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Rappers that incite social
activism
Ella
Seneres Staff writer for Cabrillo Voice
January 17 1995
Chuck
D from Public Enemy thinks anyone who steps up to the media are role
models if
they like it or not. Much of today's Rap is laden and laced with
misogyny or
women hating battle cries. Boasts of mental, physical, verbal and
sexual
violence, rape, gang rapes, battery, and killing. Five men chanted
lyrics from
a popular rap song as they sexually assault a 14-year-old in a NY City
public
swimming pool as 1,300 people watched. With Dr. Dre singing gendercide
to the
youth, the message becomes deadly. In One
Less: “... she'll be pushing up daisies/ she was the perfect ho’/
but
wouldn't you know the bitch tried to gank me/ so I had to kill her...”
Or “If
it ain’t another ho’ that gots to get with/ gap teef in your mouth so
my gas
got to fit... with my sack on your tonsils...I’m gonna smack your ass
from the
backside to show you how Def Row pull off the hoop ride.” Translation:
I’ll
sleep with you if a better woman doesn't come along. All your teeth are
missing, so my penis will fit in your mouth, with my scrotum resting on
your
tonsils. Then I’ll hit you, do it doggie style, to show you how I and
my
friends at this record label get sex. Dre beat up Dee Barnes, the host
of the
nationally syndicated show, Pump It Up.
Alisa
L. Valdez, a NY hip-hop dance teacher wrote in In These
Times, “How can glamorizing the life of woman beating
gangster rapists be so glibly condoned when one in four black men are
in prison
and more young black men go to jail than to college? In this country, a
woman
is beaten every 15 seconds by her companion. Four thousand women died a
year
from male companions ‘putting the smack down’ on them.”
KRS-1,
from Boogie Down Productions feel violence against women is the
first
violence that must be stopped. “When that violence stops you'll notice
all
other violence's will end. The first violence is the mental, spiritual,
sexual
and physical violence against women.” At the Street Soldiers Knowledge
Conference
in May KRS-1 said, “humans are both feminine and masculine; the
masculine is
analytical, controlling, dominating, territorial and the feminine is
creative,
intuitive, spiritual. Civilization is predominately patriarchal males
who get
the rewards and rulership and the Goddess deity gets destroyed. When
man is
seen as the highest form, then god will be seen as male, too. The
servant will
be female. Anything that has power and authority will be male. Africa
was the
creator of civilizations, of art, technology, medicine, music,
mathematics, and
sciences; these were created under a feminine deity since Africans
worshipped a
Goddess. We are governed by the masculine. White men control the
politics,
religion, education, economy and are on the dollar bills in this
country;
everything is man. When you say ‘God help me,’ the image is male. You
get war,
territorial control. The first god was a Goddess. The solution to
society's
problems is to come to a balance spiritually by bringing the feminine
out of
the clutches of male supremacy. Balance yourself with creativity and
analysis.
Create new ways of viewing things otherwise there's no possible way you
can
save yourself and legitimately stop any violence. Violence will
continue.”
Ama
DeonBi at 15 uses her mind to end the violence with a positive message.
Her
involvement with Eco Rap broadened her perspective and kept her from
losing
interest in school. “It's everything in your environment, not just the
green
issues, not just saving the trees, the water. But it also has to do
with the
social environment and your mental environment. Many rap groups degrade
women.
A lot of women put out a bad name for the strong women trying to be
independent, making things happen for themselves. It's up to me to
teach those
ignorant people, whether it be men or women, to have more respect for
themselves. Tell them what I know and what I feel is right or wrong.
They can
only grow off that.”
AK
Black says it's imperative to understand that society is in a frenzy
promoting
animalistic mentalities, with bloodletting movies like Terminator,
Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm St. America's youth
are being nurtured on violence and madness, while they learn little in
school.
He began to rap in 1987 after hard times in LA as a competitive body
builder.
He got caught up in the street life to the point of suicide. A
collapsed
marriage and a drug habit led him to search his soul. He says he's not
a puppet
that hops, skips and jumps since African Americans have been playing
minstrels
too long. He thinks rap is a spiritual awakening tool that brings
community
back on track to reality. AK Black
spoke to teenage fathers about his life but their attitude was “we've
heard
this preaching.” He put his ideas to a beat and was able to reach them.
Rap is
a tool.
Then
Eco Rap which addresses social and environmental issues was born out of
a
competition to win free studio time. AK Black wasn't interested in the
environment, so with doubt, he went on the toxic tour. “Going through
the
’hood, I'm going, ‘You ain’t showing me nothing, I grew up in this,’
but all of
the sudden it dawned on me. We look at the conditions, run down and we
say, ‘So
what? It's supposed to be like that.’ In our mental environment, we had
tried
it on already and it fit. We say ‘Damn, this fits us because we're
niggers or
spics. This is cool we have drug abuse, crack.” The two biggest killers
were
drinking and guns. “Colt 45, Magnum beer- It's like, stick a Magnum in
your
mouth, stick a Colt 45 in your mouth, it's not even subliminal. There
is a
remedy in the poison. If you get bit by a snake, part of the snake
venom is
part of the remedy. But people try to hand out Band-Aids for hand
grenade
wounds. Before anything will improve, there will be chaos, the boil,
the
abscess has to be burst, so all the poison can run out. People who are
cramming
their fists down the throats of other people, the oppressors, are
acting
according to their nature. If we expect anything else from these people
to
change, we're crazy. It's up to us.”
Chuck
D wants people to be leaders. He credited rappers for elaborating on
what is
going on, while others slink in the background as the communities are
consumed
by violence. “There's no such thing as a black gangster. You're talking
about a
country that used the gun to take us from a place that we were set up
kinda
nice. So they've been using the gun since day one. A gangster is
someone who
commits a crime, brag about it and get away with it. This country is
doing that
all over the world.” As leaders look within to their own leadership
qualities.
“Even if you are 16, one can help a 10-year-old. If you can't do that,
you need
to check yourself. Everybody can find it inside themselves to bring the
next
person up. It ain’t about money. He asked who was raising the youth,
with so few
adults as role models. Ball players make millions; life is not just one
big
hoop. Muhammad Ali always snuck something in. He'd thank Allah and go
on before
anyone could get that mike away. Today athletes are just as dumb as the
next
one. They want to talk about Ice Cube and Snoop Dog, but what has
Luther said
to us? Everyone who finds themselves in front of the camera should step
up and
educate. The US basketball Dream Team, waving this thing–the
strips are for the whip marks in our
back. The stars in our eyes when we got beat, the blue's for the sad,
sad songs
we sung in church thinking heaven is up there and hell is right here
with us.
And the white–well that's obvious. Dream team? Dream team,
you're
dreaming."
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