5th Annual H2O International Film Festival - NY

Beyond beats and rhymes, Hip Hop is an all encompassing culture that easily blends with other artistic, intellectual and philosophical pursuits. Though it receives little attention in the mainstream press, Hip Hop Cinema is hardly new. As far back as movies like Wild Style and documentaries like Style Wars, Hip Hop and film have deep roots. This May 31 - June 15 will celebrate the fifth year of Hip Hop Cinema, Education, Art and Culture at the Hip Hop Odyssey International Film Festival (H2OIFF). The films range in discussions as diverse as skin color bias among African-Americans in the short Colour Me Bad: Third Coast Hip Hop, to full length documentaries on the intersections of blood diamonds and Hip Hop like Bling: A Planet Rock to the international I Love Hip Hop in Morocco. Complete with panel discussions, over 50 avant-garde filmmakers, industry experts, community leaders, activists, artists and historians, the 5th Annual H2OIFF will showcase that Hip Hop can be as diverse an artform as any other, when given the space to be so.



5th Annual H2O International Film Festival

May 24, 2007 - New York, NY – Celebrating five years of Hip-Hop Cinema, Education, Art and Culture, the H2O [Hip-Hop Odyssey] International Film Festival (H2OIFF) will showcase the best of Hip-Hop Cinema and the Industry. The festival jumps off with the a special screening and after-party for the feature documentary, Rock The Bells hosted by Bobbito Garcia at APT on Memorial Day, May 28.

The festival will officially take place from May 31, 2007 – June 17, 2007 at the ImaginAsian Theatre and other venues throughout New York City. This year’s festival movie line-up will include the premieres of Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang, I Love Hip-Hop in Morocco, Waters Rising, Mr. Devious (South Africa), Guilty Or Innocent of Using the N Word (USA/UK), Holy Hip-Hop, Hiphopistan (Turkey), Unsigned, Ghostride The Whip: The Hyphy Movement, Frekuensia Colombiana, Living The Hiplife (USA/Ghana), Remixed In Japan, Skip Hop (Australia), South Coast (UK), and wtf: an okaymentary.

Hip-Hop enthusiasts will get an opportunity to engage in stimulating, thought-provoking panel discussions with over 50 avant-garde filmmakers, industry experts, community leaders, & historians. There will be full days devoted to the youth, women, social justice, Hip-Hop history, & the craft of filmmaking and self-distribution. Dozens of companies and organizations will participate, including Chuck D Mobile, Third World Newsreel, SOHH/FreshFlixx, The Ave Magazine, Listen Up!, Chica Luna, NY Women In Film & Television, African American Women in Cinema, SoonR, Breakthrough.TV, MXGM, Latin Nation, UrbanWord NYC, Video Music Box, Zulu Nation, & the Universal Federation for the Preservation of Hip-Hop.

The festival culminates with the Odyssey Awards extravaganza hosted by Hip-Hop Powerhouse, Ed Lover and legendary Comedian, Paul Mooney on Tupac Shakur’s Birthday. Sponsored by QD3 Entertainment, World Up!, Lyrics To Go, AllHiphop, African Ancestry, & Powerhouse Books. Celebrating 30 Years of Crash Crew, 25 Years of Cold Crush, and 25 Years of Public Enemy. Hip-Hop Celebrities will pay special tributes to the Best Hip-Hop Actor, Ice-T; Trailblazers, Ralph McDaniels, Charlie Ahearn, and Ernest Dickerson; and Legends, Grand Wizard Theodore, Sandra “Lady Pink” Fabara, and the First Lady of Hip-Hop, Cindy Campbell. Some of the presenters include: Ernie Paniccioli, Davey D, Fab 5 Freddy, Michaela Davis, Harry Allen, Pebblee Poo, Immortal Technique, DJ Beverly Bond, and Bizarre Royal. Two exclusive Pre-Odyssey Awards filmmakers’ receptions will take place to honor pioneers Iris Morales, Director of Siempre Pa’Lante!, Kathleen Cleaver, Founder of the Black Panther Film Festival, as well as the late Ted Demme, co-creator of Yo! MTV Raps.

For more info on the 5th Annual H2O International Film Festival, including information films, events and tickets sales, please visit H2OIFF at http://www.h2oiff.org/.

For a listing of individual Films at the conference please visit http://www.theimaginasian.com/comingsoon/index.php.

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FAIR News- The Other Side of Hip Hop - May 20-26

Hip Hop News these days is either often about who got arrested, locked down and shot down. But beyond controversial lyrics, violence, sexism and the latest media scapegoating, Hip Hop makes news that doesn't get top billing. This week May 20-26. Stylin' Up in Australia: Hip Hop Festival "down under" combats social ills and celebrates indigenous roots. Long Island Feminist Hip Hop trio Northern State getting their due.





In Australia the Mob's Gone Hip Hop
By Kathleen Noonan
May 26, 2007

HERE'S the word. Crime is down in Inala, school attendance is up, fewer kids are causing trouble on the streets and it's all because of a hip-hop festival. Cynics may scoff: It's just a hip-hop festival, and not a miracle, they'd say. But miracles come in strange packages. If you want to see one in action, head to the grassy field at the C.J. Greenfields sports complex in Inala today.

There, more than 15,000 people will gather from as far away as Cape York for Stylin' Up, an annual indigenous hip-hop and R&B festival – the largest in Australia of its kind. Stylin' Up is, in short, a bit of black magic.

Music festivals anywhere are hard events to put on, notorious for infighting, politics and bureaucracy that often lead to their downfall. Yet, in its seventh year, Stylin' Up has defied the critics.

Read full article: In Australia the Mob's Gone Hip Hop

Fem Hop You Haven't Heard," An Interview with Northern State
Written by Rob Levy

The ever present NYC hype machine kicked into full gear, creating a buzz and getting Northern State some attention.

There is nothing marginal or gimmicky about Northern State. They are Long Island’s talented, savvy, whipsmart trio of female MCs who now do their thing in New York City. Northern State is Spero (AKA Guinea Love), Hesta Prynn and DJ Sprout. The force of their beats and the passion of their rhymes have led to them being christened as forerunners of a new sub genre, “fem hop.” Although this could be written off as yet another useless moniker laid out by The Man, there is some truth in the genre. Northern State are bringing a loud, intelligent, urgent femininity to hip-hop at a time when it needs something new.

Read full article: Fem Hop You Haven't Heard

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In Defense of Hip Hop- Women's Media Center

In Defense of Hip-Hop

By Nida Khan, Women's Media Center
May 24, 2007

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/52168/

"Hip-hop is the CNN of the ghetto" -- words spoken by legendary artist Chuck D of Public Enemy years before Puffy became a household name and bling a term used by actual CNN anchors. Serving as a mirror to such societal ills as poverty, injustice, drugs and violence, hip-hop -- or more specifically rap music -- has brought realities of urban life and mainstream systematic privilege to the forefront of discussion.

MCs, aka rappers, have opened wounds that many would prefer remained covered via methods that both educate and entertain. Now this mechanism for empowerment and communication is under attack yet again.

While Don Imus searched for a defense against his use of the now notorious words "nappy headed hos" in reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team, he was successful in scapegoating the often-targeted genre of hip-hop. But what Imus and the average citizen fail to grasp is the foundation of this culture or the notion that what you hear on radio airwaves and see on TV doesn't encompass the plethora of diversity within the music.


For several years I've worked within the hip-hop industry in a multitude of capacities. From my vantage point at record labels, recording studios and finally as a music journalist, I've had the honor of sitting down and picking the brains of many hip-hop poets. And poetry and expression is exactly what they produce: words and ideas conjured over the hottest beats. Rappers take complex ideas and transform them into catchy lyrics and rhyming sequences with astuteness and intense precision. Imagine the endless boundaries of MCs if they were all given equal access to education and opportunity that we espouse but rarely see in this country. A chance to pursue the American Dream is precisely what rappers under attack have worked to achieve.

Take a look at the 50 Cents and Jay-Zs of the world. Self-made millionaires, they battled extreme circumstances and in the process established companies that employ and empower others shut out of corporate America. In response to the ongoing controversy, several people have stepped forward. "We are proactive, not just reactive to the Don Imus so-called backlash," explains Dr. Ben Chavis, president/CEO of Russell Simmons's Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, after he and Simmons made recommendations for the recording industry to bleep the words ho, bitch and nigger on the airwaves and on clean CDs.

"The truth is misogyny is not a hip-hop created problem. Misogyny is a deep-seated American society problem that is embedded in the historical evolution of the United States as a nation." The recommendations are meant, he says, to forestall governmental intrusion "on the rights of artists in a democratic society. This is important, and there are some in the media that just don't get it. Self regulation by the industry is not censorship. Good corporate social responsibility is not censorship."

The shift in dynamic from Imus to hip-hop utterly amazes me. Granted I don't condone use of words like ho and bitch towards myself or any other woman, but I understand along with Dr. Ben that rap music isn't the only forum where we see this.

Why don't we target the representation of women and people of color in Hollywood? Why don't we go after the millionaire and billionaire movie directors/producers of the world who represent minority women a majority of the time as the exotic other or the overly sexualized temptress, and minority men as criminals?

Before blaming everything on one facet, we need to analyze all of pop culture and media representation at large. MCs may have an audience via their music, but until you see a Snoop Dogg or a Ludacris with his own televised programming in mainstream news you simply can't juxtapose Imus and hip-hop.

Until rappers have the kind of major network platform that Imus had and will have again, they are not fair game for attack. On the contrary, we need to explore and criticize why we see so few people of color on these networks or working behind-the-scenes in newsrooms in the first place.

For those that are quick to jump on the criticism bandwagon, do they first understand that rap music's foundation was a check on society? That it was a mechanism for the powerless to speak their mind? Do they understand a history of socially and politically conscious music that was designed to mobilize people?

Even today, this music is a reaction to emotions of anger, frustration and inequity of mostly young minority people surviving in a society where the pendulum of justice swings away from them most of the time. In attempts to curb some of the criticism against this form of expression, moves by Dr. Ben Chavis, Russell Simmons and even Rev. Al Sharpton were aimed at targeting the true culprits behind negative/misogynistic music -- record labels and corporations.

On May 3, Tamika Mallory of Sharpton's National Action Network led a March for Hip-Hop Decency in front of Sony, Universal Records and the Time Warner building in Manhattan. "We cannot allow people to use the concept of freedom of speech and censorship as a shield for those who seek to denigrate any members of our society," she explains. "Freedom of speech is critical to freedom but so is the responsibility that comes with it. We are not saying that rappers or anyone cannot speak in any manner they choose. We are saying that record and media companies shouldn't support it if it crosses the line of sexism, racism and homophobia."

Sounds like a wonderful idealistic thought without a doubt, except for the fact that these companies and media outlets have profited countless billions off the backs of rappers, hip-hop culture and the community. It's incredibly difficult for artist/groups with positive or socially conscious messages like a Dead Prez to get signed, and if they do, never will they see radio spins or record sales like their negative counterparts.

In an industry where marketing and radio promotion departments ensure that only certain albums get proper financial backing to guarantee air play and press, many talented people simply get shelved. Radio stations themselves have specific daily play lists, in effect brainwashing the masses with the same songs and the same messages.

I've had rappers straight out tell me that they wanted to go with a specific single from their album but were forced to go with something else. And others have simply said they put out a single about women and money to reel in listeners to a deeper, profound meaning on the album that might otherwise have been ignored. Interesting isn't it?

These days Don Imus is at his ranch contemplating his next move. Chances are he'll return to the airwaves in some capacity in little time, while the young woman or man using music as a means to escape the all but insurmountable obstacles set in her/his path will find it ever more difficult because the world is now watching with keen eyes.

For those who are new to this genre of poetic expression, I suggest watching the new Bruce Willis/Queen Latifah documentary, "Hip-Hop Project." It beautifully captures the essence of what this culture was, is and should be about. Until critics begin to fully comprehend the many layers of hip-hop, its historical context and place in society, they should listen to what the Godfather of it all said to me the other day -- the man who literally started hip-hop with two turntables -- DJ Kool Herc: "Tell all the geniuses to back off of hip-hop. Leave hip-hop alone."

Nida Khan is a hip-hop journalist working in both print and radio. She served as a staff writer for The Source Magazine in the past, and as a freelancer, she has contributed pieces to the Women's Media Center, Associated Press, Vibe.com, XXL Magazine, Rides Magazine, MTV News online, Scratch Magazine, DUB Magazine and The Ave Magazine to name a few.

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Welcome to the Terrordome- Dave Zirin & Chuck D

Welcome to the Terrordome! It's a title that invokes images of rebellion, intellectual wordplay and raw lyrical energy. In today's criticism of Hip Hop, many forget that the culture has many times previously been embroiled in the turbulent atmosphere of race and politics that is America. But this was controversy of a different kind, that pitted an emcee named Chuck D and a group called Public Enemy against a "nation of millions," to be exact. This month Chuck D has teamed up to help promote a book by political sportswriter Dave Zirin named in his honor--Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports. Author of What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States, and owner of the site Edge of Sports, Zirin describes his new work as "a look at how corporate interests have taken something beautiful -- sports -- and turned it into the 'athletic industrial complex' -- a sprawling, overly influential industry that has impacted all of our lives." And thanks to the power of YouTube, we can see excerpts of this duo's appearance, speaking on the state of sports, American politics, race, Hip Hop and more.

The title is a reference to the Louisiana Superdome, the homeless shelter of last resort in New Orleans: which was perhaps the most gruesome collision of the sports world and the real world that I have ever seen. It's also a song by Public Enemy (Chuck D writes the intro) a hip hop group that has proven to be prophetic in its view that popular culture was careening out of control. The book is not just about the "pain and politics" of sports, but the promise.

---Dave Zirin, ZNet Interview

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Melissa Harris-Lacewell on Hip Hop's Potential for Change

On May 11th Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University, appeared on the award-winning Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. She shared her thoughts on a host of issues involving race and society in America, which inevitably led to Hip Hop. In a brief series of questions and exchanges, she discussed her thoughts on the Don Imus affair, Hip Hop as a scapegoat, Hip Hop criticism and the culture's inherent potential for creating change.


Bill Moyers Journal

May 11 2007

Interview with Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Excerpts from Transcript

Backdrop: Moyers and Harris-Lacewell are discussing the lack of space given to diverse voices in the news media to speak on issues of politics, and the change that needs to come in order to bring progressives, people of color, women and others into the mainstream.

BILL MOYERS: So, how do you expect change to come?

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Slowly and through pressure. So--

BILL MOYERS: But kids don't go out and protest the way they did in the '60s.

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Oh, have you listened to hip-hop?

BILL MOYERS: Well, I've tried to, and I've had people try to explain it to me.

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: But what do you mean? Why is hip-hop bringing this change?

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Well, I think that hip-hop has the insurgent possibilities and capabilities. Now there's a little bit of a problem with hip-hop, and that is it's a commodity that's bought and sold. And any time you're a commodity that's bought and sold, you-- have at least one aspect of your culture that can sort of go in a profit motivation.

But I will say that hip-hop music like Gospel music, like Blues music, like jazz music is the voice of a generation. And it has within it the insurgent capacity, the capacity to say, "Look, I'm not happy here, this is not enough, I expect more, I'm worthy of more." And over and over again in hip-hop from the mid-1970's until today, there's a strain of it that is saying that.

BILL MOYERS: But why do so many people say-- accurately it seems to me, reading the lyrics, that-- that hip-hop puts down women-- puts down the race, in fact. That it's a venomous language.

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Well, there is a clear misogynist and sort of-- I would say aspect that is just about, you know, making money and commodifying women. But I will say that that came at a very specific moment, and it came at a moment in hip-hop when hip-hop went from being kind of a street-based, musical art form of urban, young people to a corporate entity, purchased mostly by white suburban boys who were interested in generating and consuming a particular form of blackness. But even as hip-hop went in that direction, there's a whole 'nother, very well articulated and well loved element of hip-hop which black urban youth continue to not only produce, but consume.

BILL MOYERS: The popular perception was that Imus was quoting hip-hop.

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: No, he wasn't. No, seriously, he really wasn't. I mean--

BILL MOYERS: when he referred to the basketball…

MELISSA HARRIS-LACEWELL: Yeah, no, really, he wasn't. No. So there's a couple of reasons why Imus could not have been quoting hip-hop. First-- it wasn't as though hip-hop taught America how to degrade women or particularly how to degrade black women. America had figured that out long, long, long before hip-hop. Secondly, although hip-hop often uses the word "ho," it rarely ever calls someone a "nappy-headed ho." So we talked a lot about "ho." But we haven't talked much about "nappy-headed." And "nappy-headed" is a way of saying you, black woman, in your natural, physical state in, who you are -- are unacceptable, ugly, valueless. Now, that's not hip-hop.

Actually hip-hop tends to dress up black women in long, straight wigs, much more likely than it is to go to this place which is a very old place around, slavery, around Jim Crow that says, "Your physical self is an unacceptable, sort of orientation of blackness. I can see that you're black from across the room, and that's unacceptable to me."



Melissa Harris Lacewell is Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Barbershops, Bibles and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought and is currently working on an upcoming book titled For Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Wasn't Enough.

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Q&A- Cornel West on Politics, His New Album & Hip Hop

Professor Cornel West is a brilliant figure in numerous ways. Not only is the well known African-American philosopher ranked as one of America's foremost thinkers, and an academic member of the prestigious Ivy League, but he has an uncanny ability to step down from the ivory tower he's managed to climb and rub elbows--along with thoughts--with those outside those hallowed halls. In 2002 he was invited by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the writer-director team of the philosophical dystopian sci fi trilogy The Matrix, to appear in the sequels to the film. In 1999 he shocked fellow colleagues by releasing a spoken-word contemplative Hip Hop album titled Sketches of My Culture and a 2003 follow up with the edgy title Street Knowledge. This summer, coincidentally in the wake of the Imus scandal, Professor West is set to release yet another album titled Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations. Like past works, a who's who list of top Hip Hop artists--Talib Kweli, Rah Digga, KRS-One and Rhymefest to name a few--will make appearances throughout the album. Recently the Princeton professor sat down to discuss his views on politics, race, society and Hip Hop.



Q&A: Cornell West Takes "Journey" to Hip-Hop's Roots
By Gail Mitchell
May 11, 2007



LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Talk about timing. Dr. Cornel West's upcoming album, "Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations," touches down at a time when renewed debate over hip-hop lyrics and video images is still swirling post-Don Imus. Add to that mix Verizon's recent termination of its ties with Akon over the singer's sexually suggestive dance onstage with a female minor during a recent concert.

Due in stores June 19, West's "Never Forget" will be the first release on Hidden Beach's new Hidden Beach Forum label. Tapping into R&B/hip-hop's historical role as a social force, the recording is the brainchild of Black Men Who Mean Business, an organization established by West, his brother Clifton and songwriter/producer Mike Dailey.

Prince, Talib Kweli, Andre 3000, KRS-One, Rhymefest, the late Gerald Levert and Killer Mike are among the R&B/hip-hop artists featured on the disc, which tackles such subjects as the events of September 11, 2001, racial profiling, the Bush administration and the n-word.

West's discography includes 2001's "Sketches of My Culture." The author of "Race Matters" and other books, West also has taught American and African-American studies at Harvard and Yale and helped develop the storyline for the "Matrix" movie trilogy. He is professor of religion at Princeton University.

Q: What is your take on the Don Imus-sparked hip-hop debate?

A: He was willing to say some very ugly things in order to be successful. But, as a Christian, I don't believe in hating anyone. I'm more concerned about being great in terms of serving others than being successful in terms of being on the top of some financial hierarchy.

Q: Is that hip-hop's dilemma: Its original message has become overridden by its financial gains?

A: The white brothers and sisters in the vanilla suburbs became the major consumers of this (commercial) hip-hop. And to sell well, you need a kind of vicarious living through black rebellion.

I'm not putting white brothers and sisters down. I just recognize it's going to be very hard for empathetic hip-hop artists to really sell because (consumers) tend to be more interested in some of the stereotypes, for example, male conquest of women and posturing at being bad. I think the industry pushed it to the margins, and some of these artists simply haven't been courageous enough to engage in truth-telling.

Q: Do you agree with the movement to clean up rap lyrics?

A: Some of these brothers deserve some serious criticism because misogyny is real. A woman's dignity, integrity and humanity need to be affirmed. But this just can't be a displacement of Don Imus for Snoop Dogg.

If you really want to reach Snoop Dogg and other rappers, you've got to make them understand that you are part of a community that they're a part of. You can criticize the ugliness and vulgarity of the Imus situation. But from there you say, "Brother, you know your mother has dignity, so when you're talking about these other sisters you can't be including all black women. Recognize that those sisters are somebody's mother, too."

That kind of criticism ends up being more effective. The only way you are going to be successful is if you engage these rappers from the inside. You don't throw rocks from the outside.

Q: What was the impetus behind your new album?

A: It isn't a commentary on hip-hop. And I'm not coming in as a hip-hop scholar or critic. This is an attempt to go back to hip-hop's prophetic roots, which are about truth-telling, exposing lies and having fun. It's what I call a danceable education or a singing paideia, the Greek word for deep education. If there is one person whose spirit I try to embody on this CD, it's Curtis Mayfield. His music is about love and freedom and really informs.

This is a very political album that doesn't pull any punches. There are critiques of the Bush administration as well as of unaccountable corporate power, unaccountable police power and homophobia. We're trying to get young people to wake up and recognize they're part of a great tradition of struggle, to become organized and fight for freedom and justice.

Q: Do you listen to contemporary R&B and hip-hop?

A: I am unabashedly of the Motown, Philly Sound, Mayfield generation, so I am not fooling myself. I just love young people enough to be a part of their artistic process and try to bring in some of the older generation's insights. But I'm also open to young folks' insights because I've got to learn, too.

I've never met Lupe Fiasco, but I like that brother. Oh, lord, he's a free, young brother who honestly speaks his mind. That brother hits American terrorism, the American empire and still talks about his skateboard. I love that kind of freedom because, in the end, we've all got to be ourselves and that takes courage.

Q: Do you think the downturn in hip-hop sales reflects consumer dissatisfaction?

A: It's important to keep in mind that a decline in sales doesn't mean a decline in popularity. Hip-hop is here to stay. The question is what kind. What we're trying to say with this album is we need a rebirth of hip-hop. When it becomes hip to be in hip-hop connected to the struggle for freedom and justice, then that popularity will have a positive impact on the larger society.

In fact, myself and community activist Jeffrey Canada of Harlem's the Children's Zone (who was interviewed on the recent "Don't Snitch" segment on "60 Minutes") met with Jay-Z about 18 months ago and talked about these issues. We had a wonderful dialogue with Jay-Z, and he was very receptive.

Q: So, what's next for hip-hop?

A: 50 Cent may be another Malcolm X and turn out to be a serious progressive. You just don't know. That's why I'm not giving up on him, the Game and other rappers. I'm just trying to respectfully challenge them and make them accountable.

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Hip-Hop's E-Z Scapegoats

Hip-Hop's E-Z Scapegoats
By Dave Zirin & Jeff Chang

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/zirin-chang

JEFF CHANG is the editor of "Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop." DAVE ZIRIN is the author of the forthcoming "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports."

MUCH OF THE criticism of commercial rap music — that it's homophobic and sexist and celebrates violence — is well-founded. But most of the carping we've heard against hip-hop in the wake of the Don Imus affair is more scapegoating than serious. Who is being challenged here? It's not the media oligarchs, which twist an art form into an orgy of materialism, violence and misogyny by spending millions to sign a few artists willing to spout cartoon violence on command. Rather, it's a small number of black artists — Snoop Dogg, Ludacris and 50 Cent, to name some — who are paid large amounts to perpetuate some of America's oldest racial and sexual stereotypes. But none of the critics who accuse hip-hop of single-handedly coarsening the culture think to speak with members of the hip-hop generation, who are supposedly both targets and victims of the rap culture. They might be surprised at what this generation is saying.


Hip-Hop's E-Z Scapegoats
by DAVE ZIRIN & JEFF CHANG



[posted online on May 8, 2007]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/zirin-chang

Following Don Imus's rabid rant, a number of pundits and politicians have apparently decided on a consensus culprit to cleanse the national soul: hip-hop. Somehow, an aging cowboy-hatted shock jock has become a symbol for all that is wrong with an art form dominated and shaped by young people of color.

The idea that the black community in general and hip-hop in particular are to blame for Imus's rant is gaining currency across the political spectrum. From Oprah to Obama, the "teachable moment" on Imus has become a public meditation on racism and sexism not by whites in the media but by blacks. The anti-hip-hop furies fly far beyond the usual right-wing suspects. Even the great Bob Herbert of the New York Times compared Snoop Dogg with Imus and Michael Savage. And in the Los Angeles Times, civil rights attorney Constance Rice excused Imus as a "good-natured racist," guilty only of mimicking "the original gurus of black female denigration: black men with no class"--in other words, rappers.

Ironically, this was Imus's defense on the Today show, where he said, "I may be a white man, but I know that...young black women all through that society are demeaned and disparaged and disrespected by their own black men and that they are called that name."

Joan Walsh of Salon took issue with that argument: "I hate the misogyny of some rap music--it's not all misogynistic--but rappers didn't invent sick notions of black women as sexual objects in America; those ideas have an old, old history here, going back to the days when the chains black men wore weren't bling.... In my opinion, hundreds of years of the racist misogyny of white men like Imus and [Imus producer Bernard] McGuirk are far more responsible for misogynistic rap music than the reverse. And as I type this I'm thinking, is that even up for debate? Fellas, please."

But Walsh has been a lonely voice. There are questions we need to ask: Was CBS President and CEO Les Moonves concerned about "young women of color trying to make their way in this society" when he was co-president of Viacom and able to help shape programming on MTV and BET? Is Snoop Dogg's rap really equivalent to Michael Savage's rap, who has said that the Voting Rights Act put "a chad in every crackhouse"?

The current national monologue about demeaning language and imagery is an exercise in scapegoating. What's being challenged here? Not the media monopolies that twist the proud art form built by artists like Public Enemy, Rakim and The Roots into an orgy of materialism, violence and misogyny. Not the CEOs who aggressively market demeaning music. Not the radio stations that play the same sexist drivel. They are the ones who need to be held to account.

As Byron Hurt, creator of the PBS documentary Beyond Beats and Rhymes, told Women's e-News, "Hip-hop has always been hyper-aggressive, homophobic and sexist, but there was more diversity before. In mainstream hip-hop right now there's a more narrow vision of masculinity and manhood than in 1989, when hip-hop wasn't mainstream."

None of the critics who accuse hip-hop of coarsening the culture think to speak with members of the hip-hop generation, who are regarded as both targets and victims of the rap culture. And if they actually stopped to listen to the hip-hop generation they purport to be saving, they might be surprised at what they hear.

The critics might engage hip-hop feminists like Joan Morgan (When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost), fighting sexism from the inside of the art form.

They might attend conferences like the April 2005 "Feminism and Hip Hop" summit at the University of Chicago. Or maybe they would want to check out the annual "B-Girl Be Summit: A Celebration of Women in Hip Hop" in Minneapolis.

They might view short documentaries like Tamika Guishard's Hip Hop Gurlz or Rebecca Raimist's Nobody Knows My Name or Aishah Simmons's film about rape, called simply No.

If the anti-hip-hop crusaders really cared about the generation they want to save, they would support the Youth Media Council and the Media Justice Movement and their outspoken advocates like Malkia Cyril, Moya Bailey and Rosa Clemente.

Most of all, they might learn from young people who are even more put off by the sexist commercial rap shoved in their faces than anyone else.

The gap between what is on Viacom's MTV and BET and what young people really want has never been bigger. According to a study released in January by the Black Youth Project, run by researchers at the University of Chicago, 57 percent of all young people--including 66 percent of black women--believe rap videos portray black women negatively. "While music sales are down across the board, hip hop sales have plunged, which might be attributed to both the cookie-cutter nature of corporate rap as well as the monotonously offensive sexism and violence.

To confuse the commercial rap made by a few artists and promoted by the media monopolies with how hip-hop is actually lived by millions is to miss the crucial good that hip-hop does. There are now more than 300 hip-hop classes being taught at colleges and universities. Hip-hop after-school programs, voter registration groups, feminist gatherings and public forums are just some of the places where the future of real hip-hop is being discussed all around the world, beyond the commercial interest of corporations and the rhetorical interest of many pundits and leaders. This is hip-hop that tries not only to recall the tradition of political artists like Public Enemy but also expand on the art form.

If anti-hip-hop crusaders paid attention to the hip-hop generation, they might find that the discussion has already begun without them. They might also be reminded that you don't heal a people by crushing their spirit; you do it by taking care of it. That's something the best leaders of the civil rights movement understood, and it's a thought that could serve us well now.

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Jeff Chang is editor of Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop and author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation.

Dave Zirin is the author "What's My Name, Fool?" Sports and Resistance in the United States (Haymarket Books). Forthcoming books include The Muhammad Ali Handbook (MQ Publications) and "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics, and Promise of Sports (Haymarket Books

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