report (BAR) has deemed the black misleadership class in the US. Obama was the ultimate product of this class, but not the totality of it. For as long as identity politics seek to assimilate into the power structure, this class will persist, as will the formation of other such classes: the gay misleadership class, the transgender misleadership class, the women's misleadership class (Hillary), etc..., because, ultimately, the power structure does not exist to serve the people, no matter how diverse it is. Nas touches on this in his 1999 track, I Want to Talk to You , which addresses the frustrations of living under a government that does not represent:

Step up to the White House, let me in
What's my reason for being, I'm ya next of kin
And we built this motherfucker
You wanna kill me because my hunger?
Mr. America, young black niggas want ya
I wanna talk to the man, understand?
Understand this motherfuckin G-pack in my hand
Look what happened to San Fran
Young girl hit by policeman
Twelve shots up in her dome, damn
….Dissin us, discrimination different races
Tax payers pay for more jail for Black Latin faces

Coming full circle, Nas closes the track by delivering a prophetic warning against identity politics, characterizing BAR's "black misleadership class" as nothing more than "fake black leaders [who] are puppets, always talking 'bout the city budget (rather than addressing problems that plague their communities)."

What y'all waitin for the world to blow up
Before you hear this rewind this 4 minutes before we timeless
Let y'all niggas bang my shit before Saddam hits
Let Nastradamus tell us what time it is
They try to buy us with doe
Fake black leaders are puppets, always talking 'bout the city budget
The news got it all confused lyin to the public
They eyes watchin stay wise move above it
Water floods predicted, hurricanes, twisters
Its all signs of the Armageddon, three sixes
People reverse the system, politics vs. religion
Holy war, Muslim vs. Christians
Niggas in high places, they don't got the balls for this
People in power sit back and watch them slaughter us
Mr. President I assume it was negligence
The streets upside down, I'm here to represent this

Confronting the Power Structure

Modern working-class resistance is still rooted in Marx's class war analysis, whereas the proletariat (those of us who are forced to depend on our labor to survive) finds itself fighting for its collective life against the bourgeoisie (the owners of the means of production) and the layered power structure created by this economic realtionship. It is also crucially intertwined in the fights against other forms of structural oppression, including white supremacy, patriarchy, and misogyny; because, quite frankly, all forms of oppression that splinter the working class must be effectively destroyed if the working class has any hopes of overcoming the capitalist system.

In echoing Malcolm X's famous "the ballot or the bullet" speech from 1964, working-class resistance must include "action on all fronts by whatever means necessary." Since the police represent the front lines of a criminal justice system inherently designed to enforce class oppression, as well as structural white supremacy, working-class resistance must include a firm stance against not only police brutality and mass incarceration, but also against the very foundation of modern policing, which is rooted in "slave-catching" and strike-breaking. This means standing in blanket opposition to policing as an institution designed to "serve and protect" capitalist property and enforce laws created by a capitalist ruling class with capitalist interests in mind. Reflecting on the Black community's especially intense history of oppression at the hands of police, hip hop has delivered a proper analysis and call to action. From NWA's seminal track Fuck tha Police (1988) to David Banner and Tito Lo's Black Fist (2016), the armed extension of the capitalist state is consistently exposed, as it has left countless Black lives lying in its tracks with no signs of slowing. Banner and Lo's track captures the sheer anger and frustration stemming from this reality:

[Banner]

These crackers got drones. They are flying their saucers
Keep your white jesus, don't pray to your crosses
They are burning our churches, K.R.I.T. pass me the UZI
I know how to work it; I know how to Squirt it
No Martin, No Luther, No King, No Marching No choirs don't sing
The same christian lovers that raped our GrandMothers and hung our GrandFathers from trees
They are enemies!
Blood on the leaves, blood on the streets, blood on our feet
I'm sick of walking, I'm sick of dogs getting sicced on us, I'm sick of barking
I'm sick of spitting written sentences listeners don't get
Don't get, don't get, don't get!
Because they got Chains on their brains and that is not a diss

[Lo]

… I'm staying religious, cause we stay in the trenches
And gotta play where they lynch us, done came to my senses
I bet them crackas never came through my fences
Ya burn up ya cross, and I'll burn up ya corpse
Then I turn and bang and do the same to the witness
Hang 'em and dangle 'em in the street looking up at his feet
So you never forget this we did this for Martin and Malcolm, even Mandela
Jimmie Lee Jackson and then Medgar Evers
For Clyde Kennard, hard labor slaving in the yard
For Huey, for Hampton, for Bobby we GODLY
For Jordan Davis we gon' play this, for Sandra Bland we gon' stand
I'm still out here stomping, for Janaya Thompson, from the Coast to Compton

The video for Black Fist shows a series of events that encapsulate what working-class justice would look like outside the parameters of capitalism and white supremacy. This includes a people's arrest, people's trial, and subsequent execution of a police officer who was acquitted of murdering a Black teenager. The fact that this hypothetical scenario could be remotely controversial illustrates how strong we've been conditioned to equate our current system with any real sense of justice, of which there is very little if any. The environment of injustice that is bred under so-called legalities is masterfully summed up in Lauryn Hill's Mystery of Iniquity (2002):

Ya'll can't handle the truth in a courtroom of lies
Perjures the jurors
Witness despised
Crooked lawyers
False Indictments publicized
Its entertainment the arraignments
The subpoenas
High profile gladiators in bloodthirsty arenas
Enter the Dragon
Black-robe crooked-balance
Souls bought and sold and paroled for thirty talents
Court reporter catch the surface on the paper
File it in the system not acknowledged by the Maker
Swearing by the bible blatantly blasphemous
Publicly perpetrating that "In God We Trust"
Cross-examined by a master manipulator
The faster intimidator
Receiving the judge's favor
Deceiving sabers doing injury to they neighbors
For status, gratis, apparatus and legal waivers
See the bailiff
Representing security
Holding the word of God soliciting perjury
The prosecution
Political prostitution
The more money you pay.. the further away solution

…Blind leading the blind
Guilty never defined
Filthy as swine
A generation purin it's own mind
Legal extortion
Blown out of proportion
In vein deceit
The truth is obsolete
Only two positions:
Victimizer or Victim
Both end up in destruction trusting this crooked system

Running hand in hand with capitalism's version of "justice" is the underlying dominance of white supremacy. In the formation of the United States as a nation, as well as the customs, cultures, and systems we've become accustomed to during this process, white supremacy has played a formidable role. It has created an all-powerful wedge among the working class, rendering its potential limited. Its divisive message is often hidden in powerfully emotional rhetoric regarding "American values" and patriotism, all of which secretly (or not so secretly in the era of Trump) call for protecting the Eurocentrism that has systematically devalued black skin in dominant American culture. In an old-school track from 1991, Ice Cube uses brilliant analogy and powerful lyrics while condemning America's history of white supremacy and challenging the toxicity of patriotic rhetoric, concluding with the need to " kill Sam":

I wanna kill him, cause he tried to play me like the trick
But you see, I'm the wrong nigga to fuck with
I got the A to the motherfuckin K, and it's ready to rip
Slapped in my banana clip
And I'm lookin.. (lookin..)
Is he in watts, oakland, philly or brooklyn?
It seems like he got the whole country behind him
So it's sort of hard to find him
But when I do, gotta put my gat in his mouth
Pump seventeen rounds make his brains hang out
Cause the shit he did was uncalled for
Tried to fuck a brother up the ass like a small whore
And that shit ain't fly
So now I'm settin up, the ultimate drive-by
And when you hear this shit
It make the world say "damn! I wanna kill sam"

…Here's why I wanna kill the punk
Cause he tried to take a motherfuckin chunk of the funk
He came to my house, I let 'em bail in
Cause he said he was down with the l.m
He gave up a little dap
Then turned around, and pulled out a gat
I knew it was a caper
I said, "please don't kill my mother, " so he raped her
Tied me up, took me outside
And I was thrown in a big truck
And it was packed like sardines
Full of niggas, who fell for the same scheme
Took us to a place and made us work
All day and we couldn't have shit to say
Broke up the families forever
And to this day black folks can't stick together
And it's odd..
Broke us down, made us pray - to his god
And when I think about it
It make me say "damn! I wanna kill sam"

…Now in ninety-one, he wanna tax me
I remember, the son of a bitch used to axe me
And hang me by a rope til my neck snapped
Now the sneaky motherfucker wanna ban rap
And put me under dirt or concrete
But god, can see through a white sheet
Cause you the devil in drag
You can burn your cross well I'll burn your flag
Try to give me the h-I-v
So I can stop makin babies like me
And you're givin dope to my people chump
Just wait til we get over that hump
Cause yo' ass is grass cause I'mma blast
Can't bury rap, like you buried jazz
Cause we stopped bein whores, stop doin floors
So bitch you can fight your own wars
So if you see a man in red white and blue
Gettin chased by the lench mob crew
It's a man who deserves to buckle
I wanna kill sam cause he ain't my motherfuckin uncle!

Ultimately, resistance in the 21st century must focus on the inherent inequities created by the capitalist system and the corrollary social hierarchies that support these inequities. There simply is no choice but to destroy and replace this system. Gang Starr's 1998 track Robbin' Hood Theory hammers this home, urging us to "squeeze the juice out of all the suckers with power, and pour some back out so as to water the flowers." Just as reparations are needed to begin to address the history of Black enslavement in America, so too is mass working-class expropriation of the capitalist class. In realizing the illegitimacies of the wealth accumulated under this system , we must formulate bold moves toward recuperating it for all of society. Guru preaches, leaving us with our battle cry:

Now that we're getting somewhere, you know we got to give back
For the youth is the future no doubt that's right and exact
Squeeze the juice out, of all the suckers with power
And pour some back out, so as to water the flowers
This world is ours, that's why the demons are leery
It's our inheritance; this is my Robin Hood Theory... Robin Hood Theory

… They innocent, they know not what they face
While politicians save face genius minds lay to waste
If I wasn't kickin rhymes I'd be kickin down doors
Creatin social change and defendin the poor
The God's always been militant, and ready for war
We're gonna snatch up the ringleaders send em home in they drawers
But first where's the safe at? Let's make em show us
And tell em hurry up, give up the loot that they owe us
We bringin it back, around the way to our peeps
Cause times are way too deep, we know the Code of the Streets
Meet your defeat; this is my Robin Hood Theory... my Robin Hood Theory

…Necessary by all means, sort of like Malcolm
Before it's too late; I create, the best outcome
So I take this opportunity, yes to ruin the
Devilish forces fucking up my black community
And we ain't doing no more interviews
Til we get paid out the frame, like motherfucking Donahue
We're taking over radio, and wack media
Cause systematically they getting greedier and greedier
Conquering turfs with my ill organization
Takin out the man while we scan the information
You wanna rhyme you best await son
You can't even come near, if you ain't got our share
You front on us this year, consider yourself blown out of here
Yeah... by my Robin Hood Theory

Now That's a Bad Bitch!: The State of Women in Hip Hop

By Asha Layne

The state of rap music has changed since its creation in the 1970s. Starting in Bronx, New York rap was always seen as an underground subculture that deviated from the social norms and patterns of the dominant culture. It was here that the expressions of young Black and Hispanic men were freely expressed and not criticized. Rap music is a cultural art form that consists of four elements: deejaying, break dancing, rapping, and graffiti. Having its historical roots in ancient African culture traditions, rap music can also be traced to countries that were part of the African diaspora. For example, Lliane Loots indicated that two elements of hip-hop culture have their roots in Brazil and Jamaica (2003, p.67). The art of rhyming culturally stems from West African tradition of the griots or story tellers that were part of the oral tradition of African culture. The Jamaican influence on hip-hop can be located in deejaying practices referred to as dub-mixing, utilized first by Jamaican immigrant Deejay Kool Herc.

Since its inception, rap music has evolved from an underground subcultural movement to a mainstream subcultural expression that profits from the ideology of dominant culture and vice versa. Rap music during the 1970s remained national commodity until the 1980s. During this time participants in this subculture were involved directly in one of the four elements (Hunter, 2011, p.16) in which young men and women of color were rapping at parties, tagging or creating graffiti on subway cars, or breaking (Nelson, 1998). The 1980s ushered in the idea that rap music could not only be popular in the United States but also in other countries. The market for rap music increased as capitalism expanded along with the industry. With the increased popularity of the genre, media sources became the main locus for rap music to not only become more mainstream, but to also increase their purchasing power under capitalism. In order to examine the purchasing power of rap music under capitalism it is important to talk briefly of the underpinnings of capitalism.

Rap and Capitalism

Capitalism can be defined as an economic system based on private ownership with the goal of making capital or profit for the owner. Under capitalism there exists a divergent economic relation between the laboring class (proletariat) and the ruling class (capitalist). Unlike the capitalist, the laborer becomes a commodity as their labor is sold to the purchaser. According to Rousseau, the relationship between the owners of production and the workers is inherently oppressive, as the goal of the capitalist to accrue wealth from the laboring working class (2009, p.20). As the laboring class becomes increasingly objectified in the market, the state represents the instrument of class rule. The state can be seen as an instrument of power because of its production of ideological hegemony of the ruling class, which not only legitimizes exploitation but maintains the ruling class ideals as described by Antonio Gramsci. The state produces ideas that control our behavior through various forms (i.e. the media).

Manning Marable argues that the logic of the ideological apparatuses of the racist/capitalist state leads inextricably to Black accommodation and accommodation into the status quo, a process of cultural genocide which assists the function of ever-expanding capital accumulation (1983, p.9). As capitalism moved from the industrial sector to financial, and from financial/corporate to global, capitalists are continuously seeking cheap labor power and methods of exploitation; and the rap industry is not immune. This buttresses Antonio Gramsci's argument that the capitalists can assert their power and control through the subordination of the working class by means of ideological hegemony. The ideological hegemony of the ruling class, therefore, prolongs the subordination of the working class and also legitimizes the power and control of the capitalist or owner.

As hip hop grew in popularity, capitalists found new ways to assert their control and power over the industry, which became more lucrative with neoliberal policies. According to Derek Ide, rap was born from the ashes of a community devastated by a capitalistic economic system and racist government officials (2013). Ide continues to express that it was not long before corporate capitalism impinged upon the culture's sovereignty and began the historically familiar process of exploitation (2013). As hip-hop transitioned from its unadulterated underground image to mainstream adulteration, the industry began to support the capitalist ideologies which spread rapidly as profits increased with the deregulation of the market.

As the rap industry expanded, many have argued that the image and state of rap worsened as rap became a keen marketing tool for corporations. Corporate giant, Viacom, which owns Black Entertainment Television (BET), VH1, and Music Television (MTV), has been influential in disseminating controversial messages and images to its audience and critics. Felicia Lee asserts that "protestors want media companies like Viacom to develop 'universal creative standards' for video and music including prohibitions on some language and images" (2007). Achieving this level of prohibition has not happened in recent years as images of scantily clad female rappers, misogynistic lyrics, and the negative portrayals of African culture continue to be exploited. The relationship between rap artists and corporations can be paralleled to that of slavery.

Solomon Comissong explained that the 1990s saw a corporate takeover and commodification of rap, which has made the music less diversified in various media forms (2009). This change has led to changes in lyrical content, style, and fashion as artists display themselves in the best way to expand their marketing power, which is directly influenced by capitalism. The hegemonic ideologies of the ruling class have been transferred into the beats, rhymes and imagery in the rap industry as artists continue to exploit themselves and culture for economic gain.

In 2007, Forbes magazine released its first annual "Hip Hop's Wealthiest Artists" list which measured the annual earnings of rappers. As stated by Greenburg, unlike traditional music genres like pop, rock, and country, whose artists generally make their money through touring and album sales, rappers like Jay Z, 50 Cent, Kanye West, and Sean "Diddy" Combs have become entrepreneurs who have parlayed their fame into lucrative entertainment empires (Goldman and Pain, 2007). More recently, Nicki Minaj became the first documented female rapper on Forbes "Hip-Hop's Cash Kings" list since its creation in 2007. Earning an estimated $29 million in 2012, Minaj has successfully beaten many boys at their own game. But at what cost?

This paper explores how the commodification and consumption of the black female body has given rise to the "bad bitch" phenomenon in rap culture. It is argued that the effects of being a bad bitch not only changes the state of rap but also the attitudes and behaviors of young black girls, and their interactions with the opposite sex. Also, the topic of whether or not the bad bitch phenomenon is a form of deviant behavior within African-American culture will be addressed.

Bad Bitch

The word "bitch" has morphed from a term of disrespect to a term of endearment that often takes on the meaning of empowerment. Once viewed as debilitating, the term has appropriated a new perspective within a subcultural context that is perceived as a term of empowerment. In examining this change, Aoron Celious explains that the term "is located in a society where sex and power are interrelated - men afford status and privilege over women because they are men, and women are relegated to a diminished status and restricted access to resources because they are women" (2002, p.91). The change in the meaning of the word thus subverts the tools of oppression used to dominate women to now empower them. This has been seen in the frequent usage of the word by many female rappers as rap music became commercially lucrative.

Although the word historically has been a long-noted negative stereotype against women, it has only added to many stereotypical orientations for women of color. Misogynistic orientations of Black women were not separate from the historical changes in the United States - "the imagery projected in rap has its roots in the development of the capitalistic patriarchal system based on the principles of White supremacy, elitism, racism, and sexism" (Adams and Fuller, 2006, p.942). During slavery - a form of capitalism - Black women were not only exploited for their labor power but also their reproductive power. The location of Black women under capitalism therefore is dually exploitative and profitable. The patriarchal attitudes seen against Black women today can be traced back to oppressive and exploitative control methods of the state and the economy.

The images of Black women historically have served the interests of the ruling class. Adams and Fuller further assert that the images of the "Saphire" are analogous to the "Mammy" image in that they both serve the entertainment needs of Whites (2006, p.944). In rap music, the word "bitch" can be linked to the stereotypical image of the Saphire, as a woman who de-emasculates her man by running the household and being financially independent, or as a woman who simply does not know her place. This sentiment has been shared by radical feminist Jo Freeman. In Freeman's The Bitch Manifesto, the word is used to describe a woman who "rudely violates conceptions of proper sex role behavior" (Buchanan, p.12). Among Generation Y, this word has been enhanced to compliment women who are sexy, smart and independent, thus justifying and perpetuating the commodification of the Black female body.

According to Stephane Dunn, in "Baad Bitches" and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films," the term "Baad Bitches" began with the sexploitation of Black female actors in the 1970s, as well as being products of contemporary dominant culture (2008). Scallen highlights Dunn's (2010) work by referencing the following:

The "Bad Bitch" suggests a black woman from working-class roots who goes beyond the boundaries of gender in a patriarchal domain and plays the game successfully as the boys by being in charge of her own sexual representation and manipulating it for celebrity and material gain" (2010, p. 27).

The role of black women in film is strikingly similar to the rap industry in that they both lucratively exploit black sexuality in different media outlets. The image of Foxy Brown, Coffy, and Cleopatra Jones by Pam Grier embodies her super-womanhood and sexuality. Gwendolyn Pough (2004) states:

By exploiting Black women's bodies, the blaxploitation movies fall short of offering fulfilling and complete images of empowerment for Black women. However, the films do offer some interesting subversions and complications. If we really begin to critique and explore the genre, we can see the ways Black women such as Pam Grier have participated in the cultural processes of gender construction for Black women and turned some of those processes completely around. We will also be able to explore and critique contemporary reclamation of Grier's characters such as the ones offered by Foxy Brown and Lil Kim. They are bringing the big bad Black supermamas into the new millennium and using them to construct contemporary Black women's gender and sexuality (p. 67-68).

The portrayals of Black women in film, along with the music industry, have either classified Black women as Saphires, Mammys or Jezebels, also known as "hos". These various forms of imagery have continuously been accepted by White America and thus perpetuated into the social interactions and perceptions of Black women and men in the Black community. The depictions mentioned here are increasingly common as more and more consumers are not only buying, but are also emulating these negative stereotyped roles.

Black Feminist Thought

The inclusion of black feminist theory is essential in examining the exploitation of the Black female body in rap. Collins' Black Feminist Thought explains that race, gender, and class are oppressive factors that are bound together. In investigating the placement of the commodified Black female rappers in the industry, the role and location of Black women in the United States has to be examined. Since, central to this analysis, one may ask: Is the emergence of the bad bitch phenomenon foreign to the lives of Black women in this country? Collins highlights how the role of Black women always contradicted the traditional role of women in mainstream society. Collins poses the question, "if women are allegedly passive and fragile, then why are Black women treated as 'mules' and assigned heavy cleaning chores" (2000, p.11)? The placement of Black women as 'objects' and 'tools' for production has been and will always be embedded into American culture.

Black feminist thought places the standpoint of Black women at the forefront, which deviates from the general practices used under conventional feminist theories. According to Collins (2000), Black women in the United States can stimulate a distinctive consciousness concerning our own experiences and society overall (p.23-24). Collins understands this knowledge can be thoroughly attained from both women in academia and outside academia. The lyrics of some female rappers have taken a vocal stance displaying the issues and struggles faced particularly by Black women. These rappers have voiced their opinions on women's oppression in the industry as well as within their communities from the hypermasculinity of their male counterparts. For example, in Queen Latifah's U.N.I.T.Y., she writes:

But I don't want to see my kids getting beat down
By daddy smacking mommy all around
You say I'm nothing without ya, but I'm nothing with ya
This is my notice to the door, I'm not taking it no more
I'm not your personal whore, that's not what I'm here for
And nothing good gonna come to ya til you do right by me
Brother you wait and see, who you calling a bitch (1994)!!

Rap music has been used as a stage for both men and women from disadvantaged neighborhoods to express their experiences with oppression and also serve as a means for coping with that oppression. One main characteristic of oppression is the repressive nature it places on the individual that results in objectification of material wealth. Historically, the Black body has taken the form of material wealth in that it was aggressively commodified during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, especially for women. The commodification of the Black female body has changed to meet the needs of the political economy in a particular society. The "bitch phenomenon" in rap culture is no different because it has been integrated into forms of the dominant culture to serve the needs of the dominant and ruling class.

Collins argues that the domination always attempts to objectify the subordinate group in which the ideas and one's own reality is not defined by members of the subordinate group (2000, p.71). This was clearly visible in the distinction between the figures of the "Mammy" and the matriarch. The Mammy symbolized something good by the dominant group whereas the matriarchal figure was deemed bad according to the same "standards". Collins references the Patrick Moynihan's report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, in locating the thesis for Black matriarchy. She writes:

…the Black matriarchy thesis argued that African-American women failed to fulfill their traditional "womanly" duties at home contributed to the social problems in Black civil society (Moynihan 1965). Spending too much time away from home, these working mothers ostensibly could not properly supervise their children failure at school. As overly aggressive, unfeminine women, Black matriarchs allegedly emasculated their lovers and husbands (2000, p.75).

Black feminist theory reminds us to never forget how race, class, and gender are central in understanding the development of the Mammy, matriarch, and the vast appearance of the "bad bitch" phenomenon.

Data and Methods

The "bad bitch" and Black feminist thought theses could be utilized to explain the manifestation of the "bad bitch" phenomenon. The bad bitch thesis explained by Dunn and Pough is a black woman who can be successful under a patriarchal system of control by defining success for herself and how she will go about achieving it. The limitations of the bad bitch thesis are considered by Collins through the use of Black feminist theory. This expansive theory examines how the intersection of race, class, and gender serves as a form of oppression for Black women under a patriarchal system.

To answer the question of how the bad bitch phenomenon continues to increase the commodification and consumption of the black female body, a content analysis of Nicki Minaj's songs will be reviewed. Nicki Minaj's work was selected because of her being the first female rap artist to make the Forbes list since its creation in 2007. It is argued that the effect of being a "bad bitch" not only affects the state of rap but also the attitudes and behaviors of Blacks. Also, it will be important to examine whether or not the bad bitch phenomenon is a form of deviant behavior within African American culture.

Pink Friday

The mentioning of women in rap music by men has been a largely demoralizing phenomenon, at which women are referred to as "gold-diggers," trifling, bitches, and hos. While it is easy to criticize male rap artists for demoralizing Black women, female rappers have not only participated in the gender politics but have also capitalized from these stereotypes in the rap industry. Born Onika Maraj, Minaj's popularity skyrocketed in 2010, with the releases of several mixtapes: Playtime is Over, Sucka Free, and Beam Me up Scotty, before her first major album Pink Friday in 2010. According to Caulfield, Minaj scored her second number one album on the Billboard 200 Chart in 2012 following the release of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded with the hit single "Starships" (2012). Upon her growing album sales, Minaj's popularity further increased with various collaborations that widened her notoriety to other areas of music, beyond rap. In analyzing the content of Nicki Minaj's songs, the following themes appeared: reclamation of the words "bitch" and "ho"; female independence; and female masculinity.

Reclamation of the Words Bitch and Ho

One significant difference seen between male and female rappers is the usage of the words "bitch" and "ho". Despite the negative, literal meaning of the words, Minaj has used them to demand attention from her competitors. In her controversial song Stupid Ho, Minaj allegedly addresses fellow female rappers in the same misogynistic form of disrespect typically reserved for male rappers. In the song, she writes:

Bitch talking she the queen, when she looking like a lab rat
I'm Angelina, you Jennifer
Come on bitch, you see where Brad at
Ice my wrists and I piss on bitches
You can suck my diznik if you take this jizzes
You don't like them disses, give my ass some kisses
Yeah they know what this is, giving this the business
Cause I pull up and I'm stuntin' but I ain't a stuntman
Yes I'm rockin' Jordans but I ain't a jumpman
Bitches play the back cause they know I'm the front man
Put me on the dollar cause I'm who they trust in
Ayo SB, what's the fucks good?
We ship platinum, them bitches are shipping wood
Them nappy headed hoes but my kitchen good
I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish
A bitch would (2012).

In this example, the word "bitch" is used as: a form of address, form of disrespect; and distinction. Above, the word "bitch" is metaphorically used to address her competitors in a disrespectful manner traditionally used by male rappers to address women. It becomes self-evident that she is not on the same level as her competitors and refers to them in an unattractive manner as, "nappy headed hoes." The labeling of her female competitors as "nappy headed hoes" is even more destructive than the words bitch and ho, in that it brings about a new area of concern, which is beauty.

Female Independence

The establishment of female independence in rap has taken many forms. Black female identity by male rap artists has helped generate negative stereotypes of the Black female body or a male objectifying the female body. Female independence could also be seen as a woman objectifying her own body and image to gain financial independence. In her song Blow Ya Mind, Minaj writes:

She said her name is Nicki
She came to play and her body was sicken
She gets what she wants, so sexy when she talks
Oh, you know she gon' blow your mind
Okay, Nicki
Did these bitches fall and bump their little heads
I got 'em like, oh, which one of them I'ma dead
'Cause when they get sick, they start to cough bread
Body looks right, plus we crop heads
The Rolls Royce Phantom, yeah, the drop head
And that just goes to show I'm that bitch
I 26'inched the rims with black lips
Now this is the anthem, this is the anthem (x2)
In-ear, in-ear, all in your in-ear
Boy, I put this pussy on your chinny, chin, chin hair (2011).

In the above lyrics, Minaj demonstrates that her body allows her to get what she wants, which (according to her) makes her unique. Self-sexual exploitation can be seen here as a method in gaining financial freedom from the traditional methods.

Female Masculinity

The use of masculine rhetoric has been used by rap artists since the days of "battling", or battle rap, to gain popularity and to command respect from their fellow artists. The machismo attitude in rap music has been denoted by images of male rappers "acting hard", and having multiple women and material possessions, which have been expressed through misogynistic imagery and lyrics. However, female rappers have utilized this macho image as a tool of female empowerment despite its negative imagery. Nicki Minaj has continuously utilized masculine rhetoric in her lyrics as an act of empowerment which implies that, just like men, women could also be violent-so don't mess with me or else. In the song, I am your Leader Minaj writes:

Look sucker, this my gun butter
Street fighter bitches, this Is the up cutter
Nunchucka,' no time to ducka'
Sign of the cross, cause this is her last suppa'
Play with me, check who came with me
I brought a couple 9's, plus the k's with me
I breeze through Queens to check some bad bitches
I stunt so hard, assess the damage
Cause this that aw, this is that aw
And yes I body bitches go get the bandages
I hate a phony bitch that front that chunk chummy
I'm the top shotta' drop the top toppa
Big fat pussy with a icy watch (2012).

The aforementioned lyrics demonstrate how female rappers have perpetuated the repressive and oppressive nature of women in hip hop. It is important to note that the usage of negatively degrading words against women by women carries more weight and meaning. Within the subcultural context of rap, women disrespecting other women in the same manner as men solidify their "street" credibility therefore perpetuating the cultural acceptance of misogynistic lyrics, regardless of the gender of the artist.

Justifying the Commodification of a Bad Bitch

The role of female rappers in the rap industry has been manipulated to justify ongoing exploitation and repression of Black women. Examining the lyrical content alone does not clearly illustrate the role the media plays in justifying the commodification of a "bad bitch". Following the lyrical trend and imagery of female rappers in the industry, it is strikingly evident that the sexploitation of women has become more lucrative, thus legitimizing the bad bitch phenomenon. In making this connection, it is imperative to recognize how forms of media serve as tools of oppression by reproducing ideological hegemony. Gramsci saw that the ruling class maintained their power not by coercive actions, but through hegemony at which the ruled would accept the norms, belief systems, and culture of the ruling class without challenge.

The media, like the family, serve as an agent of socialization. Mass media is seen as a powerful agent of socialization in that it has been, and continues to be, used to manipulate the consciousness of others. For example, consumer research has shown that there is a correlation between mass media and the attitudes of consumers. In terms of music, Viacom Inc. owns the controlling interests of MTV, VH1, and BET. As a result, the interests of Viacom are not reflective of the 'ruled' class, but instead of the ruling class; which uses its platform to maintain its hegemonic control. The raunchy lyrics and depiction of female rapper Nick Minaj is largely supported by these capital investors who are benefiting off of an alternate form of labor: self-sexploitation.

The media is a tool of oppression that justifies and perpetuates the negative stereotypes of Black women. Therefore, support and acceptance of these negative stereotypes is measured lucratively by media giants. The three factors discussed: reclamation of the words "bitch" and "ho"; female independence; and female masculinity have been repackaged and sold to consumers in today's market. The popularity of mainstream rapper Nicki Minaj not only demonstrates cultural acceptance of the thesis of a bad bitch but approves of the notion that self exploitation and objectification is justified because women are defining it for themselves within a male-dominated framework.

Conclusion

The placement of Black women in the history of the United States has always deviated from the norms and standards of dominant culture. Black women's bodies have been both criticized and exploited by Whites for economic gains. These stereotypes have created images of Saphires, Jezebels, and the Mammy, which further pushed Black women's intelligence onto the periphery while mass media has largely capitalized on body and cultural images. The mainstream representation of these stereotypes, especially the Saphire or bad bitch, revisits how Black women have always been exploited and oppressed.

Attributes of the bad bitch phenomenon are not exclusive to Generation Y but can be traced back to sassy images and roles Black women coveted. The rap industry has served as a new locus for this type of Black female to dominate in. Adopting the bad bitch persona not only gives Black women the opportunity to survive economically and socially in a Eurocentric male-dominated society, but also provides them the freedom to assert their power under their own rules without apology. This essay indicates that the adoption and commercialization of the bad bitch phenomenon are not foreign to the history of the Black female body. One important difference is the rise in self-exploitation by Black women in the industry to attain money, power, and respect that is indicative of the transferring of a Eurocentric-based ideological hegemony onto an oppressed subcultural group.

References

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Ide, D. (2013, June). How capitalism underdeveloped hip hop: A people's history of political rap (part 1 of 2). Social Movement Studies Analysis. Retrieved November 24, 2013 from http://www.hamptoninstitution.com.

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Marable, M. (1983). How capitalism underdeveloped black America: Problems in race, political economy, and society. Boston, MA: South End Pres.

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Nicki Minaj (2011). Blow ya mind on All Pink Everything [CD]. MTC Records.

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Pough, G. (2004). Check it while I wreck it: Black womanhood, hip-hop culture and the public sphere. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.

Queen Latifah (1994). U.N.I.T.Y. on Black Reign [CD]. Motown Records.

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How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of Political Rap (Part 2 of 2)

By Derek Ide

Disclaimer: The language expressed in this article is an uncensored reflection of the views of the artists as they so chose to speak and express themselves. Censoring their words would do injustice to the freedom of expression and political content this article intends to explore. Therefore, some of the language appearing below may be offensive to personal, cultural, or political sensibilities.

Read Part 1 here.

West Coast Projects, the Rise of Gangsta Rap, and Congress's War on the Youth

Gangsta Rap burst forth in its nascent form in the late 1980's in the heart of Los Angeles. To comprehend how this subgenre of rap developed, however, the ruthless conditions which originally produced the gang epidemic must be recognized. Institutionalized racial segregation, economic deprivation, and social degradation, enforced by hegemonic government and business structures, had historically plagued communities of color in the area and produced a distinct history which would give rise in the 1980's to a prodigious spike in gang activity and violence. Historically marginalized groups would be pitted against one another in despondent economic conditions and forced to compete amongst themselves for the paltry scraps that fell from society's table. Government departments, banking agencies, and the real estate industry would play into the game of get-rich-quick racial segregation. Redlining, the practice of denying or increasing costs of housing and insurance to economically segregate communities along racial lines, played a fundamental role in the homogenous racial composition of west coast urban areas. In 1938, the Federal Housing Administration released an underwriting manual which all lenders were forced to read, explaining that areas should be investigated in order to determine "the probability of the location being invaded" by "incompatible racial and social groups" and, more importantly, that for a "neighborhood is to retain stability" it must "be occupied by the same social and racial classes" because a change in these would lead to "instability and a decline in values." [1] Some entrepreneurs "figured out how to hustle racial fear" [2] by buying at low prices from whites fleeing their homes and selling to blacks at prices significantly higher than market level. This effectively kept blacks and whites segregated into different neighborhoods.

After World War II, public housing projects were constructed, giving Watts the highest concentration of public housing on the West Coast. [3] Combined with this historic segregation, the 1980s brought with it "deindustrialization, devolution, Cold War adventurism, the drug trade, gang structures and rivalries, arms profiteering, and police brutality" which would combine to "destabilize poor communities and alienate massive numbers of youth." [4] In the same decade 131 manufacturing plants closed their doors, Los Angeles's official unemployment was at 11 percent in 1983 and in South Central youth unemployment was over 50 percent, one quarter of Blacks and Latinos lived below the poverty line, and living conditions had drastically declined. [5] Even when gangs attempted to make peace and establish long-standing treaties with one another, no infrastructure was in place to maintain stable communities with jobs and social services. In fact, when the leaders from seven rival gangs called a truce and marched to City Hall to request funding for social services, they were told they could apply for a paltry $500 grant. [6] This denial was on top of the conservative economic agenda dominating the political domain at the time which had already cut spending on subsidized housing by 82 percent, job training and employment by 63 percent, and community service and development programs by 40 percent from post-World War II era progressive spending policies. [7]

It was within these conditions that by the 1980s, after the dismantling of political organizations such as the Black Panthers and Young Lords, 155 gangs would claim over 30,000 members across the city. [8] Gangsta rap, as it was labeled, would attempt to articulate, and in some instances glorify, the street life so common in Los Angeles. Immortal Technique points out that a "factoid of information probably purposely forgotten through the years is that before it was labeled 'Gangsta Rap' by the industry itself it was called 'Reality Rap' by those individuals that created it." [9] Political prisoner and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal explains that the music was spawned by young people whom felt "that they are at best tolerated in schools, feared on the streets, and almost inevitably destined for the hell holes of prison. They grew up hungry, hated and unloved. And this is the psychic fuel that seems to generate the anger that seems endemic in much of the music and poetry." [10] This anger would shine through on tracks such as "Straight Outta Compton" by N.W.A., where rapper Ice Cube explains that he's "From the gang called Niggaz With Attitudes" and "When I'm called off, I got a sawed off, squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off!" [11]

Their rhymes signified a shift from the revolutionary programs set forth by previous political rappers and instead focused on a complete self-indulgence in instant gratification; drugs, women, the murder of enemies and assassination of police, everything was fair game. It was N.W.A.'s track entitled "Fuck tha Police," released in 1988, which garnered national media attention. The rather prophetic song would become a universal slogan in ghetto communities just four years later with the police beating of Rodney King and subsequent urban uprisings. Disgusted with the police brutality they witnessed regularly, N.W.A. would take up the issue, not politically, but with an individual vengeance and wrath previously unmatched. Beginning with fictitious court hearing in which "Judge Dre" would preside "in the case of NWA versus the police department," the "prosecuting attorneys" MC Ren, Ice Cube, and Eazy E would each lay out their case against the Los Angeles Police Department. Ice Cube's opening lines, brimming with unparalleled virulence, would set the tone: "Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground, young nigga got it bad cuz I'm brown, and not the other color so police think, they have the authority to kill a minority." Reminiscent of Paris's earlier fantastical verbal assassination of President Bush, MC Ren would warn police "not to step in my path" because "Ren's gonna blast," and, turning the tables, he confidently proclaims his hatred towards the police "with authority, because the niggas on the street is a majority." Eazy E finishes the last verse, emphasizing that fact that cops should not be perceived as immune to violent resistance: "Without a gun and a badge, what do ya got? A sucka in a uniform waitin' to get shot." [12] The controversy revolving around this song would push the album it was featured on, Straight Outta Compton, to double platinum status. By June of 1989, the right-wing backlash against N.W.A. would be front page news, an entertainment manifestation of the "War on Gangs" which L.A. Police Chief Darryl Gates had already brought to South Central.

The atmosphere of late 1980's was dictated by punitive measures explicitly directed at youth and relentless attacks on youth culture. The Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act was passed in 1988 and enhanced punishments for "gang-related offenses," created "new categories of gang crimes," and gave up to three years in state prison for even claiming gang membership. [13] This piece of legislation had profoundly harmful repercussions for youth who identified with, or even may have displayed certain characteristics of, being involved with a gang; police considered any combination of two of the following examples to constitute gang membership: "slang, clothing of a particular color, pagers, hairstyles, or jewelry." [14] Within a decade most major cities and at least nineteen states had similar laws. [15] The crossover into what became a congressional attack on Gangsta rap was facilitated by opportunistic politicians who pounced excitedly on the chance:

Tipper Gore, the wife of former vice president Al Gore, and Susan Baker, the wife of Bush's former campaign manager, James Baker, formed Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) which called for, and received, a congressional hearing on record labeling. Every song listed by the PMRC and presented at the congressional hearing as being too explicit and obscene and in need of censorship labeling was done by a Black artist. [16]

While politicians and networks of Christian fundamentalist groups had already begun anti-hip-hop campaigns under a guise of protecting morality, what Thompson labeled the "cultural civil war," [17] it was failed liberal politician and head of the National Political Congress of Black Women, C. Delores Tucker, who spearheaded the congressional war on Gangsta rap. Teaming up with cultural conservatives, Tucker, through a façade of feminism and racial pride, organized a concerted campaign against rap in order to push through legislation that strengthened juvenile-crime laws and crackdowns on youth. Inverting cause and effect, she argued that the hip-hop generation would become internalized "with the violence glorified in gangster rap" and that rap music created a "social time bomb" which would "trigger a crime wave of epidemic proportions," only to be stopped by smothering the cultural and musical developments of ghetto youth. [18]

Among some of her chief targets was Tupac Shakur (2Pac), who was not quiet in his opposition to Tucker and her political opportunism. Tupac, staying true to his roots on "Nothin' But Love," outlines the composition of his family tree as one of "Panthers, pimps, pushers, and thugs;" [19] this unique mixture helped him to articulate a conception of the rebellious ghetto lifestyle blended with the legacy of black struggle into what he termed "Thug Life." An acronym, which stood for "The Hate U Gave Little Infants Fucks Everybody," [20] his idea of "Thug Life" was a "new kind of Black Power" [21] that young black males were forced to live through:

These white folks see us as thugs, I don't care if you a lawyer, a man, an 'African-American,' if you whatever…you think you are, we thugs and niggas [to them]…and until we own some shit, I'ma call it like it is. How you gonna be a man when we starving?... How we gonna be African-Americans if we all need a gun? [22]

Tupac, whose mother Afeni Shakur was a prominent Black Panther and political activist, would utilize his connections with the streets and balance his music with historical connections to political organizers such as Huey Newton and chilling urban tales of despondent situations such as the fictitious tale of the teenage mother Brenda and the ever-present black-on-black violence. Through this unification of social commentator and street participant, Tupac would authenticate his image to millions of youth, black and white alike. Tupac's response to Tucker's critique of the lyrical content of his music was redolent of Chuck D's interpretation of rappers as journalists who help to show the world the gruesome reality of urban street life; as he argued, "I have not brought violence to you. I have not brought Thug Life to America. I didn't create Thug Life. I diagnosed it." [23]

Furthermore, according to Dyson, the attempt to suppress "gangsta rap's troubling expressions" is manipulated for "narrow political ends" that fail to "critically engage…artists and the provocative issues they address." [24] While dialogue concerning rampant homophobia, sexism, and other dehumanizing aspects of certain rap artists should be challenged, it should be done so in a way that does not alienate and isolate, but engages and allows for the artist to transcend both actions that reflect the dominant ideology and the use of oppressive language. Rapper and activist Son of Nun summarizes his position:

Some real rappers spit truth every night, but say stupid shit when it comes to gay rights. They talk about the Panthers, but they never knew that Huey woulda' called their asses out for what they do…So, in my music, I try not to call out specific emcees…[because] I realize that I have more in common with them, then I'll ever have in common with the label head or the corporate people putting that music out… [Despite sexist or homophobic remarks] when you read the interview and listen to some lyrics, you'll see that there's a revolutionary consciousness that's there at the same time…and I'd rather see those brothers as my comrades whom I can build with, as opposed to people I need to chop down and diss… [25]

This extension of the right-wing economic attack on working class and poor youth into the cultural realm, as exemplified by politicians like Tucker, should not be viewed in isolation from the larger historical trends occurring at the same time; it operated within a certain political economy and aided the perpetuation the dominant ideology required in order to push through neoliberal economic policies.

The mental framework in which Gangsta rap functions is articulated by Immortal Technique, drawing on the theoretical contributions to education outlined in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, he explains, "Our youth and young adults see these gangstas and other ruthless men [famous gangsters, drug kingpins, etc.] as powerful beyond the scope of a government that holds them prisoner. People emulate their oppressor and worship those that defy him openly." [26] This does not, however, mean that Gangsta rap is devoid of a political foundation or that it should be ostracized by the Hip-hop community. As Dyson argues, "While rappers like N.W.A. perform an invaluable service by rapping in poignant and realistic terms about urban underclass existence, they must be challenged…[to understand] that description alone is insufficient to address the crises of black urban life." [27] Thus, this fusion of gangster and rebel, a sort of misguided revolutionary, groping in the darkness of urban decay and abandonment for a way to challenge oppressive, hegemonic institutions, finds its musical expression in the West Coast rap scene. Today, gangsta rap has spread far beyond the streets of L.A. and into every neighborhood, ghetto, suburb, country, to every corner of the world. The rebellious, gangster appeal, devoid of social content and reality, continues to be marketed on every street corner; a sort of "manufactured, corporate bought thug image" is pushed to the youth while "the Revolutionary element is for the most part completely sanitized by the corporate structure."[28]

Corporate Consolidation and the Telecommunications Act

This rejection of the revolutionary and embrace of the thug caricature so common in contemporary hip-hop is, in large part, a result of corporate monopolization of radio airwaves and dismantling of independent record labels. For years, questions concerning rap's viability as a musical genre and it's viability as a pop music sensation surrounded the relatively young art. Industry executives looked upon rap with disdain, viewing it as a niche market unsuitable for broad consumption. This allowed the genre to slip under corporate radar and maintain a sense of independence from major pop labels for a significant period of time. After the innovative development in 1991 of SoundScan that utilized bar-code recording to garner hard data on music sales and replaced the previous "archaic method" which had relied on the retail personnel who compiled weekly, subjective reports of sales trends "open to interpretation," [29] rap was found to have a much broader appeal than originally thought. With this new, more objective methodology of measuring music consumption, rap jumped from the relative obscurity of being a subcultural phenomenon to a major competitor with rock and pop music on the Billboard charts. [30] The "underreporting of rap was a result of long-standing cultural sensibilities and racial assumptions" [31] on the part of retail personnel. Subsequently, industry executives who still may have "harbored ill feelings toward the genre" could no longer "ignore the sales data SoundScan provided…[or] the huge financial payoff it offered." [32] As hip hop observer and critic Craig Watkins explains, "In an industry that had long ago sold its soul to the guardians of capitalism, the commercial compulsions that operate among culture industry executives are a powerful force." [33] The music, however, would have to be tamed considerably.

These commercial compulsions galvanized industry executives to tighten their stranglehold on rap music. In order to protect their status within the capitalist framework and pop music industry, executives were forced to marginalize and reject progressive, dissident, revolutionary, socialist, or any other form of independent and autonomous rap that may present a systemic critique of the established relations of power in society. Corporate hip-hop, as exemplified with the rise of rappers like 50 Cent in 2003, "rested almost entirely on its ability to sell black death" where "guns, gangsterism, and ghetto authenticity brought an aura of celebrity and glamour to the grim yet fabulously hyped portraits of ghetto life." [34] Statistics are not conclusive, but Mediamark Research Inc. estimates that whites constitute around sixty percent of the consumer market for rap in the United States. [35] Other sources, such as Def Jam CEO Russell Simmons, place the number somewhere closer to eighty percent. [36] Regardless, it is obvious that hip-hop is not an exclusively black culture; the composition of the consumer market facilitates a sort of "cultural tourism" where a "staged authenticity" [37] filled with racial stereotypes of black culture can be marketed to white youth.

Corporate consolidation of media outlets has galvanized this process of promoting a certain image of ghetto youth while downplaying the revolutionary or counter-hegemonic sentiments expressed in the music. Major labels and corporate conglomerates have very little interest in promoting artists who question capitalism or the free market fundamentalism. After all, it was that very system which originally granted them the ability to garner the enormous capital required to build their constantly expanding media empire. Immortal Technique articulates this concept:

The hood is not stupid, we know the mathematics / I make double what I would going gold on Atlantic / 'Cause EMI, Sony, BMG, Interscope / Would never sign a rapper with the white house in his scope / They push pop music like a religion / Anorexic celebrity driven / Financial fantasy fiction. [38]

Without an understanding of the significant role that major media outlets play in promoting a specific paradigm, especially in the case of a popular musical juggernaut such as rap, the rise of the glorified, gangster image cannot be concretely analyzed. Chang comments that "a lot of times people will talk about 50 Cent, but they won't talk about the structures that have made a 50 Cent possible." [39] The structures Chang refers to are multifaceted, and include broad neoliberal market deregulations that, since the 1970s, allowed for massive corporate takeovers of independent record labels and a consolidation of radio and other media outlets. For instance, by 2000, five companies - Vivendi Universal, Sony, AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann, and EMI - dominated eighty percent of the music industry. [40] One act in particular, however, the Telecommunications Act passed by Congress in 1996, presented "a landmark of deregulation," a "legal codification of the pro-media monopoly stance" that allowed the free market to shift power "decisively in the direction of the media monopolies." [41] The passage of this act had a percussive impact on the artists' creative control over their music.

The Telecommunications Act relaxed ownership limits over radio and television for corporate entities, essentially creating fewer corporate conglomerates with concentrated control over various media outlets. Congress ostensibly passed the act under the tenuous postulation that "a deregulated marketplace would best serve the public interest." [42] As to be expected, its passage spurred a rapid absorption of smaller, local radio stations into the hands of large, already established companies such as Clear Channel,[43] Cumulus, Citadel, and Viacom. [44] The result was that hundreds of jobs were decimated, community programming was abandoned, and radio playlists became standardized across the country. [45] For a stations like KMEL-FM in the Bay Area, whom prided themselves on being a "people's station" by engaging in social issues affecting the San Francisco community, this meant being bought out and merged with competing stations; playlists became nearly identical, specialty shows were cut, local personalities were fired, and local or underground artists "unable to compete with six-figure major label marketing budgets" were left without a venue. [46] Artists like Binary Star, who challenged the gangster caricature, would become, even more than before, systematically excluded by these corporate structures. Rhymes, such as those displayed on one of Binary Star's most well-known tracks "Honest Expression," [47] would be consistently ostracized from airplay.

Conglomerates like Clear Channel, unlike locally controlled radio, had no community affairs department to foster dialogue or promote local artists with fresh sounds or unique lyrics. [48] Companies downsized to maximize profits and regional programmers overtook local ones, signifying a further shift from local interests of listeners. [49] The ever-present need to increase profitability also galvanized some stations to replace live disc jockeys with prerecorded announcers who would create localized sound bites and patch together entire shows based upon a master copy that was filtered down through regional and local distributors; [50] radio truly became top-down. Subsequently, the public sphere in which artists could contest the image of the apolitical gangster or socially devoid party-goer shrunk rapidly. Corporate rap became a medium through which content was filtered and sterilized while dissident voices were marginalized or shut out completely. Even political rap was reworked into a specific consumer niche; "defanged as 'conscious rap,' and retooled as an alternative hip-hop lifestyle," the prefix became "industry shorthand for reaching a certain kind of market" instead of an authentic, organic title. [51]

Thus, as is the trend in a capitalist society where the "market...does not assure that all relevant views will be heard, but only those that are advocated by the rich [and can market a product of mass appeal that will attract advertisers, which dominate the programming message]," the Telecommunications Act has had profoundly negative implications upon hip-hop's autonomy and ensured that the media landscape was "dominated by those who are economically powerful."[52] Likewise, the prodigious increase in corporate consolidation facilitated the process by which consumption could be artificially managed and manipulated by the "mass media's capacity to convey imagery and information across vast areas to ensure a production of demand." [53] Therefore, the exclusion of particular forms of musical expression, especially those deemed political or controversial, are replaced with corporate-driven, marketed images of young black males adhering to a socially constructed thug stereotype. Fokami explains:

Corporations which dominate the media, have heavily marketed (to influence consumer demand), produced and perpetuated, the gangsta image by, among other things, playing gangsta rap lyrics, almost to the exclusion of other alternative voices that would contest such lyrics or image... The Act has made it virtually impossible for alternative voices in rap (either by the gangsta rappers themselves through their alternative "positive" tracks or by other "positive" rap artists) to be heard on the radio, since corporate conglomerates are less concerned with diversity in ideas but in meeting market created consumer demand for such lyrics. [54]

Thus, while congressional attacks were pummeling rap music for degrading lyrical content and demeaning music videos, the same politicians were simultaneously passing laws which facilitated the crystallization of apolitical, socially devoid gangsta rap into mainstream pop culture. This apparently blatant contradiction is, when viewed in the context of the capitalist state, much more consistent than at first glance; the political establishment sought to promote corporate consolidation and media monopolization, thus limiting public space for dialogue and debate in the hip-hop community, which, in turn, allowed them to pursue a the preferable path of blaming the victims for society's woes. Avoiding an uncomfortable and possibly incriminating dialectical analysis which would address the root cause, namely the dominant political and economic system, that perpetuates many of the social blights expressed in rap music, politicians attack the youth, and especially Black and Latino youth, for problems that plagued urban communities long before rap music hit the scene.

Bursting Onto the Mainstream Scene and Contemporary Political Rap

Hip-hop stepped forward into the mainstream political establishment in 2004 when it had a brief, rather superficial media campaign targeting youth voters. Rap mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs used hip-hop as a platform to organize a campaign under the sensationalist title "Vote or Die" as an attempt to register younger voters, garner youth participation, and generate excitement about the elections. While registering voters was only a marginal success, [55] it was clear the goals were decidedly apolitical with little actual political motivation for urban youth who, for years, had felt alienated from mainstream political discourse. The two candidates put forward by America's ruling elites, George Bush and John Kerry, had platforms so similar it was challenging to generate enough interest for young people to mobilize within the context of the two-party duopoly. Four years later, however, hip-hop would emerge as an unimaginably powerful advertisement for Barack Obama. His 2008 campaign sparked immense interest within the hip-hop community and debate flourished over whether or not hip-hop should stand behind Obama. It was little more than a decade prior that Tupac hopelessly exclaimed "although it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready, to see a Black president" on the song "Changes." [56] Now, energized by a candidate whom, for the first time, they felt would reach out to the hip-hop generation, many artists, such as Jay-Z, took center stage in fundraising concerts and spoke proudly of their involvement in his campaign. Nas, one of hip-hops "most brilliant orators" [57] whose own political trajectory involved going from conscious gangster with his first album Illmatic (1994) to passionate revolutionary with his latest release Untitled (2008), "captures the gambit of fears, hopes and doubts that swirl together in the consciousness" [58] of the black community on the track "Black President:"

KKK is like "what the fuck," loadin' they guns up / Loadin' mine too, ready to ride / Cause I'm ridin' with my crew / He dies--we die too / But on a positive side / I think Obama provides hope and challenges minds / Of all races and colors to erase the hate / And try and love one another, so many political snakes / We in need of a break / I'm thinkin' I can trust this brotha / But will he keep it way real? / Every innocent nigga in jail gets out on appeal / When he wins--will he really care still? [59]

Nas is not alone in his critical support for Obama; Mary J. Blige and rapper Big Boi from Outkast compose a song of solidarity for the working class and poor in "Something's Gotta Give," which challenges Obama to truly listen to the concerns and pressures of urban communities while earnestly calling for desperately needed social change. Big Boi articulates his working class consciousness when he rhymes, "You know the common folk, blue collar, day-to-day workers that squeeze a dollar / so maybe they can swallow a little, not a lot, just enough to fill that bottle / But it's a million dollars a gallon for gas to get to work tomorrow." [60] Unapologetically political, well-known artists creatively maneuvered political dialogue and discussion into the mainstream discourse.

Still, these odes to Obama were able to push through corporate outlets partly because their content and message remained safely within the established political borders. Obama, after all, garnered large support from many of the capitalist classes ruling elites, whom viewed the Republicans eight-year run as disastrous for the United State's economic power and image abroad. Despite this brief stint within mainstream circles, political hip-hop did not begin, and it will not end, with Obama. Radical hip-hop and revolutionary artists like Immortal Technique, Dead Prez, Paris, Lupe Fiasco, Son of Nun, and an innumerable amount of other artists remain marginalized and embroiled in the struggle to spread their message in the face of a competitive, cut-throat jungle of corporate conglomerates and consolidated, top-down radio. Often, hip-hop artists formulate unique narratives or relay stunningly academic critiques of society that tie together seemingly separate issues and help the listener foster a more critical, holistic analysis of larger societal forces.

On his latest single, "3rd World," Immortal Technique utilizes a percussive, hard-hitting instrumental produced by DJ Green Lantern to expose U.S. imperialism and militarism across the globe, brilliantly explicating on the concept of contemporary war as a natural outgrowth of capitalism. Born in Peru and representing his "Third World" roots, Technique explains that he is:

From where the only place democracy's acceptable, is if America's candidate is electable… from where they overthrow Democratic leaders, not for the people but for the Wall Street journal readers… So I'ma start a global riot, that not even your fake anti-Communist dictators can keep quiet!

On "Ghetto Manifesto," The Coup humorously outline ghetto conditions, sardonically utilizing hip-hop lingo to emphasize their point, "Got a house arrest anklet but it don't bling bling, got a homie with a cell but that shit don't ring!" Later, they put out a call for organization and mobilization, explaining "even renowned historians have found that, the people only bounce back when they pound back." They simultaneously challenge nationalist ideology, "the trees we got lifted by made our feet dangle, so when I say burn one I mean the Star-Spangled." A plethora of underground and independent rap artists express similar themes which address the need for autonomous political organization and present alternative, more humane visions for society.

Hip-Hop at a Crossroads: Conditions Today and Where Do We Go From Here?

Hip-hop was cultivated in the streets as an innovative response of urban minorities, traditionally marginalized by dominant political and economic structures, seeking a voice of their own. Alienated by harsh conditions imposed upon them by an advanced capitalist society, these urban youth sought an outlet where they could foster their own conceptions of identity and challenge institutional oppression, whether individually or collectively. Poverty, unemployment, a decrepit educational system, cuts in social services, and capitalism's inherent need to maintain a permanent underclass blended together to create a matrix in which a new, counter-hegemonic culture would emerge with the dialectically opposed characteristics of both the oppressor and the liberationist. Today, the devastating conditions which birthed hip-hop remain a reality and, in some instances, have intensified. The recent crisis capitalism has found itself in continues the downward spiral and the world economy appears close to collapse. The conditions for the working-class and the poor, however, have only worsened over the thirty years since hip-hop established itself as a cultural entity. Unemployment is skyrocketing nationally across color lines but in many cities, such as Milwaukee, Detroit, and Chicago, black unemployment is at or near 50 percent. [61] Already claiming the highest rates of poverty in the industrial world, U.S. poverty statistics have risen drastically since the onset of the world banking crash, placing both Blacks and Latinos at or above 20 percent; youth minority statistics are often much higher. [62] The loss of jobs, combined with the collapse of the housing market and sub-prime predatory lending, has pushed an immense amount of working-class residents out of their homes[63] and left nearly fifty million people without healthcare. [64] Schools, after a brief glimmer of hope with post-civil rights integration, have become more segregated now than they were thirty years ago with public school systems in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and many other urban areas 80-95 percent Black and Hispanic. [65]

Thus, the conditions in which hip-hop originally arose have not improved. Social commentator and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor postulates these are rational outcomes of the dominant political economy:

The material impact on the lives of Black workers should be clear enough, but ideologically, the systematic and institutional impoverishment of African American communities perpetuates the impression that Blacks are inferior and defective. These perceptions are perpetuated and magnified by the mass media, Hollywood and the general means of ideological and cultural production in bourgeois society. The recurrence and persistence of racism in this economic system is not accidental or arbitrary. American capitalism is intrinsically racist. [66]

Like Taylor, independent hip-hop has, throughout its existence, maintained a critical approach to the capitalist mode of production and the material conditions resulting from it. On "Window to My Soul," Stic.man of Dead Prez painfully professes the emotional trauma he experienced as he watched his older brother develop a serious drug addiction. Rather than blame the individual, an old rhetorical tactic utilized to conceal social inequality and displace blame, even more prevalent now that a Black man occupies the Whitehouse, [67] Stic.man addresses the larger socioeconomic forces which often dictate and limit choices for the urban poor:

The same conditions that first created the drug problems still exist… / And on days off, we blow off them crumbs like nothing / Getting high cause a nigga gotta get into something / But we get trapped in a cycle of pain and addiction / And lose the motivation to change the condition… / How did Black life, my life, end up so hard? [68]

He questions the entire wage system and bourgeois morality with piercing lines such as "got to go to the job or starve, without a gun every day employees get robbed." Questioning whose interests are served in the perpetuation of the current system, he concludes that it's "the police, lawyers, and judges, the private owned prison industry with federal budgets." He ends with an unapologetic proclamation that the oppression of blacks is systemic, but oppressed communities cannot turn to individualized forms of escapism and instead must discuss the organization of society as it currently exists, "I blame it on the system but the problem is ours, it's not a question of religion; it's a question of power." [69] The call to a revolutionary alternative, although not always explicitly detailed, has been a persistent theme in the language of political rap. This, undoubtably, is due to the fact that many within the oppressed communities share Taylor's conviction that the dynamic interrelationship between wealth, power, poverty, and the institutional forms in which oppression is manifested.

The landscape of independent, political hip-hop is constantly changing, progressing, and evolving. In the last few years, the augmentation of revolutionary hip-hop which aims to combat traditionally oppressive societal institutions and entrenched corporate structures provides a glimpse of the potential for the art's future. Hip-hop's place in politics extends far beyond a presidential election or congressional debates on explicit content; hip-hop, in the words of Dead Prez's M-1, "means sayin' what I want, never bitin' my tongue / hip-hop means teachin' the young." [70] Immortal Technique tells it like this, "I live and breathe Revolution, Rebellion is in my blood and Hip Hop is the heart that pumps it." [71] Two decades into the rap game, Paris provides a way forward with the newest single, "Don't Stop the Movement," from his independently owned label Guerrilla Funk:

Givin' power to the people to take back America / Panic in the head of the state, pass the Derringer / Aim and shoot, Beruit to Bay Area… / Panther power, acid showers/ This land is ours, stand and shout it… / Hard truth revolutionary black militant / Death to the Minutemen, checks to the immigrants / Streets still feelin' it, we still killin' it / We still slaughterin' hawks, feed the innocent / Read the imprint / Guerrilla Funk was birthed outta' necessity, collectively / Respectively, to behead the beast / On behalf of the left wing scared to speak, NOW GET UP! [72]

Expressing the need for solidarity between the struggles against militarism in the Middle East, black oppression in the U.S. and dehumanizing anti-immigration policies, the chorus warns activists to not stop the movement for social justice and liberation. It ends with a recording of the common protest chant which proclaims that "the people, united, will never be defeated." KRS-One comments that hip-hop is the only place Dr. Martin Luther Kings dream is visible, "black, white, Asian, Latino, Chicano, everybody. Hip-hop has formed a platform for all people…that, to me, is beyond music." [73] As underground rap artist Macklemore urges his listeners, "to my real hip-hop heads, please stand up, because the only ones who can preserve this art is us." [74]

The battle continues to rage over hip-hop's soul. Two contradictory forces clash to gain dominance: one representing the great wealth and power of the established order, the other struggling for independence, autonomy, and social change. Black intellectual Manning Marable makes the argument that "cultural workers," such as hip-hop artists, "must be able to do more than rhyme about problems: they have got to be able to build organizations as well as harness the necessary monetary resources and political power to do something about them." [75] To answer the question of what role hip-hop will play in the formation of such revolutionary organizations and movements depends on which side wins, the power of profit or the power of the people. For hip-hop activists to rescue the art form from capitalism's corporate clutches it will take dedication, organization, and education; time will tell if the hip-hop generation is up to this onerous task. The very essence of the culture is at stake.

Notes

[1] Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, "Origins of Housing Discrimination," International Socialist Review, Issue 59, (May-June 2008), accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.isreview.org/issues/59/letters.shtml; Internet.

[2] Chang, 307.

[3] Ibid., 308.

[4] Ibid., 315.

[5] Ibid., 314-5.

[6] Ibid., 367-8.

[7] Ibid., 279.

[8] Ibid., 314.

[9] Immortal Technique, "Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop," HipHopDX.com, accessed 5 April 2008; available from http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/columns-editorials/id.692/title.is-gangsta-rap-hip-hop-by-immortal-technique ; Internet.

[10] Mumia Abu-Jamal recording on Immortal Technique, "Homeland and Hip Hop," Revolutionary Vol. 2, 2003, Viper Records.

[11] N.W.A., "Straight Outta Compton," Straight Outta Compton, 1988, Ruthless/Priority.

[12] N.W.A., "Fuck tha Police," Straight Outta Compton, 1988, Ruthless/Priority.

[13] Chang, 388.

[14] Ibid., 388.

[15] Ibid., 388.

[16] Folami, 263.

[17] Chang, 292.

[18] Ibid., 453.

[19] Tupac Shakur, "Nothin' But Love," R U Still Down? (Remember Me), 1997, Jive.

[20] Urban Dictionary, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=thug+life; Internet.

[21] Shakur, "Tupac Resurrection Script."

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.,

[24] Dyson, 414.

[25] Son of Nun, "Son of Nun - Hip Hop Artist and Activist," SleptOn Magazine, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.slepton.com/slepton/viewcontent.pl?id=1955; Internet.

[26] Immortal Technique, "Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop."

[27] Dyson, 407.

[28] Immortal Technique, "Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop."

[29] Watkins, 36-7.

[30] Ibid., 39.

[31] Ibid., 39.

[32] Watkins, 41-2.

[33] Ibid., 42.

[34] Ibid., 2-3

[35] Manning Marable, "The Politics of Hip Hop," World History Archives, accessed 5 April 2009; available from - http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/594.html; Internet.

[36] Carl Bialik, "Is the Conventional Wisdom Correct in Measuring Hip Hop Audience?" The Wall Street Journal, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB111521814339424546.html; Internet.

[37] Dean MacCannell, In The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (Schocken Book 1976), 153.

[38] Immortal Technique, "Watch Out," The 3rd World, 2008, Viper Records.

[39] Chang quoted in Jones, "Politics of Hip-Hop."

[40] Chang, 443.

[41] Ibid., 440-1.

[42] Anastasia Bednarski, From Diversity To Duplication Mega-Mergers And The Failure of

the Marketplace Model Under The Telecommunications Act of 1996 , (2003), 273, 275.

[43] Adam J. Van Alystyne, Clear Control: An Antitrust Analysis Of Clear Channel's Radio And Concert Empire, (2004), 627, 640.

[44] Folami, 291-2.

[45] Chang, 441-2.

[46] Folami, 300.

[47] Binary Star, "Honest Expression," Masters of the Universe, 2000, Infinite Rhythm/Subterraneous/L.A. Underground. Lyrics such as these present a challenge to the corporate gangster image: "I ain't hardcore, I don't pack a 9 millimeter / Most of y'all gangster rappers ain't hardcore neither… So what you pack gats and you sell fiend's crack / You ain't big time, my man / You ain't no different from the next cat in my neigberhood who did time."

[48] Chang, 442.

[49] Eric Boehlert, "Radio's Big Bully," Salon.com Arts & Entertainment, accessed April 5 2009; available from http://archive.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_channel/print.html; Internet.

[50] Van Alystyne, Clear Control, 660.

[51] Chang, 447-8.

[52] Owen Fiss, Free Speech and Social Structure, 71 Iowa L. Rev. 1405 (1986), 340.

[53] Rosemary J. Coombe, Objects Of Property And Subjects Of Politics: Intellectual Property Laws And Democratic Dialogue, 69 Tex. L. Rev. 1853 (1991), 1862-3.

[54] Folami, 301.

[55] Mark Boyer, "What Happened to 'Vote or Die'?" Fresh Cut Media, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://getfreshcut.com/2008/02/04/what-happened-to-vote-or-die/; Internet.

[56] Tupac Shakur, "Changes," 2Pac's Greatest Hits, 1998, Interscope Records.

[57] Zach Mason, "Hip Hop Speaks Out for Obama," Socialist Worker, accessed 5 April 2009, available from http://socialistworker.org/2008/10/28/hip-hop-speaks-for-obama; Internet.

[58] Mason, "Hip Hop Speaks Out for Obama."

[59] Nas, "Black President," Untitled, 2008, Def Jam.

[60] Lyrics quoted in Mason, "Hip Hop Speaks Out for Obama."

[61] Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, "Race in the Obama Era," accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/03/race-in-the-obama-era; Internet. Taylor cites a study by social scientist Marc Levine from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

[62] Sylvia A. Allegretto, "U.S. Government Does Relatively Little to Lessen Child Poverty Rates," Economic Policy Institute, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/webfeatures_snapshots_20060719/ ; Internet. *Research by Rob Gray. After taxes, child poverty rates in the U.S. are 26.6 percent. Black and Latino minor poverty rates are higher.

[63] Taylor, "Race in the Obama Era." Taylor notes that "Black homeownership has dropped from 49 percent to 46 percent… By 2007, 30 percent of Black households had zero net worth, compared to 18 percent of white households… Households of color lost between $164 billion and $213 billion over the past eight years… Combined, this could lead to a one-third reduction in the Black middle class."

[64] "Facts on Health Insurance Coverage," National Coalition on Healthcare, accessed 6 Dec 2008; available from http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml; Internet.

[65] Jonathan Kozol, "Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid," Harper's Magazine, Vol. 311, September 2005, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.htm; Internet.

[66] Taylor, "Race in the Obama Era."

[67] Dinesh D'Souza, "Obama and Post-Racist America," To The Source, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.tothesource.org/1_21_2009/1_21_2009.htm; Internet. Pundits have already used Obama's election as an example that institutional racism does not exist in America. For instance, author Dinesh D'Souza wrote after his victory: "As I watched Obama take the oath of office…I also felt a sense of vindication. In 1995, I published a controversial book The End of Racism. The meaning of the title was not that there was no more racism in America…My argument was that racism, which once used to be systematic, had now become episodic…racism existed, but it no longer controlled the lives of blacks and other minorities. Indeed, racial discrimination could not explain why some groups succeeded in America and why other groups did not...for African Americans, their position near the bottom rung of the ladder could be better explained by cultural factors than by racial victimization."

[68] Dead Prez, "Window to my Soul," Turn off the Radio: The Mixtape, Vol. 2: Get Free or Die Tryin', 2003, Landscape Germany.

[69] Dead Prez, "Window to my Soul."

[70] Dead Prez, "It's Bigger Than Hip Hop," Let's Get Free, 2000, Relativity.

[71] Immortal Technique, "About Immortal Technique," Myspace, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.myspace.com/immortaltechnique; Internet.

[72] Paris, "Don't Stop the Movement," Acid Reflux, 2008, Guerrilla Funk.

[73] Manning Marable, "The Politics of Hip Hop."

[74] Macklemore, "B-Boy," The Language of My World, 2008, Integral Music Group.

[75] Marable, "The Politics of Hip Hop."

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of Political Rap (Part 1 of 2)

By Derek Ide

Disclaimer: The language expressed in this article is an uncensored reflection of the views of the artists as they so chose to speak and express themselves. Censoring their words would do injustice to the freedom of expression and political content this article intends to explore. Therefore, some of the language appearing below may be offensive to personal, cultural, or political sensibilities.

Introduction: Historical Phenomena, Hip-Hop Culture, and Rap Music

Historical phenomena never develop in a vacuum, isolated from reality; nor are they mechanistically manifested from the historical material conditions lacking the direction of human agency. Rather, historical phenomena are products of a specific environment at a particular time period that have been molded, processed, and transformed by human beings who attempt to define and control their own destiny. The culture fostered in the grimy streets of the South Bronx during the 1970s is no different. Heavily influenced by the economically and socially oppressed ghettoes, along with the echoes of the last generation's movements for liberation and the street gangs that filled in the void they left, the South Bronx provided the perfect matrix in which marginalized youth could find a way to articulate the story of their own lives and the world around them. In this historically unique context, a culture would be created through an organic explosion of the pent-up, creative energies of America's forgotten youth. It was a culture that would reach every corner of the world in only a couple decades; this is hip-hop.

Many people mistakenly narrowly define hip-hop as a particular style of music. The reality, however, is that Hip-hop is an extremely multifaceted cultural phenomenon. As hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc explains, "People talk about the four hip-hop elements: DJing, B-Boying, MCing, and Graffiti. I think that there are far more than those: the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you look, the way you communicate." [1] Indeed, each component presents its own unique history, heroes, and tales of resistance; each acts as a distinct piece of a larger puzzle. Viewed in its totality, hip-hop is undoubtedly a global phenomenon, reaching across the borders of nation-states and touching entire generations. One integral aspect of this culture, familiarly labeled rap, is the musical element which combines MCing and DJing; it is "is the act of speaking poetically and rhythmically over the beat." As Black intellectual Michael Eric Dyson eloquently explains, "Rap artists explore grammatical creativity, verbal wizardry, and linguistic innovation in refining the art of oral communication." [2] The characteristic east coast sounds of New York City, the intricate Hip-hop scene in France, the nascent grime subgenre in London, and the politically charged rap developing in Cuba demonstrate just how global the influence of rap music truly is.

Hip-hop was born from the ashes of a community devastated by a capitalist economic system and racist government officials. At first independent and autonomous, it would not be long before corporate capitalism impinged upon the culture's sovereignty and began the historically familiar process of exploitation. Within a few years the schism between the dominant, mainstream rap spewed across the synchronized, consolidated radio waves and the dissident, political, and revolutionary lyrics expressed throughout the underground network would develop, separating hip-hop into two worlds. Rapper Immortal Technique frames this dichotomy in a political context emphasizing the opposition between the major label "super powers of the industry" and the "underground third world of the street." [3] Indeed, the stark difference between the commodified songs and albums pumped out by the mainstream rap industry and the creativity and resistance exemplified in the underground movement cannot be overemphasized.

Hip-hop's glamorized, commercialized image, made familiar through every aspect of pop culture and privately centralized radio stations, is viewed by some as a justification for the prevailing "boot strap" ideology derived from thirty years of neoliberal economic policies and the dominant ideological formulations supporting them. Time argues capitalism allowed for "rap music's market strength [to give] its artists permission to say what they pleased." [4] Indeed, some argue that one's ability to market a product in a capitalist society is what has allowed rap music to flourish and become as large of an industry as it is today.[5] This simplistic view, however, ignores one crucial aspect; the culture has been manipulated by a handful of industry executives for capital gain. Meanwhile, hip-hop activists who advocate for social change, formulate political dissent, and fight for economic redistribution have been systematically marginalized and excluded from the mainstream discourse. Corporate capitalism, aided by neoliberal deregulation and privatization, have stolen the culture, sterilized its content, and reformatted its image to reflect the dominant ideology. Independent, political rap containing valuable social commentary has been replaced with shallow, corporate images of thugs, drugs, and racial and gender prejudices filled with both implicitly and explicitly hegemonic undertones and socially constructed stereotypes. Hip-hop has been underdeveloped by the mainstream industry in the same sense that third world countries were underdeveloped by traditionally oppressive first world nations: it has been robbed of its content like a nation is robbed of its resources, its artists exploited like a country's labor is exploited, and its very survival hinged upon complete subservience to an established political, economic, and social institution. The following is an outline of a culture's musical resistance to subjugation by the economic, political, and social authority of American capitalism and its ruling elites.

The South Bronx in the 1970's and Material Conditions in Hip-Hop's Birthplace

Until 1979 with the release of Sugarhill Gang's six minute track titled "Rapper's Delight," hip-hop's musical component, rap, had not spread far beyond the South Bronx where it originated. To highlight 1979 as the year rap music began, however, would be a disservice to not only historical accuracy, but to any serious understanding of the roots through which hip-hop music blossomed. Comprehending the rise of a culture inevitably entails a holistic approach where the political, economic, and social institutions and conditions are analyzed to derive an understanding of their effects on the thoughts, ideas, and actions of the generation who created the culture. Therefore, the rise of hip-hop is inevitably linked with a host of changes during the 1970s to the political economy and the dominant ideology supporting it. These changes include the fading of the nonviolent civil rights movement and the subsequent black power movement, a massive restructuring from the failed Keynesian economic policies of state-interventionism to neoliberal, trickle down economics, the prodigious deindustrialization and the resulting unemployment, and the abandonment of urban spaces by government divestment and white flight. The Bronx of the early 1970s provides a paragon for such conditions and how they impacted the residents of these urban spaces; these conditions, however, were not limited to one area but were widely represented in many urban areas during this decade. Hip-hop culture, springing from such a particular set of conditions, would spread like wildfire into other areas where a similar combination of political and economic changes was rapidly advancing.

As Akilah Folami explains, "Historically, Hip-hop arose out of the ruins of a post-industrial and ravaged South Bronx, as a form of expression of urban Black and Latino youth, who politicians and the dominant public and political discourse had written off, and, for all intent and purposes, abandoned." [6] These youth were alienated from decent employment opportunities and confined to under funded schools with little community resources; New York would suffer immense job losses coupled with decreased local and federal funding for social services. [7] The South Bronx alone would lose:

600,000 manufacturing jobs; 40 percent of the sector disappeared. By the mid-seventies, average per capita income dropped to $2,430, just half of the New York City average and 40 percent of the nationwide average. The official youth unemployment rate hit 60 percent. Youth advocates said that in some neighborhoods the true number was closer to 80 percent.[8]

Such conditions would leave "30 percent of New York's Hispanic households...and 25 percent of black households…at or below the poverty line. [9] This massive loss of employment was not the only contributing factor, however. Urban renewal programs, such as the one directed by elite urban planner Robert Moses, helped fuel white flight and suburban sprawl along with subsequent capital divestment from the city. Moses would go on to plan and build the Cross Bronx Expressway, which would "cut directly through the center of the most heavily populated working class areas in the Bronx," tearing apart the homes of some 60,000 Bronx residents. [10] Utilizing "urban renewal rights of clearance," Moses and local legislators would effectively enforce economic and legal segregation of poor and working-class Blacks and Latinos whom were pushed into "tower-in-a-park" model public housing units where they "got nine or more monotonous slabs of housing rising out of isolating, desolate, soon-to-be crime-ridden 'parks'."[11] Thus, it was deep within these hellholes of poverty, unemployment, segregation, and desperation that hip-hop's first birth pangs would be felt. As hip-hop historian Jeff Chang poignantly explains, it's "not to say that all hip-hop is political, but hip-hop comes out of that particular political context." [12]

The enormous influence of material conditions on hip-hop are lucidly illuminated with the 1982 release of a song titled "The Message" by pioneering rap group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Hesitant at first to record such a "preachy" rap song by a self-titled "party group," eventually Melle Mel, the lead rapper of the group, decided to give it a try.[13] Thus, the group helped to pioneer "the social awakening of rap into a form combining social protest, musical creation, and cultural expression."[14] Although not the first to provide social commentary on institutional racism and abject living conditions, as evidenced by earlier rappers such as Kurtis Blow, Brother D and the Collective Effort, and Tanya "Sweet Tee Winley,[15] "The Message" would provide the first mainstream, commercial success to speak seriously on these issues. The immense frustration and alienation of being confined to run-down ghettoes presents itself repeatedly throughout the song. Wrapped in each and every line is piercing social commentary on the condition of America's rotting inner city slums. The song opens by describing the horrendous conditions found specifically in the South Bronx during this period but could also be applied most the nation's abandoned urban centers:

Broken glass, everywhere / People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care / I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise / Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice / Rats in the front room, roaches in the back / Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat / I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far / Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car [16]

The sentiment expressed in the last two lines of being unable to escape the projects is one that runs consistently throughout the history of Hip-hop. Tupac, nearly a decade later, would articulate this despair further in his song "Trapped" where he speaks to the agonizing feeling of hopelessness and anger at being segregated into ghettoes and harassed by police.[17]

Dyson notes that as rap evolved it "began to describe and analyze the social, economic, and political factors that led to its emergence and development: drug addiction, police brutality, teen pregnancy, and various forms of material deprivation."[18] The Message takes up many of these issues and more, commenting repeatedly on the terrible state of education children in the projects are confined to. One line provides an explanation of how in the ghetto one rarely gets more than "a bum education" alongside "double-digit inflation." Another verse tells the story of a young boy who exclaims to his father that he feels alienated and dumb at school, due at least in part to his teachers' attitudes towards him; as the child explains, "all the kids smoke reefer, I think it'd be cheaper, if I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper." In this succinct rhyme, the postulation put forth by educational theorist Jean Anyon that working-class and poor students are pushed into occupations which perpetuate the existing class structure is brilliantly summarized.[19] The despair and bleakness of abject ghetto life is articulated in a rather percussive manner in the last verse, "You grow in the ghetto, living second rate, and your eyes will sing a song of deep hate, the places you play and where you stay, looks like one great big alley way."[20]

Although "The Message" was not the first social commentary on ghetto life to be produced, it was the first mainstream success to reach a broader layer of listeners and proved that socially conscious rap had an audience. By the early 1980's hip-hop had already exploded onto the scene through particular mediums in certain areas. Graffiti had already provided a way in which alienated and seemingly invisible youths could make themselves visible outside the Bronx through creative, counter-hegemonic acts that signaled to the ruling authorities they were claiming their own space. Break dancing, or B-Boying, provided an outlet for youths to engage each other in peaceful competition and while it "did not dissolve the frustrations of being poor, unemployed, and a forgotten youth, it certainly served… as a catalyst to increasing the youth led community based peace effort." [21] However, it was rap music that, arguably, would have the largest impact in the future:

At a time when budget cuts lead to a reduction in school art and music programs, and when vocational training in high schools lead to jobs that had significantly decreased or no longer existed, "inner city youth transformed obsolete vocational skills from marginal occupations into the raw materials for creativity and resistance," with "turntables [becoming] instruments and lyrical acrobatics [becoming] a cultural outlet." [22]

This cultural outlet would not remain isolated in the South Bronx for long. Neither would it be confined to simply describing the harsh reality of living in the projects.

Afrocentricity, Black Power, and Hip-Hop's New School

Hip Hop was originally honed in house parties, parks, community centers, and local clubs by pioneers such as DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster Flash. Independent record labels were quick to pick up on the enormous buzz generated by this new street sound. Small record executives, with their ears to the street, realized that "there were potentially many more millions of fans out there for the music," but they needed a way to push it from the traditional arenas where spontaneity reigned into the lab where Hip-hop could be researched, developed, and put into radio rotation. [23] Rap had to "fit the standards of the music industry" and labels had to pursue methods which in which they could "rationalize and exploit the new product" to "find, capture, package, and sell its essence…Six-man crews would drop to two. Fifteen-minute party-rocking raps would become three-minute ready-for-radio singles. Hip-hop was refined like sugar."[24] The laws of capitalism dictated that the art form had to be commodified, manufactured, and sold to a market. After the initial commercial success of "Rapper's Delight" and "The Message," corporate encroachment would quickly invade Hip-hop sovereignty. This seminal musical format would act as a medium through which two distinct worlds would mesh; young, black youth who aspired to spit rhymes and find a way out of their seemingly despondent condition would be introduced to nascent white record executives, opening what ostensibly appeared as new, untested feasibilities to previously marginalized artists. As early Hip-hop head and B-boy Richie "Crazy Legs" Colon would comment, "it was getting us into places that we never thought we could get into. So there was an exchange there... [but] that was also the beginning of us getting jerked…that's a reality." [25]

The struggle over control of the culture would be a reminiscent theme for the next decade. Dissident rap presenting a critique of the political economy would briefly touch mainstream society in the early and mid 1980's before being stifled and ostracized. In the next few years, the crossover of rap acts like Run-D.M.C. and the rise of overtly political rap groups such as Public Enemy, along with lesser known but highly controversial artists such as Paris, would trigger intense debate over the nature of Hip-hop and the direction it was headed. Passing from the pioneering old-school, a new era of Hip-hop would develop consisting of a fresh blend of Afrocentricity, cultural nationalism, calls for a neo-Black power, and a focus on the African diaspora. It would delve into the questions of race and racism and the legacy of slavery, along with a critique of institutionalized forms of oppression and ideas of what methods could adequately challenge them. It also presented artists with the first taste of corporate control over creative expression, a tension that would remain a prominent theme throughout the history of rap music. Any definite time frame would only succeed in confining the progression of Hip-hop into arbitrary, categorical stages that lack accurate representation of the often overlapping and dynamic evolutionary process of the art. However, in the mid 1980s it became apparent that rap was burgeoning into uncharted territory.

Afrocentric rap, advocating a unique mix of cultural nationalism and Pan-Africanism, can trace its roots to Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, an organization of reformed gang members who attempted to take back their streets through the creation of innovative cultural outlets, many of which would develop into early Hip-hop culture. Bambaataa "started to believe that the energy, loyalty, and passion that defined gang life could be guided toward more socially productive activities…he saw an opportunity to combine his love of music and B-boying with his desire to enhance community life." [26] After some initial musical success, however, tensions began to mount between Bambaataa and the man who signed him, Tom Silverman, founder of the independent label Tommy Boy Records. Bambaataa recounts, "The record companies would try to tell us what we should make, what we should do…We said, 'Listen, we're the renegades, we sing what we want to sing, dress how we want to dress, and say what we want to say."[27] This sort of outright resistance to artist manipulation worked for a time, when artists dealt primarily with small, independent stations during the nascent stages of Hip-hop's development. Later, however, when the corporate structures completely enveloped the art, it would be nearly impossible to individually challenge such enormous institutions.

Queens rap trio Run-D.M.C. "is widely recognized as the progenitor of modern rap's creative integration of social commentary, diverse musical elements, and uncompromising cultural identification"[28] into what would become known as the New School of Hip-hop. [29] Fueled by Jam Master Jay' complex, percussive beats and brilliant lyrical deliverance, Run-D.M.C. would burst into the mainstream by signing a distributing deal with Colombia records.[30] Bridging the gap between rap and rock, Run-D.M.C. appealed to a wide range of audiences from rugged, street hustlers to well-to-do white kids in a desperate search to branch out from the cultural confinement of suburbia. As their album Raising Hell rushed to platinum status, they catapulted rap music into mainstream discourse and charted a new path for commercial success. The group presented an interesting dynamic where, challenging corporate-driven consumerism with lines such as "Calvin Klein's no friend of mine, don't want nobody's name on my behind," [31] they simultaneously promoted a specific style of apparel with tracks such as "My Adidas" that would break with previous, flashily clad rap artists and forever tie Hip-hop's look to the styles of the street. Raising Hell would end with "Proud to Be Black," a track emphasizing African history and the struggle against slavery while documenting the historical progress of black people. Involving themselves in specific struggles or causes, such as doing benefit performances for the anti-Apartheid struggle, [32] they did not shy away from political issues.

On "Wake Up," the trio echoed calls for democratic participation of the masses, full employment, fair wages, and an end to racial prejudice that would be familiar to any socialist activist. They provided a glimpse of the shape a truly humanizing society could take:

There were no guns, no tanks, no atomic bombs / and to be frank homeboy, there were no arms… / Between all countries there were good relations / there finally was a meaning to United Nations / and everybody had an occupation / 'cause we all worked together to fight starvation… / Everyone was treated on an equal basis / No matter what color, religion or races / We weren't afraid to show our faces / It was cool to chill in foreign places… / All cities of the world were renovated / And the people all chilled and celebrated / They were all so happy and elated / To live in the world that they created… / And every single person had a place to be / A job, a home, and the perfect pay…[33]

The song is haunted by the chorus proclaiming that all the hopes and desires for the fanciful world articulated are "just a dream." The group switches gears on "It's Like That," citing unemployment, atrocious wages, ever-increasing bills, and the struggle to survive within the confines of a capitalist political economy. At the end of each verse they communicate their prodigious frustration manifested from the despair and helplessness prevalent in oppressed communities, leaving the listener with little hope for change: "Don't ask me, because I don't know why, but it's like that, and that's the way it is!"[34] Grand ideals aside, Run-D.M.C. ultimately did not pursue a confrontational approach to the dominant institutions in society and, thus, their commercial success in part reflects their desire to integrate into the established system rather than attempt to dismantle the established structures.

Ideas of collective social change would be articulated more thoroughly by artists such as Public Enemy. Coming from a relatively well-to-do, although still highly segregated, post-white flight neighborhood, Public Enemy's ambitions were to "be heard as the expression of a new generation's definition of blackness."[35] As opposed to artists who may record a political song or sneak a witty, politically charged punch line into a mainstream hit, Public Enemy would focus entire albums around counter-hegemonic themes reflecting their constantly evolving political philosophy. Their Black Nationalist ideology did not go unnoticed in their first album, but it would augment over time as the group developed their own conception of a new Black Power. On It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet they delved deeply into race relations, the oppression of the black community at home and abroad, and brought into question entire institutions of society they viewed as perpetuating racism. The group also spoke openly of their support for Palestinian liberation and against U.S. imperialism. On "Bring the Noise," they challenged black radio to play their music and on "Party for Your Right to Fight" they evoked images of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party in a "pro-Black radical mix"[36] while aiming verbal invectives at J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI for their historically repressive roles against the black community.

Public Enemy undoubtedly pushed political hip-hop to a new level. Their intense, in-your-face rhymes promoted a historical revival amongst black youth previously separated from prior cultural developments and struggles of the past. However, as Dyson points out, this can lead to rappers hoping to emulate the methods of the past without a critical analysis of its strengths and weaknesses or, worse yet, to promoting vacuous calls to past movements' cultural icons intended to draw reverence without attempting to augment the organizational infrastructure required to proactively challenge oppressive institutions. Still, given the tyrannical nature of the society in which they lived, the group labeled themselves "the Black Panthers of rap" [37] as a symbolic expression of their hostility towards the system. However, the framework within which they operated, borrowing large portions of their theoretical interpretation of society to the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, did not allow them to adopt the Panthers' revolutionary, socialist critique of the political economy. It was replaced instead with a form of black militancy aligned primarily with a narrow conception of Black Nationalism. Public Enemy would drastically differ from the Panthers who had come to reject Black Nationalism as a racist philosophy, aiming their crosshairs more broadly on capitalism[38] and arguing racism was a byproduct of that particular economic mode of production.[39] Regardless, Public Enemy's prodigious contributions to political hip-hop cannot be ignored. They fostered political discussion and pushed hip-hop to embrace black liberation. Yet, they would fail propose a cohesive, theoretical alternative or method through which this could be achieved.

Other times, political hip-hop took the form of cathartic, impulsive depictions of violence stemming from the wrath manifested within oppressed black communities. One example, Oakland rapper Paris, who adhered early in his career to a form of Black Nationalism similar to Public Enemy's, would seek a sort of lyrical revenge against individuals and institutions he found oppressive and exploitative. Through songs like "Bush Killa," where he fantasized about assassinating then President George H. Bush, he would decisively embrace a black militancy that challenged the past legacy of King's non-violence: "So don't be tellin' me to get the non-violent spirit, 'cause when I'm violent is the only time you devils hear it!" Later in the song he goes on to poignantly express his disgust with the predatory nature of military recruitment while uniquely mimicking the famous line from Muhammad Ali, [40] "Yeah, tolerance is gettin' thinner, 'cause Iraq never called me nigger, so what I wanna go off and fight a war for?" [41] Presumably due to the radical nature of his music, Paris was dropped from his record label, Tommy Boy, after parent company Time Warner reviewed the content of his album.[42] He distanced himself from the Nation of Islam, and thought that they were "more concerned with what was wrong with society than with how to change it." [43] Nearly two decades later, and still rapping under his own label, Paris would go on to develop a political stance that, while still bonded to certain aspects of his previous Black Nationalist thought, would become decidedly more working-class in its orientation, emphasizing class struggle and interracial solidarity rather than a simple black-white dichotomy.

The 1980's were, undoubtedly, a time of creativity, diversity, and cultural exploration within the musical realm of Hip-hop. Artists even tested the waters with politically significant album covers. Paris placed a potent photo of riot police choking a black protestor in his 1989 releaseBreak the Grip of Shame.[44] Rapper KRS-One, paraphrasing Malcolm X on his album title By All Means Neccesary (1988), poses on the front cover in a fashion reminiscent of Malcolm's famous photograph; Malcolm, standing with AK-47 in his right arm and peering out of the drapes with his left, symbolized the vision of armed self-defense and intellectual self-determination. KRS-One, adorned in a fashionable outfit and carrying a more contemporary Uzi, personified these principles Malcolm so vehemently defended throughout his life. [45] Chuck D of Public Enemy explains, given the group's extensive list of politically charged album covers, that sometimes "the covers were thought out more than the songs."[46] Corporate control was illuminated in this artistic arena as well when hip-hop trio KMD attempted to release an album titled Black Bastards which featured a "Little Sambo"[47] character being hung; Elektra, their label, quietly rejected the album and its politically charged album artwork.[48]

Some rappers, such as Rakim, toyed with abstract ideas of personal and spiritual development, meshed with political Islam and the elitist vision of the Five Percenters, a group who believed that a gifted five percent of the world's population was destined to fight against the exploitative ten percent on behalf of the ignorant, backwards eighty-five percent.[49] Others, like rap group Naughty by Nature, found unique ways to tie in urban culture and style to the historic legacies of the past. On one of the group's most political tracks, "Chain Remains," rapper Treach vividly explicates on the cultural significance of the chain commonly worn by black, urban youth, tying it into the past history of slavery and the prison-industrial complex:

Bars and cement instead of help for our people / Jails ain't nothin' but the slave day sequel / Tryin' to flee the trap of this nation / Seein' penitentiary's the plan to plant the new plantation… / Free? Please, nigga, ain't no freedom! / Who's locked up? Who's shot up? Who's strung out? Who's bleeding? Keep reading / I'm here to explain the chain remain the same / Maintain for the brothers and sisters locked / The chain remains…[50]

The last verse ends with an incendiary call to revolution, although the terms for which are not specifically outlined: "the only solutions revolution, know we told ya', the chain remains 'til we uprise, stuck in a land where we ain't meant to survive." Despite calls for racial solidarity and social empowerment, the violence found in poverty-stricken urban areas often followed artists into the realm of entertainment.

When violence broke out at various rap venues in 1987, the hip-hop community was quick to respond with a Stop the Violence Movement. A group of artists organized a project "that would include a benefit record, video, book, and a rally around the theme."[51] On the record "Self Destruction," a wide assortment of rappers came together to urge black youth to "crush the stereotype" and "unite and fight for what's right,"[52] by stopping the senseless violence that plagued the black community. Unfortunately, it was not a sustained political campaign and, as Jeff Chang argues, Stop the Violence "was always less a movement than a media event." [53] KRS-One, re-launching the Stop the Violence 2008 campaign in a similar fashion, disagrees, claiming Chang's interpretation is "inaccurate history and fake scholarship."[54] Regardless, media event or movement, Stop the Violence provided another example of rappers attempting to take control of their communities and control their own destinies.

New School Hip Hop was defined by its seminal, independent spirit of artists' attempts to maneuver within the confines of an ever-increasing hierarchal, corporate, top-down structure. Indeed, as Chang notes, "Rap proved to be the ideal form to commodify the hip-hop culture. It was endlessly novel, reproducible, malleable, and perfectible. Records got shorter, raps more concise, and tailored to pop-song structures." [55] The infrastructure needed to solidify corporate power over the culture was being rapidly built but originality and autonomy would not yet be completely shattered. The day would soon come, however, when creativity and free political expression would be stomped out and replaced with denigrating images of black men, as self-destructive gangsters and intellectually bankrupt drug-pushers, and black women, whose sole contribution is their sexual appeal, vigorously promoted by the dominant ideology. Generally, during this period artists would attempt to hold on "to the Black Panther ethic of remaining true to Blackness… to the people in the lower classes" while, on the other hand, rejecting the Party's anti-capitalist stance; "Rappers wanted a piece of the American pie while staying grounded to the urban culture, and wanted to speak in their own voice and on their own terms."[56] Given the political, social, and economic conditions of the mid-1980s, this was no surprise.

The sort of individualistic response exemplified by New School artists was developed within the context of a detrimental political vacuum left by the simultaneous failure and systematic repression of revolutionary left groups of the 1960s and early 1970s. Instead of political organizers, rappers would view themselves as reporters whose primary vocation was to give the voiceless a form of expression and relay the conditions of ghetto life to the rest of the world. Public Enemy articulated this concept when he explained that rap was "Black America's CNN, an alternative, youth-controlled media network." [57] Tupac would echo this concept, "I just try to speak about things that affect me and our community. Sometimes I'm the watcher, and sometimes the participant," he commented, and likening himself to reporters during the Vietnam War, he explicated on his role, "That's what I'll do as an artist, as a rapper. I'm gonna show the graphic details of what I see in my community and hopefully they'll stop it." [58] Rather than broad-reaching, collective social change achieved through organized resistance, rap music would act as a means to express counter-hegemonic, yet radically individualized forms of resistance that captured the very essence of the urban youth existence. This concept would be carried further into the realm of musical performance:

Rap…found an arena in which to concentrate its subversive cultural didacticism aimed at addressing racism, classism, social neglect, and urban pain: the rap concert, where rappers are allowed to engage in ritualistic refusals of censored speech. The rap concert also creates space for cultural resistance and personal agency, losing the strictures of the tyrannizing surveillance and demoralizing condemnation of mainstream society and encouraging relatively autonomous, often enabling, forms of self-expression and cultural creativity. [59]

It was this anti-authoritarian impulse, fostered in the hard streets of Los Angeles where police brutality was rampant and socioeconomic conditions were dire, that galvanized the next phase of Hip-hop which would take the nation by storm.

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of Political Rap (Part 2 of 2)

Notes

[1] DJ Kool Herc quoted in Jeff Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop, (New York City: St. Martin's Press, 2005), xi.

[2] Michael Eric Dyson, The Michael Eric Dyson Reader, (New York City: Basic Civitas Books, 2004), 408.

[3] Immortal Technique, "Death March" The 3rd World, 2008, Viper Records. DJ Green Lantern makes the opening remarks.

[4] Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Hip-hop's Down Beat," Time, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653639,00.html; Internet.

[5] David Drake, "The 'Death' of Hip-Hop," Pop Playground, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1525; Internet. Implicit in Stylus's 2005 article about the "death" of hip-hop is the idea that capitalism allowed for hip-hops growth. They argue the history of hip-hop cannot be separated and "well-behaved politicos with either leftist or moralist agendas" only "imagine a fictional past" since "capitalism was involved from the second it spread, from the moment a rhyme was laid to wax capitalism was there." While this is partly correct, as hip-hop developed within the confines of a capitalist society, and was thus influenced by the dominant ideological forces that perpetuate such a society, the early independence and autonomy from corporate capitalism and the art form that developed without the profit incentive, but instead for reasons of pure enjoyment (Kool Herc house parties) or political and social transformation (Zulus) shows that hip-hop and capitalism can not only be separated, but at it's earliest stages were separate entities.

[6] Akilah N. Folami, "From Habermas to 'Get Rich or Die Trying': Hip Hop, The Telecommunications Act of 1996, and the Black Public Sphere," Michigan Journal of Race and Law, Vol. 12(June 2007) (Queens, NY: St. John's University School of Law, 2007), 240.

[7] Folami, Habermas to "Get Rich or Die Trying," 254.

[8] Chang, Can't Stop Won't Stop, 13.

[9] Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America 27 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1994), 28.

[10] Rose, Black Noise, 31.

[11] Chang, 11-12.

[12] Jeff Chang interviewed by Brian Jones, "Interview with Jeff Chang, Hip Hop Politics," International Socialist Review, Issue 48, (July-August 2006), accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.isreview.org/issues/48/changinterview.shtml; Internet.

[13] Craig Watkins, Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 21.

[14] Dyson, Michael Eric Dyson Reader, 402.

[15] Chang, 179.

[16] Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, "The Message," The Message, 1982, Sugar Hill.

[17] Tupac Shakur, "Trapped," 2Pacalypse Now, 1991, Jive. Tupac, who, originally just repeating stories from his peers, would have a violent run in with police not long after he released the song. Accused of jaywalking, Tupac would be knocked to the ground and have his face slammed into the concrete, leaving life-long scars across his right cheek bone. After a long court battle, he finally settled with the police department for a small sum. "You know they got me trapped in this prison of seclusion / Happiness, living on tha streets is a delusion… / Tired of being trapped in this vicious cycle / If one more cop harrasses me I just might go psycho / And when I get 'em / I'll hit 'em with the bum rush / Only a lunatic would like to see his skull crushed / Yo, if your smart you'll really let me go 'G' / But keep me cooped up in this ghetto and catch the uzi… / They got me trapped / Can barely walk the city streets / Without a cop harassing me, searching me / Then asking my identity… / Trapped in my own community / One day I'm gonna bust / Blow up on this society / Why did ya' lie to me? / I couldn't find a trace of equality…

[18] Dyson, 402.

[19] Jean Anyon, "Social Class and the Hidden Cirriculum." Journal of Education, 162(1), Fall, 1980. Online version available here http://cuip.uchicago.edu/~cac/nlu/fnd504/anyon.htm; Internet.

[20] Flash, "The Message."

[21] Folami, 258.

[22] Ibid., 257.

[23] Chang, 133.

[24] Ibid., 134

[25] Ibid., 177

[26] Watkins, Hip Hop Matters, 23.

[27] Chang, 190.

[28] Dyson, 402.

[29] Chang, 255.

[30] Ibid., 204.

[31] Run-D.M.C., "Rock Box," Run-D.M.C., 1983, Profile/Arista Records.

[32] Chang, 218.

[33] Run-D.M.C., "Wake Up," Run-D.M.C., 1983, Profile/Arista Records.

[34] Run-D.M.C., "It's Like That," Run-D.M.C., 1983, Profile/Arista Records.

[35] Chang, 249.

[36] Public Enemy, "Party For your Right to Fight," It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, 1988, Def Jam/Columbia/CBS Records.

[37] Chang, 248.

[38] Bobby Seale, Seize the Time (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1997), 23, 256, 383.

[39] Fred Hampton, "Murder of Fred Hampton, Reel 1," accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://mediaburn.org/Video-Priview.128.0.html?uid=4192; Internet. In this clip, Hampton is talking to a church crowd about how Blacks and the Black Panther Party should interact with Whites and White radicals.

[40] In 1966 Muhammad Ali, in his denunciation of the Vietnam War and U.S. attempts to draft him, explained "I ain't got no quarrel with the Vietcong… No Vietcong ever called me nigger." For more information, see here: http://www.aavw.org/protest/homepage_ali.html; Internet.

[41] Paris, "Bush Killa," Sleeping With the Enemy, 1992, Scarface.

[42] Peter Byrne, "Capital Rap" San Francisco News, accessed 5 April 2009; available from http://www.sfweekly.com/2003-12-03/news/capital-rap/2; Internet.

[43] Byrne, "Capital Rap," 2.

[44] Andrew Emery, The Book of Hip Hop Cover Art, (Mitchell Beazly, 2004), 95.

[45] Emery, Hip Hop Cover Art, 133.

[46] Ibid., 81.

[47] "Sambo" is a racial slur for African-Americans in the United States but the image of the Little Black Sambo became famous after a children's book by Helen Bannerman was published in London in 1899. The original story can be found here: http://www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/sambo.htm

[48] Emery, 112.

[49] Chang, 258-9.

[50] Naughty by Nature, "Chain Remains," Poverty's Paradise, 1995, Warner.

[51] Chang, 274.

[52] Lyrics for the song can be found here: http://www.lyricsmania.com/lyrics/krs-one_lyrics_3454/other_lyrics_10824/self_destruction_lyrics_125592.html

[53] Chang, 274.

[54] KRS-One interviewed by Brolin Winning, "KRS-One: You Must Learn," MP3.com, accessed 5 April 2008; available from http://www.mp3.com/news/stories/9464.html; Internet.

[55] Chang, 228.

[56] Folami, 263.

[57] Chang, 251.

[58] Tupac Shakur, "Tupac Resurrection Script - The Dialogue," Drew's Script-O-Rama, accessed 5 April 2008; available from http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/tupac-resurrection-script-2pac-Shakur.html ; Internet.

[59] Dyson, 403.